Chapter Text
Seiji Katayama was someone who was usually asleep by 10pm. This was just another fact about him, like how he got up early, or how he preferred to drink tea over coffee, or the twelve-colour coded system he had for organising his school notes, that would make others say something in the vein of makes sense, you seem like that sort of person. Seiji never asked why that was the case, knowing he would receive a vague, unsatisfactory response that seemed to follow all of these kinds of social interactions. At best, others would describe him as reliable and disciplined; at worst, obsessive. Occasionally, however, a particular subject would overtake his mind with such ferocious command that it would force his body to forgo its meticulous circadian rhythms.
Jesse Coste was one such subject.
It was a Tuesday evening, about as mundane and uneventful as it got at Kings Row; dinner followed by team practice. True, Nicholas Cox had scored an unexpected third point on Seiji when they sparred, but it wasn’t too unexpected, given how hard he had been practising; it would’ve been more unusual had he not scored that third point, especially given how Seiji had overseen and aided this influx in Nicholas Cox’s fencing training. Nicholas had grinned wildly as he took off his mask and shook hands with Seiji, despite losing 15-3.
“That’s one point closer to beating you,” he’d said, without malice. And in the broad upturn of the corners of his lips, Seiji saw Jesse, at five years old. I hope we’ll have a good match. He saw Jesse at ten, twelve, fifteen. The glint in his blue eyes, as wide as the distance to be closed between them to score the point, to win the match; victorious when he won, hard when he didn’t. If Seiji had looked into a mirror after any of those matches, he’d have seen the same reflected in his own eyes, though always the antithesis of Jesse’s. Only, Seiji’s eyes glinted with shame and determination when he lost; Jesse’s merely held the former.
Training with Jesse had been thrilling, challenging, electrifying. Robert Coste was regarded as the best American épéeist of all time, and his son was clearly overtaking his footsteps. Sometimes, Seiji had despaired at even the thought of beating Jesse (couldn’t anyone see that it was impossible to outshine the golden boy of American Cadet men’s épée?), while at other times, the competition invigorated him and was all that he lived for, besides fencing itself, though the two things had been becoming increasingly synonymous; Jesse was fencing. He had the family history, the talent, and most importantly, the drive to be the best. Seiji had constantly felt like he was compensating — lifting heavier weights and running longer distances, both literally and metaphorically — but it had felt good to be competing, to have someone who understood — shared — his obsession.
That’s one point closer to beating you. Nicholas’ words replayed in his head, as it had been doing so for the past half-hour, but now it wasn’t just his voice. Jesse’s was interwoven with it, a cacophony of mockery. Jesse’s voice rose in volume as past dialogues came rushing back. Your flèche is becoming predictable. A parry four would be quicker with reduced target area. Are you sure you don’t need the additional stability provided by a pistol grip? All perfectly normal comments to offer a practice partner, but with hindsight seemed loaded with venom.
“Shut up,” he whispered, aloud.
“I wasn’t even talking!” Nicholas retorted.
Seiji blushed and pulled on his headphones. The quicker he got to sleep and restored his cognitive functions, the easier it would all be to deal with in the morning, when he could train until he couldn’t feel his limbs, much less remember Nicholas Cox’s ridiculous statement that carried with it the slightest hint of truth.
***
Seiji walked into the cafeteria with a grim feeling of accomplishment following his morning training with Dymtro. After conditioning, they had spent a solid hour working on his defence, particularly circular parries; the session had been slightly longer than usual and as a result, the cafeteria was filling rapidly. He sat down at an empty bench with his tray, taking out his diary to note down some drills that had been particularly beneficial. Normally, Seiji could have a precise fifteen minutes of relative peace and quiet (no such thing as true peace and quiet at a boarding school), but now there was too much going on around him: the sounds of other students chewing, drinking, talking; the pitchy blinking of the lightbulb in the far-left corner of the ceiling. Seiji tried to ground himself by focusing on small details; the texture of the synthetic-weave trousers under his fingertips, the hue of his smoothie, the pleasant ache in his legs.
Nicholas sat down beside him with his own breakfast tray. He smiled, started talking about something, and Seiji could hear the words and see his lips moving, but couldn’t compute what Nicholas was actually saying. In his nonchalance, Seiji saw Jesse smirking at him, throwing down a gauntlet; the salute before a match, épées tilted upward. He didn’t understand why his roommate reminded him so much of Jesse Coste; the two were nothing alike. And yet, there was a quality of Nicholas himself, beyond his wild fencing style, that reminded Seiji distinctly of his old training partner. The volume of noise grew. I need to get out of here, he thought. I should eat breakfast. Then a smaller, more potent voice piped up inside his head. What if he didn’t eat breakfast? It was such an absurd thought that Seiji promptly felt compelled to defy it by cutting a piece of egg and spearing it with his fork. He was an athlete; his nutritional requirements were specific for a reason. Training — not to mention, just getting through the day — without sufficient fuel would be at best, difficult and stupid, and at worst, dangerous. But the fork never quite made it to his mouth. Seiji just sat and stared at the piece of egg, slimy white glossed over with congealed yellow, until he couldn’t bear the sight of it any longer, nor the din of the room.
“I need to go,” he said to Nicholas, as curtly as he could muster.
Seiji didn’t turn back as he fled the scene, fists clenched tightly.
He was right; not eating breakfast was a terrible idea. The first two periods of class were bearable; he was less attentive than usual, but it was nothing Seiji couldn’t deal with. By the end of third period, he was slightly lightheaded and the world went black as he rose from his desk. He stood for a moment, blinking, as he regained his balance.
“You okay?” Nicholas asked, waiting for Seiji to leave the classroom with him.
“I’m fine.” Seiji blinked again. “We’ll be late to calculus.”
Nicholas followed him to their next class without a word, but Seiji didn’t miss the constant worried looks that bruised harder than an épée— than that third point Nicholas had got on him the day before. They made the blood rush to the back of his neck, an uncomfortable heat only worsened by his tie, further detracting from whatever differentials the teacher was scribbling on the whiteboard at the front of the class. Seiji started to feel rather irritated about the whole ordeal. Nicholas Cox, a nobody — albeit a nobody with potential and maybe the drive to fulfil it — would not feel pity for him. He wouldn’t allow it. His stomach gurgled, as if voicing its agreement with his aggravation. Seiji took a long pull from his water bottle. He held the liquid in his mouth for a moment, swirled it around his teeth and the inside of his cheeks, then swallowed, hard.
“I’m starving,” Nicholas chimes, as if reading his thoughts. So am I. They walked to the cafeteria together, the silence between them left unpunctured by Nicholas for once. Knives and forks clattered, their impact reverberating off of the walls, as he and Nicholas queued for lunch. Seiji’s fingers gripped his tray tightly, like trying to prise away an anchor around his neck.
Presently confronted with some overcooked chicken pasta dish, however, he found he was no longer hungry. And yet he was ravenous; would’ve devoured it like a wild animal, but he felt so compelled to not lose his control, his upper hand around Nicholas Cox. Because what was hunger, if not the ultimate form of discipline? What did it show if not, among other things, a mind with a grip over its matter so strong that it could defy the basic functions enforced by the mind’s own neurotransmitters?
And despite his protestations - what was Nicholas Cox, with his claims of friendship and rivalry, if not another iteration of Jesse, meant to haunt Seiji and taunt him?
“Are you okay?” Nicholas abruptly asked. “You’re scowling.”
Seiji hadn’t noticed, but he could now feel the tension in his face. “I’m fine. I’m always scowling.”
“Sure you aren’t imagining losing to me at Nationals?” Nicholas joked, but Seiji heard Jesse’s voice, and in his mind, he replayed that final point; the crushing realisation that his attempts were futile, that Jesse was miles ahead of him, advancing faster, and had always been. It was generous enough that he had seen fit to temporarily extend his luminescence to Seiji, once upon a time.
His voice hardened. “I’m fine, Cox. Maybe you’d be able to land more than three points on me if you spent as much time training as you do bothering me.”
Nicholas’ eyes flickered with something akin to hurt for a moment, but he merely replied blithely “some men can do both,” earning an eye-roll as Seiji continued to pick at and not eat his lunch.
***
He didn’t mean to make a habit of it, but from then on, it was just easier to avoid the sensory nightmare of the cafeteria by forgoing it entirely, or so he told himself. The fallacies were clear in his mind but he didn’t seem to have the power nor desire to dispel them. It seemed a lot like childish petulance, and perhaps it was, but it was one thing Seiji could have, just to himself. Fencing wasn’t his; rather, he belonged to it, like a pale birch amongst an expansive forest. He gave everything he had to it and in return, what was given was reciprocated: medals at competitions, scholarship offers from a dozen top private schools. However, his hunger was his, and his only. Unlike a gold medal at Nationals, Jesse Coste couldn’t snatch it away, leaving Seiji speechless. Unlike schoolwork, it didn’t require hours of his time spent meticulously studying, writing, revising, only a constant hum in the front of his mind. And unlike state championships, he didn’t need anyone else to accomplish it; perhaps, his brain reasoned, it proved that he had never needed anyone else in the first place, and perhaps Seiji was the only thing standing between himself and the goalposts, ever inching further away. And it wasn’t as if he stopped eating completely, not at all; Dymtro’s calorically-precise, nutrient-maximising meal plan became occasional meals with the team after training so far into mealtimes that there was no point going at all, which became Nicholas offering begrudgingly-taken snacks eaten later in privacy, which eventually became not even looking at those.
As the October nights grew shorter, team practices grew longer and Kings Row’s salle colder. The team were now preparing for their fourth match that would contribute to state championship rankings, having obliterated two other schools of a similar calibre and narrowly defeated MLC. Seiji stood by Coach Williams’ wall, waiting for the others to get changed, shivering in a full set of fencing whites. In his peripheral vision, he could see Nicholas and Eugene who, despite no longer being officially in the team, still came to every team practice with no objection from neither Coach nor Harvard, walking towards him, their conversation animated as it typically was. Usually, Seiji came to life on the piste; he became faster, sharper, more precise, as much as he tried to maintain a standard of conscientiousness throughout every aspect of his life but tonight he felt like a corpse; wading through mud, thankful for years of muscle memory.
He got through his first bout with Harvard at a respectable 15-6 up. Harvard’s fourth and fifth points were both scored by a parry-riposte of Seiji’s flèche, and one of his attacks got through before Seiji could parry it. “You’re still having issues committing to closing distance in low line attacks,” Seiji told him as they saluted and shook hands.
Harvard smiled grimly and nodded. “Thanks for the match, Seiji.”
Next, he fenced Eugene. Matches with Eugene were always an endurance game, waiting for holes to appear in his defence. The number of easy forearm counterattacks Seiji was able to land on him had significantly decreased from when team practices had first begun. Even so, Eugene was still no match for Seiji’s flèche, ending the match 15-2 to Seiji.
“Your arm is no longer bent as often when you’re attacking, but you need to time your parry in septime better.”
“Thanks, bro.”
Another drink of water, another bout; this third one with Aiden, who had surprisingly deigned to show up for once. Uncharacteristically, he was also silent during their match; no probing questions, no bad-mouthing. Nor did he seem to switch off at any point during the match. It seemed as though he might have actually been trying to improve his fencing. Aiden’s bladework was deft, but his footwork still left something to be desired. Seiji had landed his ninth point when the timer signalled the second one-minute break. Unnervingly - relievingly - he held his tongue, only staring intently at Seiji as they waited for the sixty seconds to pass. Just watching. Seiji won with forty seconds left on the clock, 15-5. As he walked down the piste for the handshake, black spots bloomed in his vision. His foot caught on something and he fell, hard, landing on his left knee.
Harvard rushed over from where he had been refereeing the match, hands gently feeling the knee as Seiji tried to sit up. “Nothing broken or sprained. You’ll probably wake up with a lot of bruises, though that’s something you’d be used to as a fencer. You should sit out the next few bouts.” In his periphery, Coach Williams nodded her agreement.
Seiji sat up straighter and addressed the coach. “I’m fine. Like Harvard said, just a few bruises.” Though her eyes were fixed on him, she didn’t reply.
“I’m fine,” he insisted, though he could no longer tell if the statement sounded less convincing to himself, or the coach.
“Take a break, Seiji. You can finish early tonight.” He opened his mouth to object, but she cut in with a firm “Coach’s orders”.
If there was one advantage to the early dismissal, it was the bathroom being Nicholas-free. Their room had been cleaned earlier in the day, and the tiled floors had yet to be splashed with water and soap, or covered in his discarded clothes. It also offered Seiji some likeness of privacy for once, which he was thankful for as the shame coloured his face and ears an angry carmine.
He peeled off his fencing uniform and stood in front of the mirror, staring at his body. Pale skin and fine, black hair; a body shaped by almost a decade of competitive fencing, built for speed, agility, explosiveness. A body that came second to Jesse’s at Nationals the previous year. A body not immune to failure, nor to the effects of restriction.
The newfound frailty of his form was disturbing. Even so, Seiji couldn’t look away. He just stood there, scouring his skin, and his flesh, and his bones, first with his eyes, then his fingers; pinching the folds of skin, mentally noting the protrusion of his ribs, the resistance of muscle.
Less target area, Jesse’s voice said inside his head. He stepped into the shower.
The water blazed down on his skin, piping hot, and Seiji couldn’t shake off how wrong he felt in that shower, cold and empty. And subsequently, how right that felt, like a natural state of being.
Notes:
chapter 2 coming once i wrangle it into something coherent and resembling paragraphs 🫣 thanks for reading! comments and kudos always appreciated
Chapter Text
“You seem unwell and I want to let you rest,” Seiji heard Nicholas’ voice say distantly, “but you really have to get up or we’ll miss the bus.”
His eyes blinked open, adjusting to the harsh overhead light. “What time is it?”
“Half-past six. You slept through your alarm, and breakfast. We’ve got that practice match with Lowther Hall today.”
The three facts tumble around his brain as a distant panic seeped in; he never slept through his alarm. Yet he also never used to skip breakfast, nor lunch and dinner, and that had certainly changed. Catching his expression, Nicholas said “it’s okay, just get ready. I saved you a sandwich.”
I’m not eating that, he thought, as he pulled on his uniform, fingers fumbling with the tie. “I’m not hungry,” he told Nicholas. He stood up, picked up his bag and walked towards the door.
“I know it’s not your usual breakfast, but we’ve got a match. You need to eat something.”
“You can’t tell me to do anything,” Seiji said coarsely, suddenly defensive.
“We’re friends and teammates,” Nicholas retorted. “We’re supposed to look after each other, and fencing on an empty stomach is a bad idea. Also, you get grouchy when you’re hungry. It’s a long bus ride and I don’t want to have to deal with that.”
“Sit with someone else, then.”
“We always sit together on the bus, it’s like a tradition!” Nicholas pouted, his eyes big and brown, and Seiji was inclined to acquiesce. He took the sandwich from Nicholas and bit into it. This seemed to satisfy Nicholas, who then picked up his own bag, and the two of them walked to the school gates. The lump of bread and whatever was in the sandwich tasted like ash and sat heavily in Seiji’s mouth. He spat it out when Nicholas turned his head away.
“You’re late,” Harvard reprimanded. “Even Aiden showed up before you two.”
“It was Seiji,” Nicholas said. Seiji glared at him. “He was looking for me.”
Seiji had to fight to keep his expression in the same scowl, but Harvard simply said, “you need to work on your time management skills, Nick,” and allowed them to board the bus.
They spent the entire three-hour bus ride in silence, but Seiji allowed Nicholas to rest his head on his shoulder without complaint, pressing his stomach with his free hand to stop it from grumbling. Nicholas looked so calm and peaceful when he was asleep, a direct contrast to his usual chaotic energy. A lock of his long hair fell haphazardly over his face and without thinking, Seiji brushed it away gently. It was soft and warm, and made him freeze in recognition, his brain replaying another memory with another boy; blonde hair instead of brunet. The hand was no use; his stomach growled anyway, causing Nicholas to stir. Seiji took a long drink of water.
Lowther Hall Boys’ School loomed ahead of them too soon. Harvard turned to address the rest of the bus. “Let’s get out there and fence, team!”
Seiji heard Aiden mutter, “cheesy”, but he still smiled at their captain like he was the sun. After three hours in the clammy bus, the air outside made Seiji shiver. Nicholas grabbed his hand, then shrieked, “I always knew you were cold-blooded,” a look of triumph on his face despite the fact that they hadn’t started fencing yet. The subsequent dizziness Seiji felt couldn’t have all been due to hunger.
They entered the Lowther Hall salle, an expanse of polished wooden floors and pistes gleaming silver. The room even smelt like detergent, citrusy and sharp, sharper than Olympic épées. Along one side, boys sat in rows, their powder blue uniforms pristine and identical.
“Captain,” one of the Lowther Hall fencers said to Harvard, who nodded back, holding his hand out for the other to shake.
“Captain.” The Lowther Hall team captain took Harvard’s hand reluctantly. Kyle Allen, Jesse’s cousin. He’d made it through to the round of 32 at Nationals, then been eliminated; a defensive fencer, he’d stayed steadily in the middle of the league at Halverton camp. Last year, Seiji had considered him unremarkable in the greater scheme of things, being preoccupied with only Jesse and the other fencers in the final eight. Now, however, he was a potential threat to the Kings Row team— and by a degree of separation, Seiji himself. Fencers changed within a year: some dedicated themselves to training and rose to the top, while others grew complacent and stagnated or deteriorated in performance. A fear of the latter was symbiotic with the vast solace Seiji found in fencing.
The team were shown to a changing room where the stench of sweat and dirty socks clung to the air. Three of the four walls were a clinical white, while the fourth was a mirror that stretched from the acrylic floor to the low ceiling. Seiji tried not to linger under surveillance of the stark, artificial lighting, changing out of his uniform and into his whites as quickly as possible. The other Kings Row fencers moved like a mirage around the room as they got ready, the edges blurring between where their uniforms ended and the walls started. Seiji blinked hard, trying to see clearly; this would surely be a disadvantage on the piste. Nicholas gave him a small, encouraging smile as they re-entered the salle; he didn’t return it.
The captains stepped to the referee for the coin toss. “Heads,” Harvard called. The referee thrust the coin into the air and it spun briefly, a silver gleam in the air, before landing back into the palm. The eagle faced upwards, staring resolutely at the Kings Row team.
“Team A slot,” Kyle drawled, picking up his sword and walking onto the piste.
As Harvard walked up to meet Kyle, Aiden ran to his side and whispered something into his ear. He smiled, uncharacteristically shy, as he saluted his opponent and pulled on his mask, leaving a satisfied Aiden sauntering back to where the rest of the team were sitting.
“What did you say to him?” Nicholas asked.
Aiden smirked. “Just some words of encouragement.”
En garde, prêts, allez. Both fencers were hesitant to start attacking, but Kyle’s attack eventually fell short and Harvard returned with a successful flick to the wrist. Reset, allez. Kyle started to fall back into a defensive mode, scoring a point by parry-riposte, but Harvard’s attacks persisted after that, landing well. Soon — sooner than expected — the match was over. 5-1 to Kings Row.
The team cheered. “Knew you could do it,” Aiden said, now preparing to fence his own match.
Harvard smiled even wider. “Not without the team,” he replied. The team; this concept that the rest of them seemed to talk about with an almost mythic reverence. Seiji was beginning to understand it, but in the end, he was still alone on the piste, and even more alone off of it. Besides Nicholas’ contradictory advances (he tried to not think about their appointment, the warmth that he’d felt throughout, as if the sunset were enveloping them with a tender flame), no one else saw him as a person, only as a standard to emulate and beat, a goalpost to move forward towards or admire. Only he’d never asked for the admiration or the ceaseless self-comparison of other boys — that had always been Jesse’s role — but now it somehow defined him, and as much as he ignored it, to lose it now would be worse than having had it in the first place.
Aiden’s match was over even sooner than Harvard’s. He fell back into old habits: talked his opponent’s ear off as they tested guards, murmured comments only audible on the piste after each point, and dramatically demanded to switch weapon halfway through the bout, during which he talked some more. His focus was just as laser-sharp as his tongue, which was a notable improvement from some of his previous matches. Seiji couldn’t deny that his strategy was one that worked, however much he himself looked down upon it; Seiji had never needed tricks to win.
“Seiji, you’re up,” Harvard tapped him on the shoulder, pulling him from his thoughts. Seiji picked up his épée and walked towards the piste. He surveyed his opponent as they saluted and he put on his mask. Isaac Hassan, left-handed, ranked 14th nationally last season. Seiji had only fenced him twice at most at Halverton camp, and was now failing to recall anything useful about his fencing style. This bothered him; usually, he had an impeccable memory. He prided himself on it. The clanging of guard testing reverberated in his skull, further muddying the waters as he tried desperately to recall something — anything — about Isaac Hassan’s fencing.
“En garde, prêts, allez!”
His body made a decision for him and moved into a flèche, lighting up the scoring box. Seiji felt the dull contact of his opponent’s blade in his side. “Double touch,” the referee declared. “10-4.”
Seiji furrowed his brow; he’d try something different on the next point. After the “allez” he moved in swiftly with a complex compound attack, parried by Isaac, whose swift riposte narrowly missed, allowing Seiji to go in with a remise to the thigh. He breathed out slowly, relieved. Perhaps, he could think tactically again.
His relief was short lived; after that, he didn’t land a single point. His attacks fell short, he couldn’t bring himself to remise quickly enough, and Isaac managed to sneak in several prompt counterattacks, wracking the Lowther Hall score up to a healthy 15-11 up.
The timer beeped to signal the end of the period, and Seiji had lost.
He heard the referee call halt and declare the score. He felt Isaac take his hand to shake, gripping it like a vice, the weight of skin-to-skin contact. Isaac smiled tightly, showing his teeth. And then, unable to contain his glee: “I beat Seiji Katayama!”
I beat Seiji Katayama, Jesse said, dismissively and diminutively. No big deal.
I beat Seiji Katayama, he imagined Nicholas say, a year or so down the line. He’s well past his prime. Just a prodigy kid who peaked at fifteen.
He dropped his épée by the team bench, letting it fall to the floor with a clank like the toll of a bell.
***
For the second time within the past six months, Seiji Katayama found himself on the floor of a bathroom stall following a disastrous match. A tableaux replicated, calling back to a younger, more naïve self. How stupid he was, to have thought that either he or Jesse Coste could change enough for things to work out. How angry he was, both at himself not only for losing but offering Jesse a second chance, and Jesse for squandering it, balling it up in his fist like a sheet of paper.
How tempting it was, to shatter, like a mirror; a pane of glass painted silver on one side, cracks exposing the illusion so carefully built up to compensate for shortcomings and flaws alike. To lie there in broken, wretched pieces that someone eventually swept up and discarded of. But Seiji Katayama had a job to do, so he dragged himself up from the bathroom floor and towards the sink to wash his hands, hoping the warm water would stop them from shaking.
Aiden Kane walked into the bathroom. He headed towards the mirror and started to fix his hair, pulling it out of the ponytail then combing through it with his fingers.
Their eyes met in the mirror.
“I know what you’re doing” Aiden said softly. Seiji didn’t dignify his comment with a response. What was there to say?
“I’m not going to ask you why, or say you should know better, because we both know you know that.”
“I’m not stupid enough to do anything that would jeopardise my fencing.” It was the first thing Seiji had said in this exchange, if it could be called that. The water was growing tepid around his fingers.
“No, not at first,” Aiden agreed. Seiji opened his mouth to object, but Aiden carried on. “You think you’re in control, right until you know you’re not. You can’t order a disorder, Seiji, and that’s where you’re headed if you continue on like this.”
“I thought you said you weren’t going to lecture me?” Seiji countered.
“I wasn’t,” Aiden said, then sighed. “You can’t do this to yourself, Seiji. Not because of the team, not even because of your fencing. Because of you. You think fencing is the only thing you’re good for, the only thing keeping you alive, but in reality, it’s your body that’s doing that. It’s you.” Although his voice remained calm and steady, Aiden’s words were pleading. Surprisingly, Seiji found himself understanding the implications behind then, once stilted but now rushing out of a dam, wrecked: you don’t want to end up like me.
“Everybody loves you,” Seiji said evenly. “Everybody wants to be you. Everybody wants to be with you. It seems like a small price to pay, if you do the statistical analysis.”
“I didn’t think you wanted that.”
“I don’t. I just…” he trailed off, trying to capture the thoughts swirling around his brain like smoke. “I just want to be better. At fencing, mostly, but also at everything else. It’s illogical, but I think I look better like this. I didn’t think it was something I cared about; it shouldn’t be.”
His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “In everything I do, I see him standing ahead of me, looking like he knows he’s already won. But it’s not all about him. The world is too loud, too bright, too much when I’m not in the salle, and I don’t know how to cope with it, but it’s as if everyone else doesn’t even notice it. Hunger is the only thing that quietens it down.” He was babbling now, incoherent, desperate to be heard. He knew he didn’t make any logical sense, but given what Aiden was implying, wasn’t it easier to play into his assumptions?
“I think this extends beyond your preoccupation with Jesse Coste,” Aiden said. “You’re not scared of him; you’re scared of failure. And you’re obsessed with control; that’s your problem. You always have to have your grip on the reins, and when you don’t, or can’t, you freak out. Like when you fenced me at tryouts. But making yourself smaller doesn’t make the world any easier to control; it just drains your energy for everything that makes life worth living.”
“I lost to you at tryouts because you pissed me off.” Seiji snapped. He switched off the tap. “I need to get back to the match. You’re sure to be on soon, and I won’t be on too long after that.”
“On the contrary,” Aiden drawled. “They’re used to waiting for me. And Harvard’s substituted Nicholas in for you.”
“What?”
“You’re in no fit state to fence. It would be irresponsible for Harvard to let you fence, as captain.”
He knew it was futile, but he tried anyway. “You can’t not let me fence. I’m part of the team.”
“And so is Nicholas,” Aiden responded swiftly. “Thankfully, I don’t give a fuck about the results of this practice match. But I do give a fuck about you not throwing your life away.”
Footsteps sounded outside the bathroom door.
“Aiden?” Harvard’s voice called. “Your match is about to start.”
“Coming!” Aiden called back. Then, lowering his voice, to Seiji “they’ll have to wait. But back to what I was saying: please don’t continue down this path like I did. It will ruin your life and erode away at everything you care about, everyone you love. Talk to someone. You can’t even begin to understand how much just talking to Harvard helped me in getting through all of it.”
“I can’t,” Seiji said, as if it took an excruciating amount of effort to force the words from his lips. “I have no one; on and off the piste, I’m alone.”
“You might not believe it, but you do have the team. Nicholas likes you; stop trying to ice him out. I’m probably not your top choice for someone to speak to, but I have made every single stupid decision one might consider, and I’m here if you want to speak about anything.”
Seiji gave a small, noncommittal nod; a white flag waving in peril, in surrender. Then he followed Aiden out of the bathroom, back to the salle.
***
Kings Row lost. It was unsurprising, and it was a close defeat — 35-37 — but they lost nonetheless. Afterwards, Lowther Hall hosted them for dinner, given their long drive back. Seiji picked up a tray and sighed as he confronted the universal truth of American high school life: no matter how fancy the school was, the food still sucked, and the cafeteria was too loud. He sat down between Nicholas and Harvard, who was deep in conversation with a smirking Aiden. The plate of food stared at Seiji: an amalgamation of macro- and micronutrients his body required to function. He pictured his body in the mirror, shrinking and ghostly, a poor imitation of what it could’ve — should’ve — been. He imagined his own macabre fascination with its atrophy, a microcosm of the wider world. He relived the singular bout he’d fenced that day, and the lack of mental clarity, of tactical thinking. The failure of his body to commit to certain actions by his own fault.
Seiji raised a fork to his mouth and, trying not to think about it too much, chewed and swallowed.
Nicholas smiled at him.
“Well done, you fenced well tonight.” The words left a strange taste on Seiji’s tongue, but he was trying.
“You did too,” Nicholas replied. “You always do.”
Seiji shook his head. “I didn’t; I don’t. Harvard was correct in substituting you for me.”
“Can I hear you say that again?” Nicholas joked. He grabbed Seiji’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m glad you returned to watch my match. Any critiques?”
Seiji blinked. “We’ll go over them during training tomorrow. Tonight, just know that you fenced well, even if we didn’t win.”
Nicholas’ grin felt like a victory in itself, wide and crooked and full of life, like an opportunity. Seiji accepted.
The sky was a velvety black when they boarded the bus, cloudy, lit only by a crescent moon. Nicholas sat down next to a yawning Seiji, too tired to object — who found that perhaps, he didn’t want to object.
“Just try to go to sleep,” Nicholas whispered, his breath tickling Seiji’s neck. “In the morning, it won’t matter.”
He was lying; he knew how much it mattered to Seiji — the match, the hunger, everything else — had to know. But when Seiji opened his mouth to object, Nicholas continued.
“Or it will, and we’ll deal with it together.”
Notes:
thanks for reading. i find seiji’s relationship with jesse and its lasting impacts very interesting, and i put a lot of my own personal experience with a similar relationship into my seiji/this fic. i also think this fic demanded a fair bit more writing-wise from me than i’m used to; it’s longer than anything else i’ve ever written (barring two failed attempts at novels that only made it to ~20k before i lost the plot). i don’t personally have experience with an eating disorder; please let me know if anything portrayed is inaccurate or harmful.
please, if you’re struggling, seek help. talk to a loved one, search up the helplines in your country, and always practise harm reduction. it’s not a perfect solution, but i’m a firm believer in body neutrality.
i hope you enjoyed the fic. kudos and comments appreciated as always.
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have a great day/night!
Sensurround on Chapter 2 Mon 22 Jul 2024 04:41PM UTC
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