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“Happy birthday!” the Kings Row fencing team chorused as Coach Sally Williams entered the salle.
The explosion of noise made her fall into an approximation of an en garde position. Nick couldn’t decide if that was hilarious or badass, but he decided he’d better keep both thoughts to himself either way.
“I see you lot are coming up with new and exciting ways to avoid work,” their coach said as she looked around the salle, which was decorated impressively in balloons and streamers.
Bobby was a master of this sort of thing, and he’d even gotten a piñata for the occasion. Nick had done questionably safe maneuvering to hang it up. The gym looked great. And Williams had a smile on the corner of her mouth even if the rest of her face tried to deny it.
“That depends on what you count as work,” Harvard said, a glint in his eyes that Williams narrowed her eyes at.
Together, they stepped aside to reveal the present they’d gotten her. A collection of blades.
Williams actually laughed in delight—a loud and ringing ha! She was on the blades in no time, drawing one out and inspecting it with deep approval.
“The sabre,” she said. “The best blade in all of fencing.”
Nobody even had to bite their tongue today to avoid suicides. Sabre wasn’t better than épée at all, but today was Coach Williams’s birthday and if sabre was her favorite, then today, it was their favorite too.
“I’ve never fenced sabre before,” Nick said. “What do you think, Coach? Up to the challenge?”
“Training you on a weapon you’ve used for years is challenge enough,” Seiji muttered. Nick gave him the middle finger behind his back.
Usually, Williams would have caught that despite the gesture being out of sight. Today, she was distracted.
“En garde,” Williams said in response with a wicked smile, tossing the blade she’d picked to Nick—the only left-handed one in the bunch—and taking up another one.
Bobby quickly presented her with a mask. She pulled it on as Nick tugged his own down over his face. And then they fell into position.
“Prêt?” Harvard asked as everyone else fell back, taking up the role of ref naturally. “Allez!”
Nick didn’t have a chance to think before he’d been hit. Williams barked a laugh again.
“Sabre,” she said, “isn’t like épée. No time to set up or hesitate. The second the ref says go, you want to attack or you’re as good as forfeiting the point.”
Nick nodded.
“Let’s try it again, kid,” she grinned. “Hit me first and I’ll let your little disagreement with Seiji go.”
Damn, so she had seen that.
This time, when Harvard called allez! Nick rushed at his coach with blind, barreling speed. He did hit first. Triumphant, he whooped.
“Nice one,” she said. “But I won priority. Congrats on getting off the hook, but you’re still at zero points.”
Seiji smiled from the sidelines. Just a twitch of lips.
Zero.
Nick was tempted to flip Seiji off again and take the punishment.
“Now, who here can explain how priority works in sabre?”
Seiji, of course, dutifully relayed the information. It was, apparently, all about momentum and keeping it. Make a mistake and even hitting first couldn’t save you. It mostly went over Nick’s head, but he got the general idea.
“Remember, target area is above the waist only. And you’ll be starting closer than you’re used to. Seiji, you’re with Nicholas. Show him the ropes. I know you’re up for the challenge.”
“Coach, that’s just cruel,” Nick moaned.
“I have to agree,” Seiji seconded.
“It’s my birthday, you have to listen to me,” Williams practically sang. She was in a manically good mood.
“Do we ever not have to listen to you?”
“No,” she said, sobered up quickly by the question. “Absolutely never. Now hop to it. Harvard, Eugene, pair up. Aiden and Bobby, you too.”
The others found their partners less grudgingly.
“Sabre will, at least, play to your strengths,” Seiji said as they set up on the strip. Nick stood where Seiji indicated he should, a little stunned to hear Seiji say he had strengths.
“Speed?”
“No,” Seiji said dryly. “Failing. You’ll be very successful in that today.”
And there was the Seiji Nick knew.
But Nick was fast and it did land him plenty of hits. And Seiji was still right about failing a lot.
“You’re making shit up now,” Nick accused. “That doesn’t make any sense. I hit first! You’d be dead in a real sword fight, how are you getting the points?”
“Because this isn’t a fight to the death and I’m not an imbecile.”
“Right of way is fucked up. I’m not at a four-way stop sign with you, I’m in a sword fight with you. I know half the stuff you’re saying is made up just to win because you can’t handle me beating you.”
“Coach Williams,” Seiji called, “Nicholas would like you to referee a bout when you have a moment. He doesn’t trust my judgment to be impartial.”
Williams sauntered over, sabre over her shoulder. She came to stand by their strip and raised an eyebrow.
“Get to it, then,” she told them.
Nick didn’t win a single point, and Williams left him with a stupidly smug Seiji after their bout and a few notes.
“Fine,” Nick grouched. “Let’s go again.”
Seiji was a pretty terrible teacher. He could tell Nick what he was doing wrong and he could tell Nick what the right way to do it was, but helping him get there? Tough luck. Sabre was even worse than épée because everything Nick did got him a recitation of a rule book with no help on how to apply those rules. Those stupid rules.
So Nick let go of winning and just fell back to having fun charging at Seiji as fast as he could, hitting hard and counting it as a victory in his own head because Seiji was dead first in terms of a real duel.
“You can’t just rush in with no thought,” Seiji said in frustration, tearing off his mask after ten minutes of Nick’s new sabre technique. “It’s true that there’s less blade work and far less time to strategize, but that doesn’t mean you can empty your head out of the three and a half brain cells you usually possess.”
“Hey, that’s half a cell more than the last time you insulted my intelligence,” Nick grinned. “You’re going soft.”
“I cannot believe I have to waste my time fencing you.”
Nick shrugged.
“I’m having fun.”
Seiji was visibly displeased at that. But there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
When the practice came to an end, Nick ended up paying for his fun. But so did Seiji, so he didn’t mind.
“Nicholas, Seiji,” Coach said as everyone put their sabres in the tall, stiff bag they’d been stored in, “as the pair with the worst bouts, you can put away the gear today. And after cake and the piñata, you’ll clean the salle.”
“Coach,” Seiji started tentatively, “I don’t mean to contradict you, but I’m a better sabre fencer than anyone in this room.” Seiji tipped his head, considering something. “Except, perhaps, for you.”
“Is that a challenge, Mr. Katayama?”
“No, Coach,” Seiji said seriously. “An observation only.”
With a laugh, Williams waved her hand to dismiss them.
Nick lugged the bag off to the closet. Seiji did the incredibly difficult task of carrying the key and unlocking the door.
“You are an absolute embarrassment,” Seiji hissed the moment they were in the closet.
“Not used to be picked out as the worst?” Nick asked, eyes moving in an arc at Seiji’s hissy fit.
“No. Because I’m the best. You dragged me down and made a fool of me, which seems to be another skill of yours.”
It wasn’t the most vicious thing Seiji had said to Nick. But it snapped something in him anyway. An embarrassment. Seiji couldn’t know it, but Nick worried about that exact thing—the way his existence would be an embarrassment to his father. And Nick was so fucking sick of that unearned shame hanging over his head all the time.
For the umpteenth time that day, Nick rushed at Seiji. Full throttle. Full, brutal impact.
Seiji hit the wall hard with a shout that harmonized with Nick’s snarl. His momentum was strong now, his hurtle too massive to be stopped by a wall. Nick’s snarl smashed right against Seiji’s face.
Another sound of alarm, this time more of a yelped protest than a shout. Nick didn’t register that his mouth was pressed to Seiji’s until that yelp opened Seiji’s lips beneath his. It wasn’t really a kiss, but it was close. And Seiji’s hands leaping to Nick’s shoulders didn’t shove him off. Shock had captured them both, but Nick’s emotions still swirled inside him, determined to get out. Seiji wasn’t in an optimal position to deck anymore. He was too close, pressed against Nick from chest to hips.
Nick pressed harder against Seiji, then pushed open his mouth wider. Churning feelings all but blinded him, but he held en garde. Prêt? his waiting mouth asked. Seiji answered with the tilt of his head, notching their mouths together.
Allez.
It was a split-second exchange and Nick didn’t waste even a fraction of that to launch his attack. Seiji was sharp and soft at once. Receptive and aggressive. His mouth was easy to manipulate and welcomed his teases of tongue and teeth, gasping out little sounds. His fingers were blades in Nick’s shoulders and then his arms were a vice around Nick’s neck. His body pressed warm and solid against Nick, but also tense and coiled. Like he might launch off the wall.
Nick didn’t want Seiji going anywhere. It was important now that he had Seiji here that he keep him. So he ran his hands down the stiff fabric of Seiji’s fencing jacket and then scooped under his hips, forcing him up and off the ground. Seiji said something—probably something less than kind—but Nick’s kisses devoured all traces of the words before he could process them. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Nothing did but the legs fitting over his hips and the swallowed moan against his mouth and the rush of overwhelming desire and pleasure at having this particular boy giving him all of it.
Seiji bit Nick’s lip when he—admittedly unwisely—groped Seiji’s ass a little. He didn’t give nips and pulls the way Nick had. He bit to draw blood.
“Fuck,” Nick gasped, pulling away. “Are you trying to rip off my lip?”
Seiji’s chest was heaving and his face was flushed, but even now, he looked down at Nick with shrewd, accusing eyes and a cast of superiority.
“Yes,” he said simply.
Nick kissed him again. Because, stupidly, Seiji’s answer made him want to. But then he let Seiji down.
Seiji steadied himself a moment before letting go of Nick, and then they stood in charged air. Seiji frowned down at his hands as if wondering why they’d held so tight.
Nick grabbed one of those hands and started hauling Seiji back toward the door.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s go get some cake.”
“What are you doing?” Seiji demanded, trying to jerk his hand out of Nick’s. “Let go of me.”
“Why? We’re boyfriends, right?”
Seiji’s heels dug into the floor, ceasing their progress toward the door.
“We’re what?”
“Boyfriends,” Nick repeated. In part just to watch Seiji flush and flounder angrily.
“We absolutely are not.”
Nick laughed and turned to face Seiji.
“Fine, then. I’ll ask properly. Will you be my boyfriend?”
“No. What sort of moron are you?”
Nick shrugged. He probably deserved that.
“Dunno. But I liked kissing you, and I’d like to kiss you again. So doesn’t it make sense to date?”
Seiji shook his head slowly, entirely incredulous. Nick thought he wore the expression well under red cheeks.
“It’s beyond foolish to rush into something with no thought. And even stupider to do it over a kiss.”
“Hesitating can lose you the point, right? Or the boy.” Nick’s words slackened Seiji’s set jaw and ensured his blush wasn’t leaving. That gave Nick reason to press on. “Which would be even worse.”
“You’re delusional.”
“Yeah.”
“We don’t even like each other, much less like each other.”
“So we’ll work it out. Between dates and kisses. And after cake.”
Seiji didn’t have a response. He stared at Nick. And then he sighed.
“You really will make a fool out of me today.”
“Great!” Nick squeezed Seiji’s hand. “Let’s go get that cake.”
