Just Like That

by Cole McCade

  Summer bent to offer Jay his hand. “C’mon,” he said. “Up.”

  Sniffling, Jay rubbed at his nose and then stared at his bloody fingers, before giving Summer his other hand. Summer pulled him up, drawing him to his feet until he found his balance; then Summer lifted his head, looking down the hall. Several other students peered out with wide-eyed curiosity; a few other teachers had emerged as well.

  “Go back to your rooms,” Summer called. “It’s past curfew.”

  He knew the magic word.

  And on curfew doors started slamming instantly, while a few of the other teachers moved down the halls, checking to make sure the boys complied.

  Summer returned his attention to the two battered boys in front of him—who quite pointedly stood apart from each other, keeping Summer between them and not looking at each other.

  Summer sighed, folding his arms over his chest. “Okay, what started this?”

  Neither Jay nor Eli answered. Until Eli muttered half under his breath, “...punk piece of—”

  “Eli,” Summer cut off firmly, but Jay was already glaring at Eli.

  “You started it,” he growled, and Eli whipped back around, gesturing fiercely.

  “The hell I did, I told you you could come if you wanted to—”

  “—and I told you I won’t if that asshole’s there and you invited him anyway!”

  “Hey.” Summer frowned. “Who’s the asshole?”

  “Nobody,” Eli mumbled sullenly, at the same time that Jay bit off,

  “Theo fucking Rothfuss, that’s who. We were supposed to go to the movies next weekend but this dick invited Theo.”

  “He’s my friend!” Eli flared.

  “He pissed in my fucking Gatorade!” Jay shot back, and Summer nearly choked.

  “Okay. No more yelling in the middle of the hall,” he said, and gently gripped each boy’s upper arm, just enough of a touch to nudge them along. “Come on. We’re going to head to the infirmary, and we’re going to have a little talk—and then the two of you can work this out in detention, so that’s solving the problem of your weekend plans right there.”

  Both boys groaned.

  But they didn’t resist, bowing their heads and letting themselves be shuffled along.

  While Summer tried not to be painfully aware of the pair of intense silver eyes, watching him from one of the open doorways and seeming to track his every last step.

  * * *

  Long night.

  Long, long damned night.

  And Summer thought he might just collapse where he stood.

  It had taken less time to get the boys cleaned up and bandaged by a very tired-looking Nurse Atherton than it had taken to get them to sit down and talk. But once Jay had opened up, sitting in the library with Summer and Eli where no one else could hear and judge, a story had come pouring out about one of the other seniors—Theodore, one of the bigger boys who liked to bully the others just because he could and because, in a social hierarchy defined by whose parents had the most power and money, Theodore was very close to king with a family entrenched in centuries of luxury hotel operations around the world.

  He’d done worse things than urinate in Jay’s drink.

  Much worse things.

  And as the litany had come out, Eli had shrunk smaller and smaller in his chair, refusing to look at Jay even while Jay was practically pleading with him not to be friends with someone who could hurt him so deeply.

  All of it was, quite frankly, a hot mess.

  And too complex to be dealing with in the middle of the night, but then messes didn’t really wait until more convenient times.

  What had followed was nearly an hour of quiet talking. Of trying to get both boys to see the nuance in the situation—that it was painful for Jay to see Eli ignore the way Theodore had hurt him, because to Jay that meant condoning it. But also trying to make Jay understand that to Eli, it felt like Jay trying to control who he could be friends with...and that for Eli, aligning himself with Theodore was likely a matter of self-protection to keep from becoming Theodore’s next target.

  That had sparked Eli’s ego, set off a defensive mess of denials and accusations about Jay needing to be more honest about what he really wanted out of their friendship, and Summer having to intervene until Eli calmed down and admitted he didn’t even really like Theo that much and he didn’t want to lose Jay as a friend or roommate, just...

  Much of it had been less about lecturing and more about nudging. Summer had figured that out a long time ago; people in conflict never liked to be told what they should do. Instead ask leading questions, offer answers if asked, but point them at each other and let them work it out until they were at least honest with each other, no matter the outcome.

  And he thought, maybe, this outcome might actually be good.

  He’d at least gotten them to talk about their feelings, which, with teenage boys?

  Was a world-class feat of strength in and of itself.

  They could work the rest out in their room. And in detention. Including that if they stuck together, they were strong enough to hopefully resist bullies like Theodore.

  Summer sat alone in the library for long minutes after he’d sent the boys back to their room, pressing his face into his palms and just breathing. That had been...intense. And while he’d just reacted in the moment and thrown himself into doing what was necessary, now that he was coming out of it he was fucking exhausted, bone-weary...and had a throbbing bruise forming on his ribs.

  He wasn’t about to drag Nurse Atherton out of bed again.

  He valued his life too much.

  He’d stop by the infirmary in the morning, and for now just...try to sleep.

  Maybe he’d stop by the guidance counselor’s office, too. Let them know they needed to keep an eye out on some of the power dynamics in the school. There was only so much they could legally do with matters of liability, but...

  When someone could urinate in another boy’s drink and get away with it, there was something seriously wrong here—and the boys should feel like they could turn to someone who would be on their side, no matter what.

  Tomorrow.

  He’d worry about it tomorrow.

  As he didn’t think Iseya would appreciate him showing up completely wiped out, groggy, unable to focus, and manic on a double-shot espresso.

  Scrubbing at his eyes, he pushed himself to his feet and stepped back out into the darkened, empty halls. When he’d been a boy, everyone had always found the school to be creepy at night, with the silhouettes of mist-shrouded trees through the windows, the shadows hiding in the rafters, the creaking floorboards and the looming haunts of strange crevices and fixtures. Summer had rarely had occasion to spend time at the school at night as a student, with living in town...

  But the few times he had he’d found it comforting, not creepy.

  A place where old things lived, silent and settling into their bones.

  He ran his fingers along the wall as he walked, the texture of the wood under his fingertips, the coolness of it the same as the coolness of the floorboards under his bare soles. Head down, watching his toes and the deep wood grain, he tracked his progress back to his room in the raised edges of door frames, the turn of hallways, the indentations of recessed doors with numbers tacked on in brass worn down to the dullest of shines.

  It almost felt like dreaming, being the only one in the halls, the only one ghosting through these passageways, like he was a haunt and everyone hid away behind their doors to keep his wandering, baleful eye from landing on them and pulling them into the dark.

  He was so caught in this thought, in the quiet sleepy delight of it, that he didn’t realize when his skimming fingertips skipped over the carved edge of a doorframe to land not on the door, but on empty air.

  Until he touched skin, warm and firm and smooth.
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br />   Skin, and the tight-honed curve of a shoulder.

  He jerked his hand back, pulse thumping faster through his veins, and lifted his head, stopping where he stood.

  And found himself face to face with Fox Iseya, those silver eyes piercing into him like diamond spears, rooting him in place.

  Iseya leaned in the doorway of his suite, arms folded over his bare chest, a pair of loose, dark gray linen pajama pants holding for dear life on to the sculpted, trim angles of tightly defined hips. He was the same smooth shade of pale gold all over, like sunlight pouring over white sand—his skin taut and weathered and drawn tight over firm shoulders, over the pronunciation of collarbones as sharp as an indrawn breath, over the hard-toned breadth of his chest, over the rolling fluid rows of muscle tapering down his abdomen to the dip of his navel and the sinful slope of his pelvis. The neatly pressed shirts and suspenders he wore tended to slim his figure, disguising the true bulk of him.

  But like this, shirtless and radiating heat and towering over Summer with such forbidding intensity...

  He was somehow even more intimidating.

  And even more alluring.

  Especially when his glasses were absent, leaving those angled, long-lashed, penetrating eyes fully unguarded.

  And his hair was barely caught up in a knot, endless skeins of it spilling loose to pour down his back in a tangled mess tumbling to his thighs, several wispy locks drifting across his brow and coiling over his shoulders, clinging lovingly to the long, elegant slope of his throat.

  Summer’s mouth dried. His heart tried to stop, petrified in its place, as rooted as his feet were to the floor.

  He tried to say something.

  And all that came out was a broken, ragged, “Ulp.”

  Iseya arched one sharp, dark dash of a brow, inclining his head as though acknowledging something perfectly normal. “Summer,” he said coolly.

  Fuck.

  Iseya shouldn’t...be like that. Shirtless, radiating this wild animal sensuality at once dangerous and inviting, saying Summer’s name in that voice. Looking at Summer with those eyes, when without the glasses chilling them...

  Summer realized they weren’t the glacial, pale ice he’d always thought.

  They were molten silver, burning-hot and leaving his skin, his entire body feeling far too warm.

  He struggled to pull himself together, told himself to stop when he was just tired and overreacting.

  But he had to look away to find his voice again; to even be able to breathe, when he was caught up in the stifling, oppressive need to just...just...

  Touch, and his fingers curled against his palm, holding fast to the tingling after-impression still left in his fingertips.

  “Is...is everything okay?” he managed to straggle out. “I sent the boys back to their room, and I’ll report everything to the principal in the morning.”

  “The boys returned to their room as they were told. Considering I doubt you did much to discipline them, they were remarkably obedient,” Iseya lilted mockingly. “I was waiting for you.”

  Summer’s breaths skipped as he darted a look at Iseya. “For me...? Wh-why?”

  “Because it would appear that I was correct in anticipating your behavior.” Iseya’s gaze roved down Summer’s body, drifting, yet every lingering look as palpable as a touch of liquid fire slipping over his skin, coaxing the breath from his lungs until his chest ached and burned. “You saw to the students...and not to yourself.”

  It took a moment to click, to realize where Iseya was looking.

  The bruise over Summer’s ribs.

  He’d already gotten used to ignoring the pain, so tired that the throbbing was just a quiet counterpoint to his exhausted heartbeat.

  He flushed, face and neck warming, and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, craning to try to look down at his own chest. The mark over his ribs was starting to turn a dark, ugly purple in the shape of a kneecap.

  Great.

  “It’s just a bruise,” he mumbled. “I’ll get it checked out in the morning. Wasn’t worth bothering the nurse again.”

  Iseya clucked his tongue, then let out an exasperated sigh. “Inside,” he ordered, then turned away sharply, his hair flicking out in a lash of dark wisps to lick against Summer’s chest before drifting away as Iseya disappeared inside his suite.

  Leaving Summer blinking after him, staring through the open doorway.

  Iseya...wanted him to come inside?

  He stood numbly out in the hallway for several seconds longer, then cleared his throat, glancing side to side. No one in the hallway. Not that it mattered, it wasn’t like anyone would think anything seeing him going into Iseya’s suite this late at night.

  So why was Summer so flustered, his face so hot?

  “You have ten seconds before I close the door in your face and lock it,” drifted sharply from inside.

  Summer scrambled over the threshold, and pushed the door firmly shut behind him.

  And stood there like a giant dork, unmoving and staring around the suite.

  He’d been here before, but Iseya’s suite looked somehow different by night. The standard-issue furniture had been replaced by quiet things in dark wood, tastefully arranged for a combination of comfort and elegance; the dark wood flooring was, in places, covered over by large tatami mats in paler tan colors, pinned in place by low long lacquered tables and chairs and a sofa made of black wicker so delicate it was like spiderwebs, accented by pale gray cushions.

  When he’d been in the room before Summer had incidentally registered the tall, double-doored cabinet against the far wall, its outer finish made of polished, darkly colored rosewood. It hadn’t really sunk in as anything other than a liquor cabinet or a closed bookcase, but now its doors were open and he realized...

  He’d been entirely wrong.

  The interior of the cabinet had only two shelves, with the lower shelf protruding out further to form a ledge; the cabinet’s backing had been papered over with a delicate watercolor painting of a landscape, loosely written kanji pouring down the side in a story or message Summer couldn’t read. The top shelf was centered by a small golden statue of the Buddha, standing with his hand upraised and fingers parted, and flanked by two unlit white candles. On the bottom shelf was a bronze incense bowl, with two picture frames to either side. In one was a small scroll with more kanji, just a few simple characters and yet they seemed written with a sort of visual poetry that made every line of delicate black ink flow.

  In the other was a photograph of a woman.

  She was lovely in a delicate, willowy way, with a sort of haunting sadness to her high-cheekboned face and a way of looking to one side as if searching for some secret hidden just out of reach, her black hair swept up from her amber-gold face and knotted ornately behind her head.

  Summer’s throat tightened, as he realized...

  Oh.

  He felt like he shouldn’t be here, all of a sudden.

  Like he was intruding on something sacred.

  And yet he drifted closer, drawn by that portrait of a woman, and wondered if somehow, somewhere, in some strange place...

  She knew that she was still with Iseya even now.

  Summer stopped in front of what he could only call a shrine, looking up at the gleaming shape of the Buddha, then at the woman.

  I’m sorry, he thought. I’m... I’m sorry for wanting him so much.

  “I was never raised Buddhist,” Iseya said softly at his back. “But she was. So out of respect for her memory, I placed her name in the butsudan to honor her and keep her.”

  Summer looked over his shoulder. Iseya stepped out of the bathroom with a clean towel draped over his arm, a bottle of alcohol and a tin of some sort propped in the crook of his elbow. His gaze trained over Summer’s head, distant, before lowering to Summer, watching him inscrutably.

/>   “I’m sorry,” Summer said. “I shouldn’t...have... I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Iseya sank down to sit on the low, delicate wicker sofa. “Come. Let me have a look at you.”

  Summer glanced back at the shrine again, and at the photo of Michiko Iseya.

  Before pulling away, and settling to sit gingerly on the edge of the sofa, barely resting enough of his weight to dent the pillowy-soft cushion.

  He didn’t belong here.

  But Iseya’s touch jerked him roughly from his drifting thoughts, as an ice-cold, stinging-wet towel pressed over his bruise.

  “This may burn a little,” Iseya warned, half a second too late, and Summer yelped, squinting one eye up.

  “A little?” He hissed under his breath; he didn’t know what was worse, the pressure against the tender flesh, or the fact that the bitter-smelling alcohol soaking the towel burned. “Nngh...why does it sting so much? It’s a bruise; it didn’t even break the skin!”

  “What exactly do you think happens to your skin on impact bruising?” Iseya said crisply; his head was bowed, focusing on Summer’s bruise, but he flicked a sharp glance up from under his brows. “Even if you don’t bleed from open wounds, your skin still suffers abrasions and microfissures. Which is why you need sterilization in the first place.”

  Summer didn’t know what to say.

  Especially with Iseya so close, both of them...barely wearing anything at all, thin pajama pants and body heat and Iseya’s arm brushing Summer’s each time he adjusted to dab at his side a little more, and Iseya touching him and yet it was only clinical, only necessity, and that shouldn’t ache so much but with that portrait looking over Summer’s shoulder, it just reminded him...reminded him...

  He’d never really had a chance, had he?

  He closed his eyes, trying to put the thought out of his mind.

  Trying not to think, period, when having Iseya’s hands on him this way, being alone with him with this illusion of intimacy, hurt more than it should.