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The first thing Shiro really noticed about first-year cadet Kogane was the way his fingers twitched.
They been informally introduced earlier in the evening when his classmate, Derrick Mattu, dragged Shiro over to the clump of invited first-years. Shiro had smiled blandly as Mattu talked him up -- only a week into the fall semester and he was sick of hearing the phrase “Golden Boy”.
Mattu had then pointed at a slight, shaggy haired Asian boy.
“Here’s the kid who’s going to be knocking down your records in a few years. Kogane’s score on the reflex testing part of the entrance physical was off the charts, literally. Apparently, they had to recalibrate the sensor to get his numbers. We’re watching you, cadet.” Mattu’s aunt was on the entrance board and the way Kogane was purposely not making eye contact suggested Mattu’s gossip was correct.
“Actually, we’re just here for the free pizza,” Shiro assured the kid before turning to walk over to another clump of classmates.
The public raison d'être for the annual beginning-of-the-year Garrison video tournament was to give seniors a chance to evaluate the incoming class’s piloting skills, since their simulation training didn’t start till second year. In Shiro’s memory it was more of a good-natured hazing event where the upperclassmen played rigged video games to embarrass a bunch of nervous first-years. Shiro had successfully made it to the third round in one of the sessions when he’d been a new student and, as recently as last spring, he’d been looking forward to continuing the tradition.
Instead he was distracted, frustrated, and bored, like he’d been for all his first week back. That summer, Shiro had won the coveted intern spot at Mission Control and had spent July and August helping prep for an actual rocket launch to Luna Base II. Now he was back to being the big fish in a small pond.
Make that a fish bowl. His grandmother was fond to saying that the fish couldn’t grow if its container was too small. It was going to be a long year.
The tournament always started with Cat and Dogfighters, a classic Mercury GF game where bubblegum colored one-seater aircraft piloted by famous cartoon cats and dogs shot cream pies and tomatoes at each other. Years before, some talented Garrison engineering students with too much time on their hands had ported the game over to the mainframe where they tweaked its physics engine to something approximating real-world conditions and expanded the number of avatars and special moves. Legend held that they performed the former feat sober and the latter drunk, but given the creativity of the special moves and intricate finger combos required to access them, Shiro suspected they had likely been on more interesting substances than alcohol.
The result was pretty much unplayable, unless you were a highly competitive, hotshot pilot with a 10 pm curfew and nowhere to go on weekends. Watching his classmates use their lightning fast reflexes to maneuver the neon pixelated planes while blasting each other with everything from rainbow anvil bombs to glitter guns was enough to induce seizures.
“Just like what you played as kids, but with a few modifications,” Mattu assured the first years while the seniors tried to suppress giggles.
In the first round, the younger cadets faced off against each other. Shiro dutifully watched and offered words of encouragement. Cadet Kogane, he noted, lost out to a Hispanic boy who talked non-stop before, during, and after the game. Shiro played against the kid in the next round and beat him easily, although he wasn’t sure if it was his skills or the cadet being star struck. Afterwards, McClain thanked him for the honor and gave him an enthusiastic hand shake. As he untangled himself, Shiro thought back fondly to his summer job where he was just the intern they sent out on coffee runs.
“Sorry,” Mattu caught up to him afterwards, “meant for you to go against Kogane. But I guess experience trumps natural ability this time.” Shiro simply nodded, not wanting to interact with Mattu. The guy wasn’t actually a creep, but he never quite reined in his arrogance.
Shiro couldn’t leave until at least mid-tournament, although he thought about just throwing the next match and disappearing. At least he felt guilty for being this disengaged. While Shiro stood back from the cheering crowd, his eyes settled on a still, black-haired figure. Not completely still. That’s when he noticed Kogane’s twitching fingers.
Kogane had positioned himself to the side of the players, where he could watch either the big screen projection system or the gamers. His head shifted just a bit as he glanced from the competitors to the screen. He had an intense, hungry look on his face. The minute each game ended, his fingers stilled. It wasn’t random. Kogane’s thumbs move a lot, while his index and middle fingers tapped sporadically. Shiro’s eyes strayed to the current player’s hands. Their thumbs rotated, pushing and clicking the flight knobs while their first two fingers drummed out special attacks.
It seemed crazy, but it looked like Kogane was training himself.
Shiro won his next two rounds, but messed up in the semifinals. He got some good-natured heckling for his loss and, with extra concentration, beat his opponent in the consolations for overall third place. During each game, he was intensely aware of Kogane’s gaze. After his final game, Shiro looked up quickly and just caught Kogane averting his eyes.
After the championship match, won by the senior who’d beaten Shiro, the pizzas arrived and everyone surged to the hallways where tables had been set up.
As Mattu started to set up for the next game, a standard flight simulator, a thought popped into Shiro’s head.
“Wait a minute,” he turned to Kogane, “Want one more game? Just a quick one, okay Derrick?”
Kogane took on a deer-in-the-headlights look, but he nodded eagerly.
***
The first thing Keith really noticed about Takashi Shirogane was that his smile extended to his eyes.
Keith had spent a lot of time watching people’s faces, listening to words that didn’t match sentiment, and he’d become familiar with show smiles where only the lips and cheeks move.
The upper classman introducing Shirogane to Keith and his fellow students sprouted one such fake smile, both when he was listing Shirogane’s accomplishments and when he tried to get up Shirogane’s hackles by talking up Keith’s stupid hand-eye reaction test, the one where the machine broke. He shouldn’t have come tonight. Better to have a reputation as a stand-offish introvert than be known as that punk first year that bragged up his non-accomplishments to the student whose name graced top scoreboards across the Garrison.
But before anyone could start snickering, Shirogane diffused the situation with a few words and gave Keith a real smile. His eyes crinkled in a slightly goofy way and for the first time since arriving at the gathering, Keith relaxed, at least a little bit.
The feeling lasted until his first match. The controller system was way nicer than anything they’d had at the group home, better hand grips and smoother thumb controllers. It was almost too responsive, especially with the game physics.
Meanwhile his fellow first year opponent seemed to be taking it all in stride, all the while talking smack that would have gotten him shivved in group.
“How’d you like them apples, Mullet?” He drawled as he released fruit salad bombs. “Got to warn you, this game was a staple at my family gatherings. While the adults would be going through the wine bottles and me and my cousins would be duking it out in front of the TV. By the time I was nine, I was Un-Stop-A-Bull, Garrison fighter pilot material for sure. Man, what’s up with the controller? It’s hair trigger.”
Keith had just about figured out that part of the game. He yanked his plane back and looped behind his classmate, his targeting system all but locked on the blue plane’s tail. But at that moment, a cannon impossibly emerged from the rudder and shot out concentric sparkly rainbow rings that cut the power on Keith’s plane. Before he could recover, he had crashed into one of the mountain-sized ice cream Sundaes that acted as the main obstacles for the course.
Keith took off faster on the second round and came up from underneath the blue plane. But he couldn’t figure out the firing codes, the standard combo codes employed by most gaming systems only gave him glittery snowflakes that drifted away uselessly.
“Super Cute Kitty Attack!” shouted his rival and a bunch of pixilated pastel kitten heads unloaded from his plane’s cargo hatch. Instead of exploding, the felines attached to Keith’s turbines and began gnawing large holes into them. His plane lost all forward momentum and dropped out of the sky. The instant replay showed Keith’s plane shrinking to the size of dot, with a solitary puff of smoke to mark the crash site.
The room erupted in whoops. Unsurprisingly, the loudest cheering came from his fellow first-years. He contemplated slinking away but this was the first time he’d gotten a chance to game in ages and it wasn’t in his personality to back down after a failure.
He watched the next game play out. The players started cautious and seemed no better on the combo moves, although Keith caught the ACBBC code for the rainbow sonic gun. Then came the upperclassmen and things got interesting. Most players would repeat attacks so Keith could catch the screen results that matched the finger patterns.
He shifted to see their hand better and as he moved he caught Cadet Shirogane looking at him curiously. Keith kept his eyes firmly on the game focusing on memorizing combo moves to calm his nerves. Personal interactions, in his experience, were more of a minefield than video games. He was grateful when it was Shirogane’s turn to play.
For the first round, Keith just watched him play. Shirogane was so relaxed, so confident. Keith wished he could memorize body language the same way he was memorizing the controller system. After Shirogane easily won the first round, Keith forced his eyes away from the upper classman’s face and to his hands. The guy had a whole different arsenal of moves, and he rarely repeated them.
On Shirogane’s second match he easily beat Keith’s opponent whose mouth was going a mile a minute as he gushed over Shirogane’s records. The upperclassman laughed it off, but Keith excelled at spotting discomfort. Keith made a promise that, should he ever get a chance to talk to the vaunted cadet, he wouldn’t make such a fool of himself.
More games were played and Keith found he was actually enjoying himself. Unlike the kids in group home, these guys were genuinely good. Keith was looking forward to the next set of games, maybe, if he didn’t play right away, he might be able to win a round.
Shirogane just missed the finals, but put pulled out a whole new set of attacks to win third place. There was a pattern to the button succession and Keith figured he’d cracked it. Apparently you could access the game from the school’s server and Keith was excited to replay it in a less public setting.
“Want one more game?” it was Shirogane, looking at him, asking him to play.
Keith nodded quickly before Shirogane changed his mind. He chose Snoopy for his avatar, mostly because he liked the red bi-plane fighter the beagle flew. Shirogane picked the Dr. Seuss cat, its striped hat sticking out of the cockpit.
As they waited for the course to load, Keith stared at the screen, uncomfortably aware of Shirogane’s height, chest and fresh-from-the-shower smell. Keith was grateful for the starting flags and something else to concentrate on.
He got the jump on Shirogane and blasted out cactus spinners. It was a bit of a call out, only Shirogane had used that attack and he wasn’t prepared to counter it. He spun out of the worst damage and returned with a jellybean shower but Keith was already out of range. On their next encounter they played chicken, Keith counting on Shirogane’s damage to give him the edge.
As his avatar did a lewd victory dance on the screen, Keith glanced over at Shirogane, prepared for a look of frustration. Instead he had one of those beaming smiles. “Nice flying,” he complimented Keith.
And then they were back in the game. Proving he had several tricks he hadn’t used yet, Shirogane went at Keith with watermellons, easter eggs, and pokeballs. It put Keith on the defensive and drained his health points to zero.
“Hey,” Shirogane said as the final round loaded, “No gimmicks this time. Let’s just do a straight dogfight this time.”
“Okay.” What else could Keith say? It was a bit ridiculous with the cartoony planes and rainbow fire, but the physics engine gave it a degree of reality. By this point, Keith was familiar with the maneuvers but every time he got into a position behind Shirogane, the other would pull out an acrobatic trick and escape. Keith confirmed that Snoopy really did have a faster plane and he could tell from Shirogane’s occasional snorts that he was putting in his all to keep up. In the end, experience won out and Shirogane’s snowflakes took Keith down. Keith found himself smiling, it had been a great game.
“Must have been nerves that caused you to freeze in that first game,” said the annoying upperclassman, cutting in before Keith had a chance to congratulate and thank Shirogane. “You’ve obviously played before.”
Keith knew better than to admit he hadn’t. “A bit, a few years ago, before our Game Flux 2 broke,” he said, mixing fiction and fact.
“Broke?” said another cadet, “how’d that happen, those things were built like tanks.”
“My roommate threw it out the window,” said Keith, not mentioning that Axel had been aiming for the staff.
“Roommate?” it was the nosy one again, “you went to boarding school before the Garrison?”
Fuck, how was he going to get out of this one?
****
Kogane could play. He’d got the jump on Shiro in their first game using one of Shiro’s signature moves and then flew at Shiro, guns blazing, counting correctly on Shiro to go down first. It was a surprisingly clever move, one that Shiro hadn’t thought of before.
For the next round, he went all out and managed to pull off a win. Shiro remembered his first time playing the souped-up version of game and how hard it was to control the planes, Keith didn’t seem to have any such problems. Had he mastered the game engine already? To test the possibility, Shiro challenged him to a dogfight to erase any doubt about Mattu’s story of the reflex test. Too bad Shiro would have graduated before Kogane got a chance in the simulator.
The game ended and Mattu rushed in to congratulate Kogane, probably glad to be proven right about the cadet’s skills. Shiro noticed his stomach growling and hoped there was still pizza.
“-thew it out the window,” he caught Kogane saying.
“You went to boarding school?”
Kogane tensed up, and Shiro noticed it because they were sitting so close.
“Mattu,” someone called out, “Got the next game set up?”
The moment Mattu’s attention went to the computer, Kogane bolted. So, he wasn’t only fast at video games. Shiro decided to follow, but discretely. He caught up when Keith slowed down by the pizza boxes. There was only half a veggie and a few sad cheese slices left.
“Hey,” said Shiro in a gentle voice, and saw Kogane flinch, “Great game.”
Kogane turned to face him and visibly relaxed, “You too.” He paused, “are you playing in the next tournament?”
Shiro shrugged, “Probably. It’s a simplified version of the simulators without the excitement of G-forces.”
“Oh,” said Keith. Away from the video games he had a passive, almost shy, vibe.
“I have to ask,” said Shiro, curiosity getting the better of him, “Were you teaching yourself the moves by watching the other players and their controllers? I saw the way you were moving your fingers.”
“Um, yeah,” Kogane looked embarrassed but his lips twitched up into an almost smile.
“Impressive,” said Shiro. He held out his hand, “I’m Takashi Shiro-“
“-gane, yeah, I know.” But he took the proffered hand.
Kogane’s hand was rough and dry, “Call me Shiro.”
“Keith.”
“How are you liking the Garrison?”
“It’s … good. I mean, I’m still finding my way around and getting used to the military schedule.”
“Where are you from?”
“Texas, you?”
“LA, most recently, we moved around a lot.”
“This is the first time I’ve been out of state.”
“Why did you choose the Garrison?”
“Free tuition, and,” Kago-, no, Keith said quickly. And then, more slowly, he added, “I’d give anything to fly a spaceship.” That intense look was back. His dark grey -- were they purple? -- eyes shone.
“Me too,” admitted Shiro.
****
Keith was still running on adrenaline from the game. In Cadet Mattu’s question he could sense a trap, and for a brief second he was tempted to lie, but the only boarding school he could name off the top of his head was Hogwarts. The truth would only lead to more questions.
“Hey, Mattu!” a cadet came in with a plate full of pizza, “you got the system set up for the next game?”
“Just a sec,” when Mattu turned away, Keith slid off the couch and made for the doors. Students were coming in and it was easy enough to disappear through them. He’d made the required appearance, no need to hang around. Shame about missing the rest of the gaming, but this way even Mattu would probably forget the conversation.
Keith slowed down by the pizza table, but it was fairly picked over.
“Hey,” came a voice behind him and Keith spun around, “great game.”
It was Cadet Shirogane. Keith willed his nerves to calm.
“You too,” he said, and started talking as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be having a conversation with the Garrison’s most renowned student. They talked video games, but Keith sensed there was a deeper question Shirogane was working up to. Was he going to ask about the destroyed video game console incident? There had been extenuating circumstances -- Axel had just returned from his brother’s funeral and was off his meds – but that didn’t make the group home sound any more wholesome. He braced and waited for the question.
“Were you teaching yourself by watching the controls? I saw your fingers moving.”
“Uh, yeah,” relief mixed with something like pride. Keith was careful not to advertise just how good he was at picking up physical stuff. That someone like Shirogane had noticed felt good.
“Impressive,” Shirogane thrust out his hand, “call me Shiro.” His grip was firm, but not too tight.
“Keith,” Keith responded. He took in Shiro’s open, almost puppy-dog expression. It didn’t feel like the upperclassman was checking him out. Not that Keith would have turned down a proposition from someone built like Shiro, but after a week of being surrounded by strangers, he’d rather have a friendly conversation than a one night stand.
They fell into small talk which naturally led to the inevitable why-did-you-choose-the-Garrison sequence.
“Free tutition,” it was Keith’s standard response. Also the free room and and guaranteed job for the first four years after graduation. A very sensible choice for a kid in his situation, his guidance counselor, psychologist, social worker, and group home director had agreed. But it wasn’t the real reason and something about Shiro was encouraging honesty “I’d give anything to pilot a spaceship.”
Shiro didn’t look at him like he was a grade schooler professing to want to be a firefighter. Instead, his natural smile grew even wider. “Me too. My family moved around a lot, I went to eight schools before the Garrison. But whereever we lived, the stars were the same. I became a total astronomy geek. I know humanity won’t make it out of the solar system in my lifetime, but to travel to Mars or even make it to a moon base, that would be enough for me.”
“If anyone’s going to get sent up on a mission, it would be you,” said Keith. It was a common assumption throughout the Garrison.
“I got to meet the crew for the upcoming Lunar mission scheduled for November,” said Shiro, “I was a summer intern with the engineering team that did the final checks. Knowing I was handling equipment that would be going to the moon and beyond, it was … awe inspiring.” Shiro’s enthusiasm was palpable, perhaps even a bit infectious. It wasn’t just his sim scores and grade that earned him that reputation. “Of course,” he continued, deflating a bit, “now I’m back to just being a student. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I can’t wait to graduate and get out of here.”
“When you’ve outgrown a place,” Keith shrugged. Shiro was silent and Keith found himself filling the space, wanted to continue the conversation. “When I found out I’d made it off the waitlist, that I’d actually be coming here, I was climbing the walls to leave the group home.”
“Group home?” Shiro pronounced the words carefully, like they were foreign.
“Foster care system,” Keith said quickly, “It wasn’t juvenile detention or anything.” That answer didn’t make it sound much better.
“Are you an … orphan?”
If Keith had a dollar for every time someone had asked him that, he wouldn’t need the free tuition. Experience had shown him that being close mouthed or sugar coating the details only made people more curious. Best to just get it out there.
“I’m not sure about my mom, she took off when I was three. My father died in a car crash when I was eight. No one in my Dad’s family was in a position to raise a kid so I became a ward of the state. I grew up mostly in foster families but also in some group homes with staff.”
“Wow,” said Shiro, “that must have been rough.”
This was the point of the conversation where Keith would shrug and the other person would stumble to change the topic before tactfully excusing themselves. Keith didn’t want his interaction with Shiro to end that way. He wanted to see that impressed look Shiro gave him when Keith admitted to memorizing the attack combos.
From his life collection of stories of disappointment and awfulness Keith pulled out one of the bright spots, about the time Mr. Gloval had taught him the basics of hover bike repair, let him take it out for a spin afterwards, and how that led to Keith applying to the Garrison.
The words sounded more remarkable in his own head, but it cut through the uncomfortable tension and Shiro was smiling again.
“You made the right choice coming here,” said Shiro. “You’re going to like it at the Garrison. It’s not easy – it gets super stressful around finals -- but that causes people to bond to get through. It’s kind of like a family with a bunch of grumpy uncles, Iverson especially. Obviously, sim training is the best, but you’ll also get a solid grounding in science and technology and enough engineering to know your way around anything with an engine.”
His conviction was contagious and Keith started to ask about instructors when a cadet called out, “Hey, Shiro, you’re up! Get over here.”
***
It felt like he was confessing. Which made no sense, you didn’t apply to the Garrison if you didn’t dream of being an astronaut. But Shiro couldn’t remember ever saying it out loud. He, and all the cadets he knew, wanted to appear more jaded and worldly, he guessed. Maybe it was different for the girls.
It felt good to level with someone about his frustrations, about returning to being just a student. Spoken aloud, it didn’t seem like such a cross to bear. Especially when Keith spoke about his own background.
“You’re an orphan?” Shiro cringed as the words left his mouth. But Keith didn’t take offense, he must be used to dealing with stupid questions. Still, as he described losing his parents a flatness crept into his voice and Shiro couldn’t say anything more insightful than “That’s rough.”
“There were some perks,” said Keith, “you’d be amazed by how many free things and scholarships businesses give out. Last year they signed me up for horse therapy, only the first month it rained every time I showed up. The husband of woman who owned the stables was this gruff old Russian who’d been in the Navy and he took pity on me hanging out in the barn. He invited me to help rebuild this old hoverbike. And after we got it running, he let me take it out instead of a horse. That part of Texas is almost as wild as around here and the Commander, that was what everyone called him, let me try some stunts that were awesome, but also stupid dangerous. When I didn’t kill myself, he suggested I apply to be a pilot. Helped me with the application and gave me a reference, he might have pulled some strings to get me an interview. But anyway, it was a lucky break.”
And now, Shiro really did want to see Keith in a simulator, wanted to see what a kid with Keith’s obvious talents would achieve as a cadet. Shiro launched into a spiel about how great a time Keith would have at the Garrison. And as he talked, he felt his warmth for the place returning.
It would be a good final year, especially if he got to watch someone like Keith take it on. Shiro heard an impatient voice calling to him to the next game. Rather than irritation, Shiro found himself wanting to play. And afterwards, he’d coach Keith on the play mechanics, and he’d get Mattu to let them face off after the tournament.
“Keith, I’ll catch you later,” was all he could get out before the cadet sent to get him dragged him away.
***
“Coming,” said Shiro, “Keith, I’ll catch you later. You-“
“Shiro, now!” the cadet insisted and Shiro was gone.
Keith took a deep breath and started back to his dorm room. He never had fun at parties. Tonight was an exception and Keith was choosing to end it before some Mattu or McClain could spoil it.
Or before Keith could spoil it by saying something stupid around Shiro. He’d kept his promise and not made a fool of himself. Maybe even made a favorable enough impression to greet each other in the hallways. He was looking forward to seeing Shiro’s smile again.