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Whenever Ren’s parents dragged him to Court estates, he was always unbelievably, painfully bored. He wasn’t allowed to play with the other children, had to wear uncomfortable shoes, and had to keep quiet. Practically torture for a seven-year-old with a wild imagination, a lot of energy, and a large pool of mana he didn’t have the best control over yet.
The estate they were currently visiting was fancy. Fancier than any other estate they’d visited together before. The entryway was grand, with a crystal chandelier hanging from an impossibly high ceiling. The floor was comprised of black and white marble tiles so shiny Ren swore he could see his reflection in them. There was even a fancy shoe rack for them to place their shoes in and slippers for them to wear inside.
The rules this time were even stricter; Ren had to be on his absolute best behavior at this house. His parents were meeting very important people today and needed to make sure they left a good impression. This meant Ren was to be (barely) seen and not heard, and to wait in a small living room while his parents went into a private study to talk about magic and legislature, whatever that meant.
After about two minutes of sitting alone on a plush couch, Ren decided he’d had enough of this room. He crept toward the doors he saw his parents disappear through and listened through the wood. Another man’s voice he could make out talking with his mother and it sounded serious. Which meant they would probably be a while. A long while.
Quietly as a mouse, Ren slinked out of the room and into the hallway. He had no idea where he was going, letting his curiosity guide him. As he walked, he peeked into other rooms. They all had an elegant charm to them but… they didn’t look lived in. Everything was pristine, not a chair out of place. It was hard to believe another kid lived here, if his parents hadn’t told him Ren would have never thought they did. There was no sign of him in any of the rooms Ren snuck around so he figured he must just not be home. Bummer.
With a sigh, Ren approached the last set of doors at the end of the hall. They were closed and when he tried the handles, they jiggled but didn’t budge. Locked. They were the only ones that were so that must have meant something cool or secret was inside. Glancing around to make sure he was alone, he placed his hands back on the handles and closed his eyes. He’d gotten pretty good at breaking ward locks at home, to the point Ren could reseal the ward without his parents ever knowing he’d gotten in. He figured he could do the same here.
Ren took a deep breath in. Focus. As he exhaled, he channeled a little bit of his mana into the handles. When he opened his eyes he found a shimmering blue glyph hovering between them. Small tendrils of light wove around keeping the handles together, just like the ones at home. Carefully, he started picking apart the strands until the glyph glowed a bright white and faded away. Yes! He gave himself a discreet fist pump and opened the doors.
“Woah,” Ren whispered to himself as he stepped inside the room.
It was a library of sorts, with lots of windows letting the sunlight illuminate the room. The shelves of books left long shadows in stripes across the pale blue carpet. Upon the ceiling was a painted night sky scene with constellations scattered across. However, that wasn’t the most interesting part of the room.
The chessboard in the center was.
The board made of cherry-colored wood sat on a beautiful marble table with intricate glass pieces lined up on either side. Ren walked around the table, taking it in from all angles. The sunlight from above refracted through the pieces, casting little rainbows across the board’s surface and mesmerizing Ren entirely. He wondered if they felt as smooth as they looked.
“What are you doing?”
Ren jolted and his hand closed around the King piece on reflex. He turned around to find another young boy, probably his age dressed in fine clothing like Ren, wearing a satchel over his left shoulder, glaring at him with his hands on his hips.
“Um,” Ren said, forgetting all the etiquette lessons his parents forced him to sit through, and shoved his hands behind his back, hiding the piece. “Nothing?”
“Oh really? You don’t look like you’re doing nothing.”
The boy smiled, but in such an unkind way that Ren didn’t feel at ease at all. Then he opened his mouth and Ren watched his short life flash before his eyes. “MO—”
The rest of the boy’s yell got muffled by Ren’s free hand closing over it.
“Please, please don’t tell! I’ll put it back, I was just looking I promise–ow!” Ren ripped his hand away, looking at it in horror. Several small teeth marks indented his palm. He snapped his head back up. “You bit me!”
“That’s what you get,” the boy sneered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Goro? Are you okay? What’s going on?” A beautiful woman rushed into the room, her golden brown hair spilling from twisted and clipped behind her head. Concern was written all over her face—a face that looked very similar to the boy, Goro. “Oh,” she said, her expression relaxing as she took in Ren.
Goro pointed at him. “I caught him sneaking around stealing our stuff!”
“He bit me!” Ren argued. His heart pounded in his chest. Was he going to get in trouble now? “And I wasn’t gonna do it, I was just looking.”
“Liar! Then why do you still have that piece behind your back?”
“Goro! Where are your manners?” she chided, stepping in between them.
“But—he—”
Goro’s mother silenced him with a look and turned to Ren. “Hi there, you must be the Amamiyas’ boy..”
“...hi,” he said shyly.
“What’s your name?”
Ren told her and caught Goro’s eye. He was standing with his arms crossed glaring at him.
“Well Ren, it’s nice to meet you, my name is Akechi Suzume, and this is my son, Akechi Goro,” she said, gesturing to him and his grouchy expression. “Do you like chess?”
“Um… I don’t know. I’ve never played before.”
Goro said, “See, he was going to take the piece for himself.”
“Let’s give him a chance, Goro-chan. He said he was just looking, and I want to believe him.”
Goro sighed and muttered, “He doesn’t even know how to play.”
“Can I see it?” Akechi-san said to Ren, holding out her hand.
He nodded and placed it in her awaiting palm.
“This is the King piece,” she explained stepping toward the board and putting it back. “It’s the most important piece in the game. Also, this board is really special so we can’t risk losing it. Why don’t we go back to the living room and I can bring out a different chessboard for you to play with? How does that sound?”
She led Ren and Goro back to the original room he’d been left in, and true to her word, she went and got a portable chessboard. The board was made of wood, not marble, and so were the pieces. They had little pieces of felt glued to the bottom that made sliding them across the surface to set them up easy. (And kinda fun).
Before Akechi-san could start explaining anything, Ren quietly asked her, “...are you gonna tell my parents I was sneaking around?”
His stomach twisted as she studied him. “Will you get punished if they found out?”
Ren stayed quiet.
“Then it’ll be our secret,” she said.
“Mom!”
“It’ll be yours too, Goro. Imagine if you went exploring and your father caught you.”
Goro went quiet, too.
“Now, let’s teach our new friend Ren how to play. Do you want to explain the pieces?”
For the next thirty minutes, Ren learned how to play chess. Or learned what some of the pieces did and then got steamrolled by Goro and his mother. He decided then and there that he was going to get a chessboard and practice just so the next time he saw Goro, he could wipe that smirk off his face when he beat him. However, that wasn’t going to happen today, and Goro’s mother knew it. When Akechi-san tried to join Ren for a match to keep him from getting discouraged, Goro latched onto her arm and stared at her with big, sad eyes.
“Then you play with Ren against me,” she told him with a smirk of her own.
“Me? Play with him? He still can’t tell the bishops apart from the rooks!”
“Then help him.”
“Ugh, fine,” Goro said, crawling over to sit on Ren’s side of the board. He told Ren, “Try and keep up, will you?”
Unfortunately, Akechi-san was much better at chess than Ren and Goro combined.
The doors to the study swung open and Ren’s parents walked out beside a bald man.
“Thank you Shido-san,” Ren’s mother said, with a bow. “I look forward to our next meeting.”
“Father!” Goro sprung up off the floor and grabbed his bag, running over to them. “Look what I drew today!”
He pulled a sketchbook from the bag and opened it to show Shido.
“That’s nice, Goro,” his father said, barely glancing at the drawing before turning back to Ren’s parents and resuming the conversation.
Goro’s shoulders sagged as his father left him behind, walking toward the foyer with Ren’s parents.
Ren stepped up next to Goro and asked, “Can I see what you drew?”
He should have been following his parents like they expected him to, but he couldn’t help but feel bad for Goro. He understood all too well what it was like to feel ignored.
Goro hugged his sketchbook to his chest, hiding it from view. “Why?” he asked warily.
“Show him your art, Goro. Maybe you two have more in common than you think. Maybe Ren likes to draw too,” his mother said with an encouraging smile.
Goro contemplated his mother’s words and gave Ren another wary once over before slowly lowering his sketchbook enough for Ren to peek.
“Oh, is that Redhawk?” Ren said excitedly.
Goro’s eyes widened. “You like Featherman?”
“I love Featherman! He looks really good, Goro!”
Goro’s cheeks turned pink and he quickly closed the book. “It’s not that good, it’s just a sketch.”
“Did you draw any others?”
“Just a couple—”
“Ren? We’re leaving,” his mother called. Her tone told Akira she wasn’t happy about having to call for him.
“I gotta go,” he told Goro reluctantly. “Thank you for showing me, and playing with me today! I had fun.”
“Oh, um, you’re welcome…”
“Hopefully, we’ll see you again soon, Ren,” Akechi-san said to him. “You’ll always be welcome here.”
Goro Akechi was the son of Masayoshi Shido, the lead councilor in their Kingdom’s Magical Court and Ren’s parents’ boss. Or maybe not quite boss but they worked together as far as Ren understood, which was why that Ren practically spent all summer at their estate. Goro’s attitude toward Ren slowly ebbed into curiosity, then a tentative sort of friendliness, into a full-blown camaraderie. While his parents disappeared with Shido and a couple of other adults, Ren spent his afternoons with Goro and his mother. Or escaping her, rather. It became a game to try and hide from her, one she willingly engaged in as long as they didn’t jump on any furniture or break anything. It didn't stop them from getting in trouble from time to time, sneaking around and stealing food from the kitchens, or breaking into rooms they shouldn’t have been in, but they did it all together. Toward the end of the summer, Ren asked his mother if they could invite Goro over to their estate to play. To his great surprise, his mother agreed. Arrangements were made, and to his even greater surprise, Goro was even allowed to sleep over.
“C’mon, let’s just try it!”
“No, we have to do it step by step!” Goro argued pointing at the page in an old book of spells they found in Ren’s father’s library. “If we don’t, it won’t work!”
“Fiiiiiine.” Ren huffed and squatted down in front of Goro.
He was sitting cross-legged in the grass with the book in his lap reading intently. Ren plucked at the grass between his knees, watching Goro trace the runes that made up the binding glyph they wanted to use to catch a bird.
It’s not their smartest idea, but when you’re eight years old, you hold vendettas against the birds that steal the sandwich you were having for lunch right out of your hands.
“We should practice on something before we try it on the bird,” Goro said a few minutes later, looking up at Ren with a determined glint in his eyes.
“Okay,” Ren agreed. “With what?”
“Each other.” Goro grabbed his hands, effectively stopping him from destroying a small section of the yard. “I’ll teach you the motions.”
Ren shifted his weight forward to kneel in the grass, getting comfortable as Goro arranged his hands through a series of motions. It was a fairly simple cast, but Goro made him practice three more times on his own, correcting the positions until Ren got it right.
“Alright, I’ll go first,” Goro announced, holding his hands up in front of him. “Back up a little bit.”
Ren did as he was told and watched Goro summon some of his mana to his fingertips, making them glow with wisps of gold. It almost sparkled in the sunlight. Ren didn’t get much time to admire Goro’s magic before he completed the glyph and cast it. It shot forward with more energy than either of them expected, hitting Ren square in the chest. A golden tether of Goro’s magic pulled taut between them.
“Huh?” Ren managed to get out before he was forcibly yanked at terrifying speed toward Goro, crashing into him and toppling them both into a tangled heap of flailing limbs and loud screeches.
“Get off me!”
“I can’t! I’m stuck!”
“Ough!”
“Goro—stop moving—”
He didn’t.
Goro actually got a little more frantic, trying to shove Ren repeatedly, and none too softly. It prompted Ren to fight back, trying to get a hold of Goro’s hands to physically get him to stop.
“Goro, you gotta break the spell—it’s literally binding me to you!”
“I can’t—see the glyph—when you’re on top of me!”
“I have an idea, Ren said, finally getting them to stop rolling around in the yard. He had both of Goro’s wrists in his hands, pinned on either side of Goro’s shoulders. They were chest to chest and nearly nose to nose, the binding keeping Ren plastered on. He could tell Goro was getting tuckered out from the wrestling and that was probably the only reason why he could pin his hands in the first place. “You gotta listen to me, ‘kay?”
Goro nodded.
“Put Your right hand on my left shoulder.” Ren guided Goro’s hand between their bodies and put it on the front part of his shoulder. “Okay, keep it there. I’m gonna put my left hand on your right shoulder and when I count to three, we’re both gonna push and keep our arms locked. Ready?”
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three!”
They pushed together and managed to create enough space that they could see the glowing glyph on Ren’s chest. However, he could see Goro’s arm start to tremble from the weight of the spell so he knew they didn’t have much time.
“Okay, now break the ward to release the spell, you know how, right?”
“I—I can do it.” The hesitant pause didn’t reassure Ren in the slightest.
“Let’s do it together,” Ren said and held the back of Goro’s left hand with his right. Together, they channeled their mana into the glyph and reverse-traced it, sifting through the original magic binding them together. “Now, release!”
Goro made a fist and then opened it with a small burst of mana, knocking Ren off to the side. Ren let out a victory whoop! as the glyph faded from his chest into dust.
“We did it!”
Goro sat up and brushed off blades of grass of his shirt. “I don’t think I want to catch that bird after all.”
“Me neither,” Ren said with a smile.
“...how did you know how to do that?” Goro asked quietly.
“What? Sifting?”
Goro tilted his head. “Sifting?”
“Yeah, actually it’s really called wardsifting. It’s like… how to unlock what holds a spell together!” Ren said excitedly. “Sometimes, if you mess up a spell and need to undo it, or like, end a spell that lasts a long time, you can break into it to get it to go away!”
“Where’d you learn that?”
“Well, I did it on accident the first time,” Ren explained, twirling a piece of his hair. “I undid a spell that kept the pantry shut because I wanted to eat some pocky before dinner. I didn’t know My mom had to explain to me what I did and then told me I wasn’t supposed to do it again.”
“...but you did.”
Ren tugged on his hair and smiled softly. “I did.”
Much later, after the sun had set and Ren’s mother had convinced them to change into their pajamas and brush their teeth, Ren collapsed inside their pillow fort, out of breath after racing Goro there. Goro collapsed beside him shortly after.
“I don’t wana stop playing,” Goro mumbled into his pillow.
“Me neither,” Ren said rolling over to face Goro. “Maybe, once my parents go to bed, we can sneak out and explore s’more!”
“How long do you think that’ll take?”
“Hmm… I’m not sure.” Ren said, shimming closer. “I usually just wait until all the lights go out. We’ll just have to do something else in here ‘til then. We gotta make sure we don’t fall asleep.”
“I want to stay up all night,” Goro said softly. “I don’t want today to end.”
“Me neither,” Ren agreed. “What should we do?”
“Why don’t I ask you a question, and then you ask a question?”
“About what?”
Goro shrugged. “Anything, I guess.”
“Okay, ask me!”
“Hmm…” Goro brought his hand up to his chin as he thought. “...can you teach me how to wardsift?”
Ren sat up with a smile. “Right now?”
They killed sometime practicing on Ren’s dresser drawers. Ren cast a simple lock spell, like the kind he found in his pantry, and walked Goro through breaking them. Where it came naturally to Ren, it didn’t for Goro. He ended up getting a little frustrated with how slow his progress was and Ren promised they could keep practicing tomorrow morning before he left to go home to save the rest of the energy for sneaking around.
Footsteps sounded down the hall and they both rushed to crawl into their pillow fort, stifling giggles into their pillows. The bedroom door slid open a crack and they pretended to sleep until it closed and the footsteps faded away.
Ren cracked an eye open to find Goro staring at him.
“Ren’s your turn,” Goro whispered with a crooked smile.
That smile… was Goro’s real smile. Not the plasticky one he used around all the adults when he was on his best behavior. This one was the fun one. The rough one. The sometimes slightly mean but well-intentioned one. The one Ren liked best. It made Ren’s chest feel warm inside to see Goro give it so easily here to him. He felt special. Like it was a secret that only Ren knew about, and Goro wanted him to see. Ren didn’t think there was anyone else quite like Goro. Goro was his favorite person, and he hoped… he hoped he was Goro’s. There was one way he could find out… if he was brave enough to ask.
Ren swallowed the thick lump in his throat. “Can I ask you something, um, personal?”
“What?” Goro whispered, his brows furrowed as he shifted closer.
It was now or never.
“...will you be my best friend?”
Goro blinked at him, his mouth slightly parted. “You… you want me…?”
“Yeah!” Ren rushed to explain. Goro seemed confused, so maybe he needed to tell him why. “I’ve never met anyone as cool as you! You like Featherman, and like exploring, and wrestling with me, and racing! And we like all the same food and always split our dorayaki, and you play chess with me, and—”
Goro threw his hands over his face.
“--Goro?” Ren said, shuffling closer until they were on the same pillow. He touched one of Goro’s hands and asked, “Are you okay?”
Goro mumbled something into his hands.
“What?’ Ren tugged on his wrist. “I can’t h—”
“I said, yes, I’ll be your best friend!” Goro yelled.
They both went still and immediately stared at Ren’s door. When they didn’t hear any footsteps, they both turned back toward each other and settled back down, relieved.
“You really will?” Ren whispered excitedly. “Be my best friend?”
“Yes, you… you seem like you’d be a great one. I like all those things about you, too.” In the pale light, Ren could see Goro’s face was a little pink when he turned half his face into his pillow, watching Ren with only one eye. “I… I’ve never been a best friend before.”
“I haven’t either,” Ren confessed. “You’ll be my first.”
Goro’s mouth, from what Ren can see, curves up.
“We gotta make it official,” Ren announced in a hushed voice.
“How?”
“You gotta pinky swear it!”
“Oh, okay.” Goro turned back to face Ren fully and awkwardly held out his hand.
Ren realized Goro probably had never done this before, so he explained, “Best friends always pinky swear. I read it in a book.”
He hooked his pinky with Goro’s and held up their connected hands. “Now you gotta squeeze to seal the promise!”
“...we should lock and unlock it instead.”
“Huh?”
Goro summoned a small burst of mana and wound it into a glyph over their hooked fingers. A little gold tether wound its way around, binding them.
“You’ve gotten better at that since this afternoon,” Ren giggled.
“Shut up.” Goro stuck out his tongue. “Now you complete it by sifting!”
“Okay.” Excitement coursed through Ren’s veins and he sifted through Goro’s spell, feeling his magic give way under his control. The gold light faded around their pinkies, leaving them in the dark once more.
Ren didn’t want to let go so he simply lowered their hands back down on the futon between them. Apparently, Goro didn’t either.
“What else do best friends do?” Goro asked quietly. “In that book you read?”
“Well, they play together every chance they get and they tell each other everything. They get each other gifts for their birthdays, wear friendship bracelets…” Ren rattled off every single thing he could remember the characters did together in the manga he’d read, and then some more he thought of on the spot that he wanted to do with Goro—who made appreciative hums of agreement here and then as Ren talked. But when he stopped giving Ren those hums, Ren paused.
“Goro.”
“Goro,” Ren said a little louder.
“Goro.” Ren poked him with the hand that wasn’t still holding Goro’s. That got Goro to stir. “Are you tired?”
“I’m not tired, you’re tired,” Goro mumbled, stifling a yawn. “My eyes are just heavy, that’s all.”
“Not uh,” Ren countered, but a yawn suddenly overcame him and he failed to stifle it.
He didn’t want to fall asleep. There was so much more he wanted to do with Goro. All the fun stuff they weren’t supposed to do like get midnight snacks and watch T.V. downstairs in the basement… but maybe… when Goro slept over next… they could do those things.
“…do you know what else best friends do?”
“No.” Goro’s eyes opened again, but Ren could tell he was struggling.
“They fall asleep together! The characters in the book I read did! They shared their toys and their clothes and their beds! My mom and dad are best friends too and they sleep in the same bed all the time. So it’s what best friends do.”
“...my parents don’t share a bed.” Goro looked away. “Father isn’t home a lot at night, and my mother has her own bed somewhere else.”
“Maybe they aren’t best friends?”
“…maybe.”
“Well, we’re best friends now, and that means we can have sleepovers all the time and fall asleep together in the same bed. And you know what the best part is?”
Goro looked back at him, hopeful. “What’s the best part?”
“We get to wake up together and immediately start playing again.”
A sleepy, crooked smile broke over Goro’s face. “I like the sound of that.”
“Goodnight, Goro.”
“Goodnight, Ren. See you in the morning.”