Just Like That

by Cole McCade

  It was fine. He was fine. It was just...a boyhood infatuation that had flared to life again and led to him being rash, impulsive, over this strange kissing game.

  He’d get over it.

  He’d get over it, and respect Iseya’s need to keep his distance; respect his grief, and the memory of his dead wife.

  Maybe they could be friends.

  And that was okay.

  He sucked in a breath through his teeth, though, as the cold-burning alcohol was replaced by something warm and thick; he opened one eye to a slit and watched as Iseya spread a thick, translucent golden salve onto the bruise, long fingertips coated in a glistening sheen and gently stroking it into Summer’s skin. A thick, heady smell rose between them, something like amber and musk with a tinge of vanilla. It felt nothing but slick at first, but slowly as it soaked in a deep burn spread into Summer’s flesh, absorbing with a soothing, pleasant heat that eased away both the sting of the alcohol and the throbbing pain of the bruise.

  “What is that...?” he asked softly.

  “Nothing much different from sports cremes,” Iseya murmured, voice distant, distracted. “A little menthol, a few things to cover the pungency of the smell.”

  “You made that...?”

  “Ah.” Iseya’s lips quirked faintly. “At one point I suppose I had a bit of a passion for herbalism. But at this point I don’t really keep my own plants anymore, other than in my office. If I need to make anything I get what I need from a local supplier.”

  Summer blinked, then couldn’t help but laugh. “You mean my mother.”

  “I do see Lily now and then, yes.”

  It warmed Summer, to hear the tinge of affection that just barely touched Iseya’s voice when he spoke of Summer’s mother. To know that even if his mother worried about Iseya, his distance...

  Iseya still felt something for their friendship.

  “Mom asks me about you sometimes,” he ventured tentatively. “I think she misses you. She said you were friends.”

  Iseya stilled, his hand pulling away from Summer’s skin, holding in midair while his eyes widened briefly; he gave Summer an odd look, before bowing his head and focusing on the tin resting open on his thigh, dipping his fingers in and coating them once more. “I suppose at one time, we were.”

  Summer got the message.

  Don’t push it.

  So he just cleared his throat and reminded himself to hold still as Iseya began rubbing more of the salve into the bruise, kneading it in with a gentleness that pulled at Summer in all those ways he was trying to ignore.

  Instead he changed the subject, and murmured, “So I think I’m going to refer Jay and Eli to the guidance counselor. Theodore Rothfuss, too.”

  Iseya arched a brow. “You think that would be effective?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I hope so.” Summer leaned back on his hand to move his arm out of the way, giving Iseya easier access to the spreading branch of bruised flesh that reached around his side. “These kids get dumped here because their parents don’t want to deal with them. And they act like they don’t care, that they’re glad to be somewhere without their parents hanging over their shoulders, but...they’re turning to us for structure and guidance, and maybe they get that from the teachers, but...” He frowned. “They need some kind of nurturing, too. But I don’t think any of these three would go to the guidance counselor on their own.”

  “Likely not,” Iseya agreed mildly, then added, “...especially since we do not have one any longer.”

  Summer blinked, cocking his head. “We don’t? What happened to Dr. Cartwright?”

  “Resigned about two years after your graduation.” Iseya’s hand pressed flat to Summer’s rib cage for a moment, smoothing over the bruise in one last long, slow stroke that made Summer’s heart beat so hard surely Iseya must feel it under his palm, before that touch withdrew. “We’ve yet to find anyone to fill the position. Shocking that no one wants to exile themselves to a small, remote town to play both parental figure and therapist to some of the world’s most spoiled children.”

  Summer smiled faintly, sadly. “The fact that people see them that way is probably exactly why they need someone.”

  Iseya lifted his head, watching Summer, his eyes half-closed and strange, glimmering in the darkened room; neither of them had turned on the light, working solely by shadows and moonlight, and those shadows seemed to dwell oddly in Iseya’s gaze as he fitted the cap back onto the tin.

  “You truly empathize with these boys, don’t you?” he murmured. “Even though they’re no different from the ones who made you feel so small as a student.”

  “I guess I never minded, even back then.” Summer shrugged. “Because even back then I could tell they were acting out because they were hurting.”

  A faint wrinkle appeared between Iseya’s brows. “You are the strangest young man, Summer Hemlock. I confess you do surprise me, at times.”

  “In a good way or a bad way?”

  “In a way that does not need to have a positive or negative value derived from it. It simply is.”

  Iseya rose, then, moving with fluid grace that made the tight sinew of his waist, back, and shoulders slink sinuously as he gathered the salve, alcohol, and towel once more.

  “Are you feeling any better?” he asked neutrally, voice drifting back as he vanished into the bathroom again.

  “Yeah.” He really did, the pain just a dull afterthought instead of an active throbbing, and Summer stood, scrubbing his hands awkwardly against his thighs. “Thank you. Saved me a trip to the nurse in the morning, but... I’ll get out of your hair.”

  An amused sound drifted from the bathroom, followed by, “...you’re doing it again.”

  “Doing what...?”

  “Self-effacing. Assuming your presence is undesirable.” Iseya’s tall, prowling frame melted into view again, settling to lean in the bathroom doorway with those unreadable eyes locked on Summer, arms once more folding over his chest as he slouched with a mixture of grace and ennui. “Some things really don’t change.”

  “...it’s the middle of the night and I’m in the middle of your suite when you should be sleeping, and you make it pretty clear you find anyone breathing in your presence irritating.” Summer shrugged with a little laugh, which trailed off as he glanced over his shoulder at the cabinet and that little photo. “And... I...it just...it feels like I interrupted something private.”

  “Not quite.”

  Iseya pushed away from the doorframe, his lazy, loping strides different somehow, that commanding, calm power that always infused his movements changed into something stranger, more vibrant, yet more languid, this slinking sense of presence that Summer tried to ignore and yet...couldn’t. Any more than he could ignore the way the moonlight gilded Iseya’s features, and slipped over his hair; the way his long lashes glittered just so as he stopped in front of the cabinet and reached into a small folded paper satchel on the bottom shelf to retrieve a little conical stick of incense.

  “It’s more that you interrupted unhealthy habits,” he murmured, gaze focused on his fingers as he set the incense in the bronze holder. “I don’t even know why I do this anymore. She’s not here. She hasn’t been here for some time. And I feel as though by holding on to her memory, I’ve stayed frozen in some quiet place in the past, while the rest of the world has moved on without me...so I’m not really here, either.”

  He said it so quietly, so dispassionately, gaze locked not on the photo of his ex-wife but on the golden statue of the Buddha. As if he was trying to divorce himself of all emotion; to make such simple, heartfelt things into something clinical that he could pluck out of himself and toss aside as easily discarded words.

  And it made Summer’s heart ache, every word a tiny knife cutting in to leave him bleeding.

  He stepped closer, risking drawing into Iseya’s space, risking moving to sta
nd next to him, close enough for body heat to bring them into contact even if skin didn’t quite touch skin. Voice thick in his throat, he looked up at the shrine, watching not Iseya, but the faint hint of Iseya’s reflection in the mirror-bright polish of the rosewood.

  “You’re here, though,” he said softly. “Maybe you don’t feel like it, but you’re here. You’re here to me.”

  “What does that even mean, though?” Iseya asked—yet the words were so quiet he seemed to be speaking more to himself than to Summer. “What does it mean for me to be here without her?”

  “I don’t know.” Summer glanced at Iseya from the corner of his eye. “But it sounds like you might be ready to find out.”

  Iseya said nothing, but for a moment those carefully shielded silver eyes seemed to crack, turning liquid, brows knitting, lips parting as he stared at the Buddha as if it might give him some sort of answer in the silence.

  Before he bowed his head, his breaths shuddering audibly as he plucked a small lighter from inside the paper sack, and lit the tip of the incense cone with a brief flick of his thumb, a spark, a flicker of flame. The peak of the cone turned into a deep-glowing ember, and a soft, powdery scent rose like dragon’s blood.

  Iseya set the lighter down, silver eyes flicking upward to track the curl of incense smoke; Summer followed it as well, a strange heaviness settling on his shoulders, before looking back to Iseya as the man spoke.

  “It’s ritual, at this point. And I suppose I have to finish it, even if it feels meaningless.” He turned his head just enough to catch Summer’s eye, the faint red spark of the incense’s cone reflecting in his eyes. “You...do not have to leave, if you do not wish to.”

  A little flutter ran through the pit of Summer’s stomach. “What’s the ritual?” he asked, barely able to find his voice above a whisper. “What are you doing?”

  Iseya turned away from him, then, tilting his head back, looking up at the rising coil of thick, ribbon-like white smoke as it wisped toward the ceiling.

  “Trying,” he said, “to finally say goodbye.”

  Summer said nothing.

  It didn’t feel like words were needed, in this moment.

  Just...that he be here, to answer that quiet unspoken need in Iseya’s words.

  You do not have to leave.

  When Summer thought, just maybe...

  Iseya might mean stay.

  So he stayed.

  He stayed, and he watched the incense burn down with Iseya, and let its scent drift into him as he wondered what this meant.

  If it meant anything at all.

  Maybe Iseya was ready to let go, to stop living his life locked away in grief...

  But maybe all he needed for that was a friend, and Summer thought...

  That was okay.

  He just...

  He just wanted Iseya to be okay, no matter what that meant.

  Yet standing so close to Iseya, Summer couldn’t help how their shoulders brushed, as they stood silent vigil. How their arms pressed together. How the backs of their hands touched.

  And when his hand fell against Iseya’s, he didn’t pull away.

  Neither did Iseya.

  And for a few sweet moments, as they stood amidst winding serpentine coils of aromatic smoke and breathed and didn’t say a word...

  Their fingertips tangled, and held.

  They stayed that way, wordless and yet Summer leaping inside, at once calm and ready to burst with fluttering warmth, until the incense burned down to a little dense pile of soft gray ash. Until the smoke stopped, and that cherry-red ember that was the only light between them burned out. Still they remained for long moments...until Iseya pulled away, and reached up to close the cabinet, settling the doors into place with a soft thump and a quiet sense of finality.

  He rested there with his palms against the wood, looking up at it, before he turned a look over his shoulder, watching Summer over one upraised bicep, its curve pulled taut.

  “I suppose,” he said dryly, “since it’s after midnight, you’ll be wanting your kiss now. For being brave enough to intervene with the boys.”

  Summer pulled from his quiet trance, blinking at Iseya while his breaths swirled into a storm in his chest. Something about the way the man looked at him promised...

  He didn’t know.

  He didn’t know what to think of the way those heady, compelling gray eyes lingered on him, or the way they seemed to burn in the shadows.

  Especially when he couldn’t forget that ache that made a third presence in the room, either.

  After a moment, he just smiled, shaking his head, stepped closer.

  And leaned in to press his lips to Iseya’s cheek, nosing lightly past a messy skein of his hair to press a lingering kiss to the crest of his cheekbone.

  Iseya’s skin was subtly weathered, just a hint of roughness and texture that came with age and daily shaving, something Summer wanted to savor against his skin, to absorb...but he made himself pull back, rather than invading further, holding on to his smile even though some part of him felt like breaking as he met Iseya’s wide, startled eyes, that strange lost look Summer almost never saw, lips parted, cheeks flushed.

  “That’ll do,” Summer murmured, then lifted his gaze to the shrine, their dim and reddened reflections. “Thank you for letting me be a part of this.”

  Then he stepped back, offering another small smile.

  “Goodnight,” he said, and walked away.

  He’d made it to the door, pulling it open, ignoring the strange needy feeling trying to pull him back toward Iseya, trying to tell him not to walk away, whispering of some unanswered craving...when Iseya’s voice drifted after him.

  “Summer.”

  His name, in that silk-sin voice, low, compelling. He felt it like rough fingertips down his spine, and turned back.

  To find Fox Iseya standing almost right behind him, towering over him and looking at him with his mouth set tight, his eyes narrowed and dark.

  Summer recoiled a step, one heel edging out into the hall. “Professor Iseya...?”

  Iseya braced his hand to the doorframe above Summer’s head, leaned down...and captured his mouth, stealing him for a kiss unlike any other Summer had ever tasted.

  Where every other kiss had been hard, dominating, passionate, deep...

  This one touched his lips gently, wonderingly, as if asking for the smallest taste of him; as if asking to know him through the softest of touches, to learn what could make him tremble with the slightest brush and what could make him sigh. As if this moment wasn’t about the kiss, the act of it, the stimulation, the pleasure...

  But about him.

  Iseya was kissing him, as if he was worth kissing slowly just to savor it.

  And God, did he savor it—the way Iseya stroked his mouth gently against Summer’s, the way each touch made his mouth pulse so sweetly and coaxed his lips to part further and further until he breathed Iseya in and shivered as he felt every light tracery of friction, of taunting softness, ripple over his entire body as if he’d been swathed in silk and covered in its caress. Summer closed his eyes, leaning into it, unable to stop his moan, his wordless begging.

  Begging for more.

  Just the lightest tease of Iseya’s tongue-tip, following the line of Summer’s lips, delving inside...

  And then it was over, as quietly as it began.

  A soft graze of Iseya’s teeth against his lower lip, before their mouths parted, the last touch Summer felt Iseya’s whisper, breaths cooling the dampness on his lips and proximity turning every word into the ghosts of other kisses.

  “You’re now forfeit for any kisses for the next forty-eight hours,” Iseya breathed, sultry and deep-rumbling. “Goodnight.”

  Summer snapped his eyes open, heart nearly pounding out of his chest.

  And only got half
a glimpse of Iseya’s slow, almost cunning smile—

  Right before the door closed in his face.

  Chapter Eight

  Fox was beginning to think he might have been wrong about Summer.

  Perhaps he’d made a snap judgment, based on his recollection of the boy Summer had been. Perhaps he had formed his first impression of the man Summer had become based not on who Summer actually was, but on Fox’s own resentment that he had to train someone to take his place; had to take some vulnerable, wide-eyed young thing under his wing and let this other human into his world for longer than a single class period.

  When if he was honest with himself...

  Summer had been showing Fox who he was from the start.

  From the way he had thrown himself in to help contain another of Dr. Liu’s conflagrations without even thinking of his own safety, wanting to help...

  ...to the way he swallowed his own terror to kiss Fox, kiss his former teacher, after not seeing him for seven years and knowing full well he would be immediately rejected.

  The way he challenged himself at every turn despite the anxiety wrapped around him like black, choking tendrils.

  The way he challenged Fox, too, and yet did so with the softest of touches that seemed to ask, Show me.

  Show me where all the tender places are, so I won’t bruise what hurts.

  And the way he had continued to put himself forward for the last few days, even without the promised reward of a kiss to motivate him.

  Technically, denying Summer his next kiss wasn’t fair, considering that Fox had been the one to kiss him.

  But Summer hadn’t protested in the slightest, only showing up day after day to put the work in and give his all to trying to help Fox in the classroom.

  Fox still didn’t think he was ready to lead the class.

  But as he watched Summer move through the rows of desks, bending to answer a question or give a little encouraging nudge to a struggling student, smiling and making the tense, nervous boys relax while they worked through their test prep worksheets...

  Fox thought maybe, one day, he could be—when at first he’d thought it was a lost cause.