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The concatenation of events leading to Seiji and Nicholas hiding in Seiji's bedroom during the Katayamas' scrupulously non-denominational holiday party progressed as followed: sometime in early December, while they were eating lunch in the Kings Row dining hall, Dante and Bobby had brought up the subject of winter break. In the ensuing lively conversation, which Seiji had not actively joined but had, by virtue of being seated beside Nicholas and across the table from Bobby, been forcibly included in, he had (very much against his will) learned that Dante would be visiting Bobby's family for the week between Christmas and New Year's, that Eugene was excited to eat his mother's home cooking, and that Nicholas was planning to stay at Kings Row for the entire holiday break.
This revelation was greeted by general dismay and several invitations, all of which Nicholas declined. "I'll get so much training in staying at Kings Row, you guys! And I bet Seiji is staying too, right?"
While the prospect of two uninterrupted weeks of training certainly appealed, Seiji was well aware of how his parents would react if he failed to return to Connecticut for winter break. On the other hand, the effect on Nicholas's progress if he spent two entire weeks without a practice partner to correct any backsliding would be unacceptable. The clear solution was for Nicholas to come home with him instead, he decided, and said so. "We have a salle at the house. We can train every day."
With that trump card, Seiji had handily won the round, and even his father had been understanding about his desire to keep Nicholas under his supervision. He had only insisted that Nicholas stay in a guest room rather than in Seiji's, which was puzzling — why would Seiji have wanted to share a room with Nicholas and his incessant snoring when there was an alternative? He didn't even have a second bed.
The complete silence as he tried to fall asleep the first night of winter vacation had been oddly disturbing, though.
Nicholas had proved extremely helpful over the next few days, allowing Seiji to remove himself from almost every social situation that presented itself by insisting that Nicholas needed to train. And he was making good progress. Unfortunately, there remained one event from which no amount of rational appeals to the importance of their increased training regimen could excuse them: Seiji's mother's holiday party.
Seiji hated wasting time when he could be training, and he hated being made to dress up in uncomfortable clothes and make incomprehensible conversation with his parents' friends and business associates even more — although at least his parents had given up on sending him off to "play with the other children" the way they had when he was younger. Seiji had hated that worst of all: being around his supposed peers, none of whom cared about fencing, all of whom were only interested in things he thought were stupid wastes of time, and who always ended up looking at Seiji like he was the freak. He didn't care about their opinions, but he didn't like being trapped with them for the length of a party, either. But Nicholas did like other people their own age, so maybe he would want to spend time with them?
"You have to stay with me for the whole party," Seiji said as soon as this thought occurred to him, which happened to be during the last-minute tailoring session Seiji's mother had arranged when she learned that Nicholas did not own a tuxedo. He was wearing Seiji's spare instead, but the trousers had needed to be hemmed. The jacket didn't fit quite right either, but the tailor said that it wasn't possible to fix on such short notice and Nicholas should just leave the lower buttons undone, and Seiji's mother hadn't given him the cold look reserved for vendors offering substandard service whose contracts were about to be summarily terminated, so she must have agreed with him.
"Yeah, of course," Nicholas said, unfazed. "Don't worry, I won't embarrass you! I'll watch to see which fork you're using and everything."
"I'm sure Seiji isn't worried about any such thing," Seiji's mother assured him. She was smiling, which was unnerving.
"It's fine, Mrs. Katayama!" Nicholas had refused point-blank when Seiji's mother asked him to call her Akiko. "Seiji's right, I don't know anything about how to act at fancy parties for rich people. I'll just stick close to Seiji and it'll be fine."
"There are more important things in life than parties," Seiji's mother said mysteriously — Seiji couldn't agree more, but since she still wouldn't let him skip the party for an extra evening training session, it seemed a little hypocritical of her to say so — and allowed herself to be drawn into consultation with the tailor about Nicholas's cummerbund.
The party itself was awful, of course, because people kept trying to talk to him, but having Nicholas with him did make it more bearable. First of all, because when someone came up and wanted to speak with him, he knew exactly what to say in response: "Hello, this is Nicholas." And secondly, because Nicholas would then talk with the other person, who usually went away very quickly after that, and Seiji and Nicholas could go back to talking about fencing.
After a while, Seiji's father came and found them and insisted on "introducing Nicholas around", which was awful again, but not really Nicholas's fault. Even those conversations were brief, and Seiji wasn't required to do anything besides stand beside Nicholas while his father told various people, over and over, how proud he was of both of them. Seiji did not feel either he or Nicholas had done anything particularly worthy of this encomium, and it was of course hideously embarrassing, but it was still… nice.
"I'm glad you brought Nicholas home with you," Seiji's father said, when they finally seemed to have run out of people to introduce Nicholas to. "I'm glad you trust me and your mother. And Nicholas, you seem like an extremely nice boy. I hope we'll be seeing more of you in the future."
"You will if you come to our next fencing match," Nicholas said.
Seiji's father laughed. "I guess I'll have to clear our schedule! I'm looking forward to cheering our son and his boyfriend to victory. Oh, I really need to talk to one of the board members before she leaves, you two have fun — make sure you have Nicholas try the sushi, Seiji. The fatty tuna is exceptional tonight."
"Well," Seiji said once his father had walked away, and then couldn't think of anything else to say after.
"We've talked to everybody here already, let's just get food and then go back to your room," Nicholas said. "Do you think I'll like the sushi thing your dad wanted me to try?"
"No," Seiji said honestly.
"I'll try it anyway just in case he asks," Nicholas decided. They loaded up full plates — extra sushi for the protein and omega-3 fatty acids for Seiji, extra cupcakes for no good reason for Nicholas — and snuck out the back of the ballroom. Seiji thought for a moment that his mother noticed them, since she was looking straight in their direction, but he must have been wrong, since she didn't come and drag them back to the party. Her right eye twitched strangely, and he made a mental note to ask the next day if she was developing a tic.
Safely upstairs, in flagrant violation of his father's edict regarding maximum room occupancy and years of etiquette lessons regarding acceptable locations for dining, Seiji shut the door to his room and settled on the floor with his plate. Nicholas, apparently unfazed by this flouting of convention, sat beside him and began inspecting the offerings.
"I didn't tell my father you were my boyfriend," Seiji announced. For reasons he was unable to parse, it was extremely important that Nicholas be aware of this fact.
Nicholas had just stuffed an entire sushi roll in his mouth, and his facial expression did not make clear his opinion on either Seiji's father's assumption or fatty tuna. After a minute of vigorous chewing, he finally managed to swallow and say, "It's okay, I didn't think you did."
"I don't know why he would think that," Seiji continued. Somehow, Nicholas's lack of concern didn't make him feel better.
"Well, maybe he thought we were acting like boyfriends, or something," Nicholas said. "You know, the sushi isn't as bad as I thought. Can I have another piece?"
"One piece," Seiji said, holding his plate out for Nicholas to make his selection. "What does that mean? Acting like boyfriends?"
"I don't know," Nicholas admitted. "I've never had one. I guess… Captain and Aiden are boyfriends, so like them?"
"Well, they do practice together a lot," Seiji said doubtfully. "Maybe that's a boyfriend thing? And they're roommates, too."
"I think there's other stuff, though," Nicholas said. His face scrunched up as he thought. "Don't they hold hands? I think I've seen them hold hands."
Seiji regarded his own hands with new curiosity. Holding hands would be impractical when he was holding a foil, of course. Still, it didn't seem that bad. "Let me see," he demanded. Nicholas's hand was warm in his. Seiji's fingers were longer, but Nicholas's hand was bigger overall.
"Um," said Nicholas.
His cheeks were turning pinker the longer Seiji held on. Seiji liked his pink cheeks, he decided. He liked the feeling of holding hands. Maybe Harvard and Aiden were onto something. "This is okay," he observed. "Is that all boyfriends are? Practice partners who are roommates and hold hands?"
"I… guess?" Nicholas said. "We could ask Captain. Or Aiden." His nose wrinkled. He did that sometimes when Aiden's name came up in conversation.
"Maybe when we're back at school," Seiji said. He lifted their joined hands and inspected them more closely. Nicholas needed to trim his nails instead of biting them; his fingersnails were ragged. At least they were clean. But it was pleasing to be attached to Nicholas and know he couldn't go anywhere without Seiji knowing about it. "You should be my boyfriend," he decided.
"Okay," Nicholas said.
For the rest of the evening, as they finished eating their stolen food and discussed a new training regimen Seiji wanted Nicholas to try, that "okay" would play again in Seiji's mind, and he would find himself struggling against a completely inexplicable urge to smile. Nicholas eventually drifted off to sleep on the carpet, and Seiji went through his usual Tuesday evening ritual (brush teeth, check; wash face, check; push-ups and stretches, check) while reflecting with great satisfaction that he didn't even have to tell his family about Nicholas's new status. Apparently they had known Nicholas was his boyfriend before even he did.
He left the door to his bedroom cracked open, just in case his parents decided to check. The sound of Nicholas's snoring, once an irritant and now impossible to live without, lulled him to sleep.