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The building catches Ryuunosuke’s eye when the two of them are walking back from the afternoon’s lunch.
He hears the shouts and clamour of the boys before he sees them. A group of uniformed young men play football outside of a grandiose stone building, a boarding school for boys. He is about to ask Barok about it, when, to his surprise, his companion turns and crosses the street toward the place. Ryuunosuke jogs to keep up.
“You don’t mind if we make a quick stop here, my friend?” asked the man at his side. “I have something to pick up.”
Ryuunosuke shook his head. “No, of course not.” Intimidated as he is by the way the structure looms over him, along with the stares from the boys on the lawn, he swallows his apprehension and keeps step with van Zieks.
If the outside is impressive, the interior is even moreso. Ryuunosuke thinks he will never get used to how big everything in London is, even after so many years.
“Good morning,” said van Zieks to the man at the receptionist's desk. Ryuunosuke hung awkwardly behind him, trying to make himself small.
In 1904, most large public buildings such as this did have electricity, but Ryuunosuke marvelled at it anyway. He craned his neck to ogle the ceiling fixtures, though he realized he may look a bit funny, and quickly focused on the wall sconces instead. The last thing he needed was to make Lord van Zieks look bad.
“At once, sir.” The man responded and disappeared into the small room behind the desk.
“Have a look around, Mister Naruhodou,” van Zieks prompted, noting Ryuunosuke’s obvious curiosity. “If you feel so inclined,” he added quickly.
Ryuunosuke gave a sheepish smile and wandered into the wide room that connected to the foyer. He worried at the hem of his coat as he walked. It almost felt as if the building would swallow him if he got lost or wandered too far. Boarding schools in the center of London weren’t something he had ever considered. In his mind, they were some kind of mythical place out on the moors, where dangerous cliques were formed, illict desires explored, all culminating in a heinous murder…
Maybe the novels Susato-san lent him had too much bearing on his preconceptions sometimes.
A gaggle of boys rounded a corner suddenly, startling him. All of them had on the same school uniforms, and were in deep conversation about something or other. Many of them carried cricket bats over their shoulders. They swept past Ryuunosuke without even registering he was there.
“Are you finished?” van Zieks asked from the room’s entrance, papers in hand. Ryuunosuke nodded quickly, his eyes still staring as the boys crossed the lawn, moving as one navy blue entity. The stories in those books had to be based on the real thing, didn’t they?
“Come along, Mister Naruhodou.”
Ryuunosuke allowed himself to be led through London once more.
“So you really attended boarding school as well...” Ryuunosuke hummed. To him, the concept still seemed so magical. The fact that Barok had actually gone had dazzled him.
“Yes, I graduated in 1883.”
“Oh, yes, you were born before Meiji 1, weren’t you?”
“...1866, if that is what you are asking me.”
“Right… ahh, you’re so old.” Ryuunosuke’s thoughts had a way of slipping out before they encountered his mind-to-mouth filter.
“I am not old.” Barok replied flatly.
“...Born before Meiji 1…” Ryuunosuke said absently.
“Ryuunosuke.”
The uniform was a tad big on him, seeing as it was Barok’s. If he were to actually attend a boarding school as he has been imagining, van Zieks informed him he would have to go for a fitting and get his measurements taken professionally. Not all that different from what he experienced when getting his university uniform, then, Ryuunosuke thinks.
It turned out that they had a lot in common regarding their schooling. Barok had grown up in the countryside, same as Ryuunosuke, only a continent away and a decade apart. Instead of three generations of a family packed into one small house, however, the van Zieks owned acres of land with a stable, farmhands, and maids. It had just been Ryuunosuke’s mother doing all of that in his own household.
“I have an idea, if you will indulge me.” van Zieks suddenly said. He had been quiet as he stared from his position behind Ryuunosuke in the mirror. Ryuunosuke nodded, and a few moments later, Barok had returned— embarrassingly in the middle of Ryuunosuke checking out the fit of the pants on his bum.
“Are you sure it’s alright to put holes in it like this?” he asked as van Zieks knelt on one knee to begin pinning parts of the uniform in place in order to better fit Ryuunosuke’s smaller frame.
“It is already sporting holes from mothbites. I am sure a few more will not be detrimental— I apologize.” he said as Ryuunosuke jumped when one of the pins nicked his waist. Barok proceeded slower from then on.
“I had no idea that you got sent away for school as well,” Ryuunosuke said, continuing their conversation from earlier.
“Yes, in Windsor. It was almost a full day's train ride from our home in Devonshire.”
“It took me nearly a week to get to Tokyo myself.”
“You aren’t serious.”
“I am! I remember how upset I acted when my father told me I would be moving for university. Up until then I had lived with the assumption that I would simply take up my family’s line of work and stay in Kumamoto. I didn’t really have many ambitions at that time.”
“Not even unearthing a decades-old international conspiracy and bringing about my downfall?” The short exhale of breath came dangerously close to a laugh. The prosecutor went on before Ryuunosuke could properly comment. “Klint was actually the one who chose the school for me. He thought it would be better to get away from the pressure of my family as soon as it was appropriate.” The air in the room seemed to still at the mention of his brother’s name.
Ryuunosuke decided to push forward gently. Barok almost never talked of his brother with him, even now. “And was he right?”
“Yes. He had a way of knowing what was best for me, since he had gone through it all first. I did come into my own away from the estate, though I felt horribly guilty for it at the time.”
Ryuunosuke nodded. “My younger sister bawled when I left for Tokyo, I remember,” he mused. “Not that she was going to miss me, we never got along— but she knew that now our mother would put all of the chores onto her.”
“You could have hired a maid, could you not have?” Barok gathered the fabric of the slacks and pushed a pin perpendicular to Ryuunosuke’s hip. The pants were not actually all that ill-fitting, just much too long at the bottom.
“We didn’t have the money for something like that.” Ryuunosuke tried to focus as Barok’s hand, currently wrapped around his thigh, stilled abruptly.
“…That was foolish of me. I apologize.”
“Thank you, but it’s really alright. It was just how things were then. To even get the money for my school we had to sacrifice a lot. I can’t believe how much I complained even when my family was doing all that to send me to Tokyo.” Ryuunosuke had begun to feel better about his past stubbornness when the first letter from his mother thanking him for the money had arrived years ago. He had made sure to hire a housekeeper to aid her as his first order of business from his new line of work.
“Why did you choose to study English, of all things?”
“Well, it was becoming a more and more useful skill for daily life; but mostly, I just couldn’t muster the passion for much else. It seemed easy.”
Barok stared from his place at Ryuunosuke’s feet, carefully hemming the pant legs. “Learning an entire new language seemed easy to you?”
“About as easy as mastering British law across the courtroom from the scariest person I had ever seen. It seemed lucrative.” Ryuunosuke joked. “And, in university my stipend from my parents was basically nothing. It’s how I got so good at suggesting Asougi treat me to meals.”
“A tradition you’ve continued into our relationship, I’ve noted.”
Ryuunosuke stifled a laugh, trying not to move too much and impede the process. His face colored ever so slightly as Barok stood and gently pressed Ryuunosuke’s shoulder blades back so that he was not slouching as much.“Well, if the Reaper of the Bailey offers to pay for your very expensive meal, you do not say no. Mister Sholmes taught me that.”
“Did he now.” Barok placed a pin at the small of Ryuunosuke’s back, pulling the fabric tighter around his torso. With a final two pins on either cuff, the process was finished. He took a small step back to again assess Ryuunosuke from the mirror.
Barok had done a rather fine job, thought Ryuunosuke as he lifted his arms and inspected himself. The fabric was softer than his university gakuran, and obviously much more expensive. The navy blue was different from the black he was used to, but he could see himself being comfortable wearing it every day. Going to classes and wandering the grounds, as he had seen those boys do today.
It may have been silly for a man of his age to fantasize about a schoolboy’s life in another country, but it was so exotic that he couldn’t resist the draw. Ryuunosuke’s gaze suddenly caught Barok’s in the mirror, and the older man quickly shifted to look down.
“Lord van Zieks… you're blushing right now.”
Barok’s eyes stayed firmly fixed on a spot on the rug. “I am doing no such thing.”
Ryuunosuke turned to face him. The taller man let their eyes lock for a second, and then seemed to hate himself for it, because his blush deepened.
“If we had met earlier… things would have been pretty different, wouldn’t they?” A smaller hand found its palm pressed against Barok’s absently.
“I would assume as much,” answered Barok, monotone.
Ryuunsouke wondered how he’d fit in at a London school such as the one van Zieks had gone to. Realistically not very well– sometimes he could barely grasp lectures at home, forget in a foreign country. It would have been overwhelming, and he would have probably been terribly homesick. Still, perhaps if he had a kind yet austere man to guide him through his growing pains, they would have been soothed somewhat.
“Stop that. You are going to loosen the pins.” Barok chided as Ryuunosuke brought up hands to cup his face.
“Then perhaps you should have stuck them in deeper, my Lord.” Ryuunosuke said, and pulled Barok towards him to press a chaste kiss to his lips.
“You have done a lot for me.” Ryuunosuke whispered. He felt Barok’s shoulders tense under his hands. “I doubt I’d be able to be doing what I am without you always challenging me.”
“As if you should be the one saying that here…” Barok sunk his head into Ryuunosuke’s shoulder. They stayed like that for a moment, breaths synching. “...I seem to recall I have some photographs of Albert and I in our college days. If you would like, I could find them for you.”
The younger boy smiled, leaning his head against the prosecutor’s. Barok opening his heart to him like this had been a long process, but Ryuunosuke delighted in every new inch that was offered to him. Like a door opening bit by bit so as to let in the light, he found he couldn’t be more content than when in Barok’s glow.