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“For me you are now
the eye of heaven.
And I liked you from the first moment
I set eyes on you.
You are tall and strong.
You laugh out so heartily.
And you say things
I've never heard in my life before.”
- Madama Butterfly
“Don’t you ever have to practise your performances?”
Nezumi looked up from the script he was studying to find Shion peering at him over the edge of his own book. It was early in the evening, although time was hard to gauge in the ever-dark library vault. The only light that illuminated their tiny hideout was the stove that also functioned as a heater. Shion was huddled close and the clothes he had worn while washing the dogs were drying on an improvisationally tied line of rope that was hanging across the room.
He shrugged and flipped the page. “Not really,” he replied. “I figure it all out in my head.”
Shion nodded pensively.
Nezumi read another paragraph until the itch of Shion’s burning gaze made it impossible to focus. He slammed the book closed and looked up. “You’re staring again.”
Shion jumped. His book fell out of his lap and he scrambled to catch it before it hit the floor and became even more damaged. When it was safely back in his hands, he lovingly rubbed the spine, as if apologising to it. It was actually rather endearing.
Startled by the thought, Nezumi tore his eyes away. He cleared his throat and turned his own book over in his hands. “So?”
“Huh?”
“What’s on your mind? Tell me so you’ll stop staring and I can go back to studying the upcoming play.”
Shion’s eyes widened and he sat up straight like a scolded child. He hesitated for a moment. “I was thinking I could help you practise.”
This time it was Nezumi’s turn to stare at him. "Help me practise?" he repeated flatly.
Shion nodded before breaking into a smile. "Yeah! I can play the counterparts so you can practise your lines."
Nezumi eyed him, taking in the excitement Shion was practically vibrating with. When it was clear Shion was serious and not about to back down, he relented. “Sure, why not?”
He stood up from the bed, opened his book, and flipped to the scene he had been studying before Shion had interrupted him. When he looked up to hand Shion the book, he found him still sitting on the floor.
"Well? Why are you still sitting there? Acting is done standing up, unless specified otherwise."
Shion blinked. “No, it’s just… I hadn’t expected you to say yes.”
Nezumi shrugged. “It’d be good practise. Come on, get up.” He waited for Shion to stand before handing him the book. “It’s Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. You play Orsino, a king who’s in love with Olivia. I play Viola.”
Shion smiled. “You’re playing a woman again?”
“She’s actually pretending to be a guy, but yeah.” He tapped the open page. “Just start already.”
Grinning, Shion followed Nezumi’s lead and started skimming the lines. It didn’t look too hard, he figured. Keeping his eyes glued to the page, he read, “Let all the rest give place. Once more, Cesario, get—”
Nezumi let out an exasperated sigh and shook his head.
“Shion, that isn’t acting, that’s reading out loud and barely even that. I know this isn’t the Globe Theater or Broadway or anything but even you must be able to do better than that.”
Shion shot him a sour look. “Can you blame me? It’s the middle of the play and this language is very old! I have no idea what’s happening.”
Nezumi regarded him for a moment, then started pulling one of the blankets off the bed.
“Nezumi? What are you—”
He was cut off by the blanket flying around him and settling on his shoulders like a cape. “Clothes maketh the man.” Nezumi adjusted the blanket, making sure it sat right, and then stepped back to admire his handiwork. “Now let’s get you a crown.”
He kicked a pile of books out of the way, trying to find something that could function as a makeshift crown. Eventually he settled for something that might’ve been a curtain or a dishrag—it was impossible to tell under the grime—and twisted it into a coil. He walked back to Shion, trying not to trip over the mess he’d made, and tied it around Shion’s head. “There. Now it at least kind of feels like I’m talking to a king, even if you don’t sound like one.”
Shion touched the crown on his head and grinned. “Do I really look like a king?”
He actually looked kind of stupid in the ratty blanket and dirty cloth. In fact, he mostly resembled a peasant child who wanted to look like a prince.
Nezumi frowned.
“Not re—”
“It’s my first time dressing up!” Shion interrupted, still beaming brightly and looking down to admire his makeshift cloak. “They didn’t let us back in No.6 and it never crossed my mind. It’s fun!”
Nezumi swallowed his rude remarks and smiled. Killing Shion’s excitement didn’t sit right with him. So instead he said, “You look nice.”
“Really?” Shion laughed. “Oh! Viola is pretending to be a man, right? We need to get you a weapon!” Carefully holding the blanket, he reached for a spatula and held it up proudly. “Here!”
Before Nezumi could protest, Shion stepped in front of him and reached for his belt. He tugged on it and stuffed the spatula underneath, so that it would resemble a sword.
His eyelashes are white too. Nezumi felt his face heat up at the sudden proximity. Feeling Shion’s hands pulling on his clothes, touching him so casually, smelling the cheap soap Shion used to clean the dogs, feeling his breath fan against his skin…. He didn’t know if the dizzying heat was his own or Shion’s. The sudden urge to lean closer made his stomach plummet, but right when he was about to push him away, Shion stepped back.
“Perfect!” He beamed innocently.
Nezumi cleared his throat and looked away. What had he even wanted to do? Wrap his arms around Shion’s thinning waist? (He really needed to make sure Shion ate better. West Block was wearing him down.) He glanced back at Shion, his eyes flickering down to his lips. They were chapped from the cold and raw from Shion’s nervous habit of chewing on them, but Nezumi realised that he wanted nothing more than to lean in and kiss them. He took a deep breath to shake these ridiculous thoughts away. He was supposed to be a professional, damn it.
“Right,” he said firmly. “Now that we’ve donned our costumes, let’s give this another shot. Take it from the top.”
Shion nodded and opened the book again. “Let all the rest give place. Once more, Cesario—who is Cesario?”
“That’s Viola’s pseudonym.”
Shion nodded again. “Once more, Cesario, get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty…”
Having spilled the last few words of the passage with great difficulty, Shion looked up and smiled widely. Seeing Shion so happy and proud, Nezumi couldn’t help his own lips from curling up in a faint smile. He was trying so hard, despite not knowing the first thing about the great old classics. It was really commendable.
“But what if she cannot love you, sir?”
“I cannot be so answer’d,” Shion stated firmly. Ah, so he did have some understanding of what he was saying.
As Nezumi recited his own lines, Shion took a few moments to read the upcoming passage. Judging by the frown on his face he was having some difficulty with it. “There is no woman’s sides can bide the beating of so strong a passion as love doth give my heart. No woman’s heart so big, to hold so much. They lack retention.” He looked up, his frown even deeper than before. “Is he saying that women are incapable of love?”
It was then that Nezumi gave up on serious practice. With all the questions Shion kept asking it was impossible to stay in character, so he figured he might as well just have fun.
“He’s a stuck up asshole,” he shrugged. “He’s so full of himself that he thinks women can’t possibly be as good as he is, like most men.”
Shion pulled a face. “That’s so rude.”
Nezumi couldn’t help but snicker. “Don’t worry. Viola tells him where it’s at.”
“Good,” Shion smiled, seemingly satisfied with that answer. He skimmed the page, trying to find where he had left off.
“They lack retention,” Nezumi helpfully supplied.
“Ah! Found it. It’s impossible to find things in this maze of a language.” Shion cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. “Alas, their way of love may be called appetite. No motion of the liver, but the palate, that suffer forfeit, cloyment, and revolt; But mine,” he pressed a hand to his chest to emphasise, “is all as hungry as the sea, and can digest as much. Make no compare between that love a woman can bear me and that I owe Olivia.”
Nezumi raised his hands in placation. “Ay, but I know—”
“What dost thou know?” came Shion’s firm interruption.
“Too well what love women to men may owe. In faith, they are as true of heart as well.” Nezumi balled his hand into a fist and shook it. “My father had a daughter loved a man as it might be, perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship.”
Once again Shion forsook his acting in favour of asking questions. “What did she mean?”
Nezumi slacked and ran a hand through his hair as he considered how to best explain the lines. “A rough translation would be: women love the same way we do. My sister loved a man the same way I would love you, if I were a woman.” For some reason, the words tasted bitter on his tongue.
This was why it was bad luck to act with the person you fancied.
He froze.
Desperately, he tried to push the intrusive thought away. This was Shion. They were just acting. This was no time to contemplate his feelings for Shion—not that he had any in the first place. Focus.
Oblivious to Nezumi’s inner turmoil, Shion nodded and picked up where he had left off. “And what’s her history?”
“A blank, my lord,” Nezumi replied grimly, feeling a suffocating connection with Viola. “She never told her love, but let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud, feed on her damask cheek…”
Oh.
“She pined in thought, and with a green and yellow melancholy she sat like patience on a monument, smiling at grief…”
Wait.
He finished the rest of his lines but the words barely registered. The description of Viola withering away because of love was too similar to his own feelings. Shion might often be oblivious, but sometimes he could be scarily perceptive. The last thing Nezumi needed was for Shion to look past his carefully constructed mask. He cautiously peered at his counterpart and hoped his fear would go unnoticed.
But Shion just kept his stern expression, befitting a king, and asked, “But died thy sister of her love, my boy?”
Nezumi shook his head. “I am all the daughters of my father’s house, and all the brothers too—and yet I know not. Sir, shall I to this lady?”
Shion nodded and raised his hand in confirmation. “Ay, that’s the theme. To her in haste. Give her this jewel. Ah.” He paused and glanced around him, until he picked up the loaf of bread they were saving for tomorrow and held it up. “Say my love can give no place, bide no denay.”
Nezumi snorted at Shion’s choice of jewel but took it. “Thank you, my lord, for this gorgeous jewel. I shall take it to Lady Olivia, if I don’t eat it on the way.”
Shion laughed, eyes crinkling with mirth. “Thank you, my loyal Cesario.”
Nezumi bowed deeply and took the book from Shion. “We need to work on your acting. Why don’t you look for a different play to practise?”
Shion nodded and Nezumi watched how he clutched the blanket around his shoulders and turned to the bookcases that filled their tiny living space. As he browsed, Nezumi put the play and the bread back down, fixing the cloth that prevented it from drying out.
“How about this one?”
Nezumi turned around to see Shion pulling a heavy book from a high shelf, almost toppling over when it came free. When he had regained his balance, he gently ran his hand over the cover in admiration. The title had mostly faded away with use and age.
"Madama Butterfly," Nezumi spoke up, not even having to see the title to know what it was. Shion opened it and started flipping the yellowed pages. "It's an opera by Giacomo Puccini. Originally in Italian, but it’s translated.”
"What is it about?"
Nezumi laughed and beckoned Shion to come closer. "It's about love, betrayal, and death: the three things that have always fascinated humanity, so much that we're obsessed with it. We want to read, to write, to hear it all over and over again, sighing and wishing for a happy ending that never comes." He cupped Shion's cheek for a moment, stared into those admiring red eyes gazing up at him, then tapped the pages and twirled around.
"Flip to page 47!" He called as he picked up the other blanket and flung it over his arms so it draped down like the long sleeves of a ratty kimono. Two spoons fell victim to the improvised dress-up game as Nezumi twirled his hair and used the metal handles to pin it up. Hiding his lips behind his hand and with a voice as sweet as honey, he sang, “I am like the moon-goddess, the little goddess of the moon, who comes down at night from the bridge of heaven.”
Shion stood frozen, staring at Nezumi. He had seen his feminine side before, when he had visited Eve in the rundown theater, but seeing him change like this in front of him was another thing entirely. It was only when Nezumi called his name in his usual low, annoyed tone that he broke out of his admiring stupor. He blurted out a “Sorry!” which earned him an eye roll and he scrambled to flip to the right page and find his lines. “And captivates all hearts—”
“And takes them and folds them in a white cloak.” Nezumi circled around Shion, briefly enveloping him in his blanket as well, before stepping in front of him. “And carries them away to higher regions.”
Shion read the next lines and practised them a few times in his head, hoping to memorise them somewhat. He took a deep breath and met Nezumi’s twinkling eyes.
“But meanwhile you haven’t told me yet, you haven’t told me you love me.”
The spark disappeared from Nezumi’s eyes. The clouds that always shrouded his face, that had made way for this rare moment of genuine happiness, rapidly returned. The wall that had crumbled mended itself at an alarming pace.
Steeling himself, gaze never wavering, Shion continued, “Does the goddess know the words that satisfy burning desire?”
Nezumi swallowed. He knew they were just lines Shion was reciting. Shion was saying this to him as Pinkerton, and Nezumi was receiving them as Madama Butterfly. None of this was real. He was usually so good at detaching himself from acting, so why did his chest feel so tight?
“She does,” he said, his feminine voice breaking. “Maybe she’s unwilling to say them for fear of dying of it.”
There was a loaded silence between them as Shion read and memorised the next set of lines. Nezumi’s heart raced in his chest. He knew what was coming, but he dreaded hearing it.
“Foolish fear!” Shion exclaimed. Nezumi winced at the volume—or was it at the accusation? “Love does not kill,” Shion continued, eyes burning with emotion, “but gives life and smiles for heavenly joy, as it does now in your silver eyes.”
Silver eyes. The libretto said almond. Shion had made it personal. Nezumi yanked the book from Shion’s hands and slammed it closed.
“This is ridiculous,” he spat, throwing it on the floor. “Total bullshit.” He tore the blanket off his arms and pulled the spoons out of his hair. The dark strands cascaded down his shoulders.
“Wait!”
Shion’s hand had grabbed his wrist. Nezumi froze. His touch burned but he didn’t try to break free.
“Wait, Nezumi!”
He sounded desperate. Why did he sound desperate? Shion was the one who attacked him! Even though he had his back turned, he could picture the crestfallen look on his face, clear as day.
“Why is this so hard for you?”
Nezumi gritted his teeth but did not respond.
"I try so hard to read you, but you’re full of contradictions. You joke and flirt but as soon as I say or do something you clam up and lash out." Shion had started talking faster; the frustration, like all of his emotions, was impossible to hide. "Everything is so black and white to you. You want to hate, but as soon as you want to love you hesitate. Why is this so hard for you?"
"You don't know what it's like to grow up outside the wall, where love doesn't exist," Nezumi bit out, finally turning around to face his… He didn't even know who or what Shion was to him anymore.
"In No.6 you have the luxury to love others. It's a privilege. Here in West Block we are too busy trying to survive. People die all around us. We can’t afford to love. If I did, I’d be dead in an instant.” He felt Shion’s hand tighten around his wrist. His nails dug into his skin. It hurt, but still Nezumi pressed on. “Loved ones are weak spots. Dead weight. They’ll only drag you down. Ask Inukashi. They’ll gladly tell you about the infants they used to bury, and the mothers that usually followed shortly after because they couldn’t bear both the child and the grief of losing them.”
“Are you saying I will be the death of you?” Shion asked, trembling in thinly masked fear.
Nezumi ignored the breaking of his own heart as he replied, “You very well might be.”
The air between them crackled with tension. They stared at each other, slowly processing each other’s words. Shion’s grip on Nezumi’s wrist loosened and eventually he let go, his arm falling limply by his side.
“All right,” he said quietly.
“Shion, I—”
“It’s all right.” He reached for the makeshift crown and pulled it off his head. “I mean, what do I know about love? Up until recently I didn’t even know I was capable of such strong emotions.” The blanket followed and he folded it neatly before placing it on the bed.
Nezumi watched, rooted to the spot, overpowered by helplessness, guilt, and desperation all at once. He wanted to reach out, reassure Shion, apologise, but he didn’t do anything. Didn’t know what he should say or do. Shion slipped into his boots, quickly laced them up, and shrugged on his coat.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to visit Inukashi. One of the dogs is pregnant so I want to check up on her.”
Nezumi felt his stomach flip when Shion walked past him and opened the door. It was not often that he wished he could change who he was, but this was one of those times. He wished he could say something to try and undo the damage he’d done but he couldn’t find the words.
Shion seemed to sense it, as he always did, and paused. He turned around and shot Nezumi a sad smile. “Don’t feel bad. I understand. I’ll be fine. I just need some time to think.”
As the door closed behind him, Nezumi was left in agonising silence, Shion’s words echoing in the suffocating library vault.
I’ll be fine.
Liar, Nezumi thought. He had seen the tears in his eyes, noticed the way he swallowed painfully. There was no way he’d be fine.
He had always been a bad actor.