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Tar knew he’d made a mistake the instant he mentioned that he and Hilo were going to be living together for their eighth and final year at Kaul Du Academy. His mother’s face froze and for a long minute she didn’t say anything. Then she’d said something else like she hadn’t even heard him. He really knew he’d made a mistake when, after dinner when Kehn had left the house for night shift as a Finger, she’d concocted an excuse to send Wen out of the house and demanded that Tar help her with the dishes instead.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you and Kaul Hilo to live together,” she said mock casually as Tar put a plate away in the cupboard.
He froze. He had gathered that the mention of him living with Hilo had been a mistake but he hadn’t expected her to say anything so flat out. “What could possibly be wrong with us living together? I can’t live with Kehn anymore and Hilo actually likes me unlike the guy I was stuck with last year.”
“The two of you have gotten very close,” his mother said in a weighted way.
“What does that matter?”
“People are going to start noticing,” she said. “And talking.”
“Again, what does it matter?” Tar asked. “You’ve said it yourself a million times. We’re Maiks; people are always talking about us.”
“You’re pretending not to understand me on purpose,” his ma accused. “Listen, no one will be surprised that you’re queer. If the gods see fit to punish our family with even more bad luck than Wen already is, we have no choice but to bear it, but Kaul Hiloshudon is the grandson of the Pillar of No Peak and you and Kehn aren’t the only ones I’ve heard rumors from that his grandfather plans to have him groomed to be Horn. A young man from a disgraced family being queer is one thing, but a young man from the ruling family of the clan? That’s another. No Peak cannot afford to have bad luck so near the top. Which do you think Kaul Hilo will pick if he has to choose between being with you and being Horn? No—” she cut him off before he could protest. “Think it through as a man not a lovesick child, which do you think?”
“I—” Tar wasn’t sure what to say. There must have been something he could say to convince his mother that what he and Hilo felt for each was real, that Hilo would never forsake him, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.
“A relationship like that is all for nothing, Tar-se,” his ma said unspeakably gently for the blow she’d just delivered. “I’m sorry but it’s true.”
Tar turned and fled into the bedroom he and Kehn shared. His mother did not call him back to finish the dishes and that spoke volumes. He slammed the door and threw himself onto his bed in a fit of true teenage rage. He sobbed until he heard Wen get home and his ma talking to her in the living room. Then he wiped his face, blew his nose and crept from his room and into the kitchen again.
The phone hung on the wall near the door. Tar knew the number he dialed by heart from hours spent lying in bed studying the scrap of notebook paper it had been written on, but even though he’d had it since holiday break after year-four he’d never dared to actually call it. Now as the phone rang he wondered if this was a good idea. What would he do if someone else picked up? Could he just say who he wanted to speak to? What if they asked who he was and what he wanted?
The phone on the other end was picked up. “Hello?” Hilo asked. There was no polite phone greeting. Perhaps the Kauls were too important and powerful for that, or perhaps the phone number Hilo had given Kehn and Tar for his home was a more private number than Tar had thought it was.
There wasn’t room in Tar’s head to consider those kinds of things right now, though. “It’s me,” he said. “You said that if I ever wanted to do something over break I should just call no matter the time. I’m calling now. Get me out of this hell hole.”
There was a brief pause and some shuffling like Hilo was maybe looking around to see if he was alone. “Okay,” he said. “Give me half an hour and I’ll be at yours to pick you up.”
~~~~
Tar returned to his bedroom and sat on his bed looking out the window and trying to pull himself together until a sleek black sportscar pulled up with the headlights off and parked on the other side of the street. Tar got up, stuffed his feet into his shoes, pulled on his coat, checked for his talon knife and let himself out into the hall.
The fire escape was through the hall window. Tar slid the window carefully up, trying not to let it squeak, then climbed through and closed the window behind him. He descended the fire escape and darted across the street to drop into the passenger seat of the sportscar.
“Hi,” Hilo said and leaned over. Tar leaned to meet him and they shared a quick, soft kiss.
“What’s wrong?” Hilo asked when they pulled apart. He frowned as he studied Tar’s face. “You sounded upset on the phone and you look like you’ve been crying. What happened?”
Tar shook his head and leaned back in his seat. “Just drive before my ma notices this car and figures out what’s going on.”
Hilo gave him a dubious look, but put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. When they had turned off Tar’s street he put the headlights on again.
“Whose car is this?” Tar asked. The Maiks couldn’t afford a car so Tar could not drive. He was deeply jealous of the fact that Hilo could and fascinated by the Kaul family’s vehicles. The Kauls seemed to have an inexhaustible number of fancy cars and Tar couldn’t recall if he’d ever seen this one before.
“It’s Lan’s,” Hilo said. “He’s been on Ship Street with Grandda all afternoon working on clan stuff and they took Grandda’s car. I didn’t have any problem getting out of the estate, so I think the guards must have thought I was Lan. Hopefully I’ll beat him and Grandda back and no one will be the wiser about me borrowing it. If not, I left one of my coats in Lan’s room while I was in there looking for the keys. If I’m lucky, he’ll realize I have the car and not tell Grandda. It’s a long shot, but better than nothing,” he changed the subject before Tar could think of a response, “But really, what’s going on? You look like someone strangled your puppy.”
Tar was embarrassed that he had to wipe his eyes on his sleeve. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Just a stupid fight with my ma.”
“Ouch,” Hilo made a sympathetic face. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” Tar said. “I want a distraction. So I don’t have to think about it.”
“Okay,” Hilo said, trustingly. He thought for a moment before brightening. “Tell you what, I know where your now ex-roommate, the Bastard, lives. Wanna go egg his house?”
Kehn and Tar had lived together for the first six years Tar had been at the Academy both because that was their preference and because no one else wanted to live with the disgraced Maiks. Unfortunately Kehn was two years older and when he’d graduated Tar had been randomly assigned to live with another boy who was both a massive dick and appalled to have to share space with a Maik. Tar and Hilo both hated him and had taken to referring to him as the Bastard instead of his real name and enacting numerous petty acts of vengeance on him. Those had always taken place on Academy grounds, though.
“How did you figure out where he lives?” Tar asked.
Hilo grinned. “I may or may not have climbed into Rotan-jen’s house through a window this afternoon and gone poking through his home office. The Bastard’s father is a senior Finger and Rotan-jen’s got the addresses and phone numbers of all the clan’s Fists and Fingers in his address book.”
“Why were you breaking into the Horn’s house?” Tar couldn’t help but ask.
Hilo shrugged. “I was bored out of my fucking mind. Grandda says I can’t have a car until I take oaths and become a Finger and after that time I snuck out and took the bus to Asei’s New Year’s party last year and then got in a fight at the transit station at four in the morning I’m forbidden from using any form of public transportation, so I can’t really go anywhere or see anyone without risking getting in big trouble. Everyone’s always too busy to supervise me wearing jade to train and training without it is no fun. And I have to ration how much time I spend teasing Shae when we’re at home because if I piss her off too much she’ll run to Grandda and then I’ll be in deep shit because she’s his favorite. I needed something to do.”
Tar laughed. Hilo’s problems were always so different from his own that listening to them was fun and relaxing. Of course, he knew that to some extent Hilo was performing Kaul Hiloshudon Carefree Second Son of No Peak right now. Tar had asked for a distraction and Hilo was providing it. That knowledge only made Tar like him more, though.
“So what do you say to my evil plot for the Bastard’s house?” Hilo asked.
Tar studied his boyfriend. Hilo was dressed casually in sweatpants and a tee-shirt. Not the sort of clothes he normally went out in public in. It touched Tar that Hilo hadn’t even taken time to change before coming to him. There was something else about Hilo too, something in the vibrancy of his expressions and the sharpness of his gaze that was familiar but also subtly out of place in this car.
Then he realized. “Are you wearing jade?” he asked.
Hilo smiled his lopsided smile that Tar thought was so cute that he wondered if being in love was making him go soft every time he saw it. “I wondered how long it would take you to notice,” he pulled his left pants leg up just enough that Tar could see his training band fastened securely around his ankle.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Tar asked. As a reward for finishing year-seven at the Academy they’d been allowed to carry their training bands around with them and wear them in the presence of older Green Bones. Obviously, there were no older Green Bones here in this car.
“It’s fine,” Hilo said. “If I was going to get the Itches and go mad from three pieces of jade, I think it would have happened ages ago. Besides, if we’d been born a generation ago we’d have been wearing jade full-time and fighting the Shotarians by this time anyway. Us not being able to wear jade without supervision until next year is a formality.”
Hilo was a master of all the kinds of trouble one could get into at the Academy and most of that trouble was met with minor to no consequences because he was Kaul Sen’s grandson. However his tendency to wear jade whenever he could even when he did not have permission to was one bit of trouble that caused much concern for the Academy’s teachers. Everyone agreed that—now that the rigors of the martial education offered by Kaul Du Academy had weeded out all the underreactive students—Hilo had the highest jade tolerance of their entire year, without having any of the issues using jade energy that tended to plague Green Bones with very high tolerances. Still, a teenager who had no respect for limits placed on their exposure to jade for their own safety was highly concerning, especially when that teenager was expected to go on to be a high ranked Fist, a group who had an open secret-type reputation having a high proportion of Green Bones who suffered from long-term jade overexposure. There apparently had been discussions about not granting Hilo the privilege of carrying his training band, though that had fizzled out when faced with the fact that someone would have to explain the reasoning behind that choice to Kaul Sen.
Unlike the teachers, however, Tar trusted that Hilo knew his own limits. Besides, Hilo made a good point about eighteen only being the age they were allowed to graduate and begin wearing jade full-time because they were no longer at war. “I should have brought mine,” he said.
“You should have,” Hilo agreed. “I thought of it right after we hung up and almost called back to tell you to, but that might have tipped someone off that I was coming over.”
“It’s fine,” Tar said, making a mental note to have his training band next time, though. “Also, I do like the idea of egging the Bastard’s house,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
~~~~
Hilo found a convenience store and parked the car out front. Tar had to admit to a notable degree of anxiety as they headed inside. Since he was wearing his training band hidden under his clothes, Hilo would have an aura but not be showing any visible green. Tar knew that neither of them were likely to pass as old enough to be Fingers—Hilo especially was constantly judged to be several years younger than he actually was. Kehn had mentioned this store as a place frequented by the Green Bones of the clan and things could get messy if one of them saw Hilo as a teenager with an aura who was hiding his jade and jumped to the wrong conclusions.
Thankfully, there were no Green Bones in the store. They picked out two dozen eggs and then snacks. “Get anything you want,” Hilo said. “I’m buying.”
Kaul Hilo lived in a world where money was never any object, which was the exact opposite of the Maiks. Tar knew it made Kehn uncomfortable and ashamed when Hilo bought things for them, but Tar didn’t mind it. In fact he found the chance to live the life of a Kaul vicariously to be a rush akin to wearing jade.
The clerk eyed their purchases dubiously when they went to check out, especially the eggs. “You boys have plans for the night?” he asked.
Hilo gave the clerk a sunny, guileless smile. “His ma’s having a big party tomorrow,” he said, jerking his thumb at Tar. “She forgot to buy eggs when she was out shopping and didn’t want to have to go out tomorrow after she starts cooking.”
The look the clerk gave them said he didn’t believe that story, but he sighed and finished the transaction. “I need to get a new job,” he grumbled to himself and handed them the bags. “Have fun.”
~~~~
Egging the Bastard’s house went spectacularly. Tar and Hilo parked Lan-jen’s car several streets over and approached via the alleys. Then they crossed out onto the street and unloaded their cargo. Hilo’s throws were especially impressive and Tar wished he’d thought to bring his training band as well; who knew Strength was good for throwing eggs? When they’d gone through all their ammunition they vanished down the alley again just as the Bastard’s ma burst out of the house to see what was going on. Within ten minutes they were on the freeway speeding away from the scene of the crime.
It was late enough now that the freeway was nearly empty. Hilo smashed down the sportscar’s gas pedal and they flew, the windows open and wind whipping at their hair. They were both high on their own audacity and laughing wildly. Tar’s melancholy was nearly gone, replaced with a fierce and all-consuming love for the boy in the seat next to him. Kaul Hilo was
far and away the best thing that had ever happened to him and would ever happen to him. Every single experience Tar would ever have from here on out would be a let-down and he could not find it in himself to be disappointed.
Eventually they ended up somewhere just outside of Janloon on a small stretch of beach. They sat on the hood of the car and ate their snacks. They laughed and talked and made out, then laughed and talked and made out again. Time passed and the sky began to blue with the approaching dawn. They’d been out all night, neither of them had slept and their families had definitely noticed they were gone. They were both going to be in so much trouble, but neither of them cared.
Things had been so wonderful, that Tar had almost forgotten this had all happened because he’d asked Hilo to distract him. Then Hilo, staring up at the sky, said, “We’re going to have to head home soon, probably. Are you sure you don’t want to talk about the fight you had with your ma?”
Tar opened his mouth intending to tell Hilo that yes, he was sure he didn’t want to talk about it, but what came out was, “It was about you.”
“What?” Hilo propped himself up on his elbows and granted Tar a skeptical eyebrow. “How did you and your ma get in a fight about me?”
“She doesn’t approve of the fact that we’re living together next year,” Tar explained. “And of how close we are.”
“Oh,” Hilo said. “So it’s the good old, ‘you and Kaul Hilo are too close. If you’re not careful people are going to start thinking you’re unlucky’ speech?”
“Not really,” Tar said. “Apparently its unsurprising that I’m queer. It was more of a ‘you and Kaul Hilo are too close. If you’re not careful his family is going to realize he’s queer,’ speech.”
For a split-second Hilo’s face froze into a mute horror and then the expression was gone and he was saying breezily, “Yeah, well they’ll have to find out sooner or later, won’t they?” but Tar couldn’t forget the expression. Over the years he’d figured out that his boyfriend cared far more about his grandfather’s opinion of him than even Hilo himself realized. It didn’t matter that—as Hilo had explained many times—the worst of Kaul Sen’s threats were empty, the Pillar’s distain for his second grandchild was open and endless. It would have been hard for anyone to bear, especially someone like Hilo who so desperately wanted to be loved.
Tar remembered what his mother had said. “Which do you think Kaul Hilo will pick if he has to choose between being with you and being Horn?” He believed that Hilo loved him and cared about him and intended to stick with him no matter what, but would he really be able to do that when it came down his grandda finding out? Tar thought Hilo would stand his ground even then, but was he sure? He thought he was sure. Maybe he was sure. He cursed his mother for making him think about whether he was sure.
“She just—” he said and decided to tell a small lie to move away from further discussion of Hilo’s family. “It wasn’t just what she said, it was how she said it. Like it’s somehow Wen and my fault we’re unlucky. Like it isn’t at least half her fault our family is disgraced and cursed by the gods. It’s not Wen and my fault,” he repeated more fervently.
“Of course it’s not,” Hilo said. “To be completely honest, I’m not even sure it makes sense to say stone-eyes and queerness are curses of bad luck from the gods. Jade nonreactivity is just a thing that happens sometimes with Kekonese genes. They literally taught us that in science class last year. Don’t look at me like that, I do pay attention in class sometimes, no matter what Shae says. Anyway, if stone-eyes aren’t punishment it doesn’t make sense to say queerness is either. Why would one have a non-religious explanation and the other not? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Tar was far less comfortable stating that kind of blasphemy so blithely. Not for the first time he considered cultivating his own brand of Hilo’s confident atheism. “I guess…” he said.
Hilo leaned forwards and pressed his lips to Tar’s briefly, then he pulled back just a little, their noses were still touching when he said, “Does this feel unlucky to you?”
“No,” Tar said honestly. “Nothing about you has ever felt unlucky.”
Hilo smiled. “I rest my case. You’re not unlucky, Tar. Neither am I. Neither is Wen. And it’s cruddy of your ma to make you feel like you need to feel guilty for things she and your da did.”
That was not at all what had been bothering Tar about the fight, but he wasn’t going to tell Hilo what the real problem was and it was comforting to hear Hilo say those things anyway. He loved how sure Hilo was of everything. It made him feel like he could just trust that whatever Hilo told him to do would always be the right thing. “I love you,” he said.
“I love you too,” Hilo replied and kissed him again.
As they kissed Tar came to a realization. He wouldn’t be able to survive Hilo choosing his career in the clan over him. He’d rather break up with Hilo himself than have to know whether Hilo would choose becoming Horn or being with him. In fact that was exactly what he’d do, he decided. He’d enjoy loving Hilo for as long as he could and then break it off. He’d make the decision first so he never had to know what Hilo would choose. That was the best possible solution.
He twisted his fingers into Hilo’s hair and deepened their kiss, pulling Hilo back down onto the hood of the car so he didn’t have to explain why he was tearing up again.
~~~~
Approximately eighteen years later, when Tar is about to be banished from Kekon for the murder of his fiancé he says something he probably would never have said if he wasn’t still drunk and going into jade withdrawal, “You know, Hilo-jen, I never actually fell out of love with you. When we broke up all those years ago, I only suggested that we should try seeing other people because we had just become Fists and people were starting to figure out what was really going on between us. It was only a matter of time until someone told your grandda and I didn’t want to know if you’d choose me or becoming Horn if you had to make that choice.”
Hilo’s back is to him. He hasn’t really looked at Tar since he came into his study after seeing Iyn’s body, at least not in the way that Tar is used to Hilo looking at him, and it’s only gotten worse since Hilo wasn’t strong enough to give the Iyn family the justice they deserve, so Tar watches his reaction in the way every single muscle in Hilo’s body goes tense. Hilo turns around very slowly. He looks like he can’t decide whether he wants to cry or punch Tar in the face.
“I don’t know if there would have ever been a good time to tell me that,” he says. “But it sure as hell wasn’t tonight.”
~~~~
Fourteen years after that, Tar and Hilo talk on a hospital phone for what Tar knows really will be the last time. The conversation about the Keko-Espenian Green Bone lawyer Hilo is going to send to talk to Tar has wound down to a close, Tar is wondering if maybe he should hang up, but also thinking that he should let Hilo decide when the conversation is over when Hilo speaks again,
“I would have chosen you,” he says.
“What?” Tar asks, wondering if he’s gotten distracted and missed something. “I’m sorry, Hilo-jen, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The night I banished you from Janloon,” Hilo explains. “You told me that you’d broken up with me because you didn’t want to know if I’d have picked you if Grandda forced me to choose. I would have chosen you. Even if it meant that I’d never have been Horn, I still would have chosen you. I have always loved you just as much as I did when we were kids.”
Tar’s at a loss for words. He has no idea what to say to that. It is more than he’d ever dared hope for and far more than he deserves after everything he has done.
“That doesn’t mean that I regret marrying Wen,” Hilo continues “I love her just as much as I love you. I felt really guilty about that for many years—like I was betraying her by still being in love with you—but I think I’ve made my peace with it now. It also doesn’t mean this changes anything between us—I’m done cheating on Wen and even if I wasn’t I’m still mad as hell at you for thinking you had the right to make that kind of decision for me—but I wasn’t sure if I could live with myself without making sure you knew.”
“I—” Tar swallows. “Thank you, Hilo-jen.”
“Do us both a favor and never call me jen when the topic of discussion is how we’ve been in love with each other for the majority of our lives again,” Hilo says just a little sternly. He really does think I’m going to survive this. Tar thinks and is about to try to explain that he intends to commit suicide long before anyone can get him out of prison when Hilo changes the subject, “How much time do you still have on the phone? If there’s still time I know Wen will want to talk to you.”