Fence: Disarmed

by Sarah Rees Brennan

  “I’m just giving you a word of warning,” Harvard urged. “Do whatever you want but try to be more careful. Coach says you’re getting into trouble practically every day. She said the principal talked to your dad, and your dad won’t put up with you being suspended.”

  “Great news,” said Aiden. “Once again being rich and pretty means facing absolutely no consequences.”

  “What if there are consequences?” Harvard hesitated. “You could get in real trouble. Seriously, he’s talking about taking you out of school if you keep getting in trouble. What if they asked you to leave school?”

  “Oh, please,” said Aiden. “Who’d do that? I’m so ornamental.”

  He sounded as though the idea of leaving Kings Row didn’t bother him at all. Harvard was hurt enough to fall silent. They’d planned their future together for so long, how they’d go to boarding school and fence together, plotting under their blankets through a hundred sleepovers over the years. Then they’d seen Kings Row, with its quaint old-fashioned classrooms that still had hinged wooden desks and blackboards, with its deep lake and deeper woods. They had walked through the quad for the first time, and Aiden had spun around one of the pillars lining the walkways as he agreed that this was the place.

  “You know me, Harvard,” said his best friend.

  Harvard had always believed he did.

  Aiden’s cat-green eyes surveyed their room—the beds pushed together, the teddy bear fallen on its side—with indifference that seemed close to contempt. Then his gaze rested on Harvard. His eyes were as flat as they were brilliant, his smile sparkling and cold as a diamond. It was clear to Harvard that nothing he’d said had made the slightest impression.

  “I can get out of anything,” Aiden claimed.

  He’d always been able to reach Aiden. But now Aiden seemed impossibly distant.

  “Right,” Harvard said quietly. There didn’t seem much else to say.

  “Right.” Aiden’s smile showed another blinding facet. For the first time in Harvard’s life, he found himself wanting to look away from his best friend. Yet somehow, terribly, he still couldn’t tear his eyes off him. “Catch you later, Harvard.”

  “When?” Harvard had to ask.

  “Haven’t you heard?” Aiden asked lightly as he strolled out of the door. “We’re going to France.”

  Harvard almost called out for him to return, but he’d realized years ago when guys started paying attention to Aiden that he shouldn’t hold Aiden back. He didn’t have the right. He’d be a bad friend if he tried. So Harvard watched Aiden go, and he didn’t say a word.

  When the door closed behind Aiden, Harvard’s phone buzzed. See? Harvard thought. I’m fun. I’m popular. Cool people text me constantly.

  The text was from his mom, but Harvard thought his mom was very cool so that was all right. Have fun in France! Be safe. Maybe you’ll meet a nice boy!

  Harvard texted back, I don’t know if nice boys are my type.

  Current evidence seemed to suggest not.

  His mom texted instantly: Maybe you’ll meet a boy with a certain je ne sais quoi.

  I don’t know, Harvard texted.

  Exactly! she texted in return, along with many laughing-face emojis and various other emojis as she always did. Old people, even cool old people like his mom, didn’t get emojis. Harvard’s mom claimed he was the one who didn’t understand them.

  His mom was right as usual, Harvard decided, going over to his wardrobe and starting to pack. He included a first aid kit since Nicholas was coming along on this trip. It was best to be prepared. The whole team would enjoy France. He and Aiden would get back to normal soon. Harvard ignored the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach and decided he was looking forward to Camp Menton.

  He could have fun, too, Aiden.

  Fun in a responsible way. He was the captain. He’d made too many mistakes already. Now he had to make the right choices.

  8 SEIJI

  Seiji couldn’t believe he was being forced to waste even more time on this ill-advised French escapade. Yet someone had to supervise Nicholas’s packing. Nicholas kept getting it wrong.

  First of all, Nicholas had tried to pack his clothes in a backpack, which was upsetting. Apparently, Nicholas didn’t own a suitcase, so Seiji got out his spare one and insisted he disliked it and was throwing it out if Nicholas didn’t take it off his hands. Suitcase arranged, Nicholas then attempted to go to France with no pajamas, so Seiji forced him to pack the pajamas he’d given Nicholas on a previous occasion. He couldn’t help noticing that Nicholas didn’t wear them.

  “Does everyone wear pajamas in France?” asked Nicholas sadly.

  “Yes,” said Seiji.

  Everyone rational wore pajamas, in every country. Nicholas was basically feral. Nicholas also seemed to have very odd ideas about France.

  “What are the people in France like?” he asked Seiji on the morning they were supposed to leave. Nicholas had a hard time getting up early to practice, like he should, but he would spring out of bed to pack for the twelfth time.

  “They’re like people who speak French.”

  Seiji didn’t know what else to say. People were confusing and terrible everywhere.

  “I need a baguette.” Nicholas fretted.

  “They have baguettes in France.”

  “Then I need a beret!”

  Nicholas cast a searching look around the dormitory. He had started stealing Seiji’s stuff, which Seiji had decided Nicholas was allowed to do, but Seiji didn’t have any berets stashed in his room. Seiji had no berets. Seiji needed no berets.

  “We will be spending our time in France fencing,” Seiji reminded Nicholas. “Do you intend to put a beret on top of your mask? Do you think that would be a good look for you?”

  A smile dawned on Nicholas’s face. It wasn’t a making-a-joke-about-Seiji-in-his-head smile. Seiji was very familiar with those. It was more a sharing-the-joke-with-Seiji smile. Seiji liked those well enough, though he’d never made an intentional joke in his life.

  “Might look dashing,” said Nicholas easily.

  Seiji thought it was possible he would enjoy the upcoming trip, if it weren’t for the constant insidious thoughts of Jesse. Last time, going to France had put an ocean between him and Jesse. This time, Seiji was flying toward him. Memories of Seiji’s former life kept intruding.

  Seiji had attended many fencing camps, and many international fencing matches, in Jesse’s company. Jesse was used to such trips, as was Seiji. Jesse’s father usually arranged for someone to pack for them, so they could maintain total fencing focus. International travel had never been complete chaos before. Nicholas’s particular and perpetual chaos was new to Seiji, but he was becoming accustomed. He scrutinized the room carefully to see if Nicholas had hidden his pajamas or forgotten his passport. Finding all as it should be at last, he turned to see Nicholas surveying the room with an extremely startled air.

  Oh no, Seiji thought. What now? But then Nicholas began to grin.

  “Seiji!” said Nicholas, beaming. “Seiji. You took down the shower curtain.”

  “Of course I did.”

  Seiji wasn’t certain why Nicholas looked so pleased. Then he worked it out.

  “Ah, I see you’ve misunderstood completely. I packed the curtain,” Seiji informed him. “We will need it for our room in France.”

  Nicholas was undaunted. Nicholas was rarely daunted by anything, which was one of his best qualities. Seiji had been informed he was daunting, but Nicholas never seemed to feel that way.

  “You wanna be roommates in France, too?” Nicholas asked brightly. “Can’t bear to be parted from me?”

  “I dream of being parted from you!” Seiji shoved Nicholas the way Nicholas had shoved him a couple of days ago, which Nicholas seemed to mean as a friendly gesture. “I simply accept you as an unfortunate fact of life at this point.”

  Had Nicholas wanted to share a room with his friend Bobby? Seiji understood if Nicholas would prefer that, but Bobby
was almost certainly sharing a room with Dante, the tall one who didn’t like fencing. Unless Bobby had become tired of Dante’s anti-fencing attitude.

  “You didn’t have to pack the shower curtain,” said Nicholas, sudden packing expert. “I think they have shower curtains in France.” Nicholas paused. “Do they have shower curtains in France? Seiji! Tell me.”

  Seiji checked his favorite watch, which was faintly pink for Nicholas-related reasons but worked fine. “I suppose you’ll have to wait and see.”

  Nicholas had absurdly poor timekeeping skills, so Seiji had to shepherd him out of the dormitory and toward the bus that would take them to the airport. At the bottom of the stairs, Nicholas panicked about not having enough socks. He made a break for socks and freedom and had to be marched down the halls, which made them late. Everyone else had arrived before them. Seiji had never been late for anything before and was deeply shamed. The bus was already waiting, idling under the autumn trees. As Seiji climbed aboard, he glanced over his shoulder at the old redbrick buildings against the green lawn and gold leaves. The school that was nothing like the school he’d planned on. The school where, as his father wanted, he could choose his own battles.

  It was a slightly silly feeling, since they would be back in four days, but Seiji realized he was sorry to be leaving Kings Row.

  This school was a refuge for him against Jesse. Here, he wasn’t just Jesse’s fencing partner, the less shining half of a whole and only there to make Jesse look good.

  Seiji wasn’t sure who he would be at Camp Menton.

  There was a torrent of greetings on their arrival. Coach Williams commanded them to sit down. Harvard called out, “Hey,” then told them off in a captainly fashion for being late. Eugene fist-bumped Nicholas, and Bobby waved his arms enthusiastically to attract Nicholas’s attention.

  “Hi, Seiji,” Bobby added in a very tiny voice, when Nicholas and Seiji grabbed the seats in front of Bobby and Dante.

  “Hi,” said Seiji in a voice that was at his normal level.

  He’d noticed Bobby was extremely talkative with anyone who wasn’t Seiji. Many people disliked Seiji, but he wished Bobby would hide his dislike better. It made social interactions even more uncomfortable than they had to be.

  To cover for the awkwardness, Seiji gazed around the bus, and he spotted Aiden lying stretched out on the back seat, clearly pretending to sleep and thus unavailable for comment. Seiji could tell he was pretending by the tension in Aiden’s frame. It was obvious, like a fencer on the edge of losing his match, feigning that he wasn’t scared.

  There was a line of brightness on the horizon, like a slice of lemon dropped into the sky.

  As the bus took a turn down a winding lane, the brightness was lost, and so was Seiji’s last sight of Kings Row. They drove toward darkness… and Jesse.

  9 NICHOLAS

  It was the first time Nicholas Cox had ever been on a plane, and Seiji was trying to strangle him. Or, at least, Seiji had grabbed Nicholas by the back of his collar while Nicholas was still walking. The flight attendants stared at Nicholas asphyxiating, wearing expressions of polite distress, but nobody stepped forward to save him.

  “You’re going the wrong way,” Seiji’s voice said from behind his back.

  “You could’ve just said that, Seiji,” protested Nicholas, once he could breathe again.

  “I could have,” Seiji agreed with unruffled calm.

  Nicholas had simply been turning right, following the flood of people in front of him. The line had broken down halfway through the long glass tunnel, and now it was all a rush. They were like swallows flying south. Except Seiji refused to be a swallow.

  “I was going the way everyone else was going,” Nicholas pointed out.

  “Yeah, but we’re in first class,” said Eugene. “Which is pretty cool. I’ve never been in first class before.”

  Why did planes have classes? Seiji’s grip on Nicholas’s collar was tugging him to the left, but Nicholas took a swift, curious glance to the right before he followed along.

  To the right was most of the plane, row upon row of people.

  “Oh, those guys don’t have enough room,” Nicholas murmured in concern.

  “That’s business class, bro,” said Eugene. “Look deeper.”

  Farther back it was worse than the city buses at rush hour. People were packed in on top of one another like cans in the grocery store.

  “People pay for this?”

  “Yeah, the current system leaves a lot to be desired, but you’re holding up the line, and that’s not likely to help,” Harvard said in a kind but firm tone. “Move, Cox.”

  Nicholas let Seiji pull him into first class. In first class, the seats were so big they looked like beds set in fancy plastic thrones. In first class, there were curtains with tiny fringes.

  “Wow, this is nice,” Nicholas said, slightly distressed. “I could’ve gone to sit in the, um, third class.”

  “They don’t call it third class,” Bobby told him. “It’s first, business, and coach, so the people in coach don’t feel any worse about being in coach.”

  Nicholas raised his eyebrows. “Well, that’s not how numbers work. That’s like saying one, cauliflower, bicycle.”

  “My father calls coach cattle class,” Aiden drawled.

  He was standing beside Harvard and was apparently angry at the world, as usual these days. Nicholas noticed that Aiden looked exhausted. He could sympathize: He’d been so excited about traveling that he didn’t get any sleep last night. Maybe Aiden had been up all night packing!

  “You can’t sit in coach,” Seiji told Nicholas. “You can’t compromise your mobility and embarrass me during your matches at Camp Menton. People know we train together.”

  Nicholas hadn’t considered that before, that what he did reflected on Seiji as well as on Coach Williams and Kings Row. He wanted to do well even more now. He wanted to make them all proud.

  They filtered to their plastic throne seats. In a stroke of luck, Nicholas was assigned to sit beside Seiji. Dante and Bobby were behind them. Eugene had to sit with Coach. The assistant coach was farther back and seemed disappointed to be separated from them.

  Eugene seemed stoked. That made sense, since Coach was pretty awesome. Coach had already sat down and taken out a stack of magazines: Home and Saber, National Saber, the Saber Evening Post, and Saber Living.

  They weren’t supposed to disturb Coach during the flight. Coach had been very firm on this subject. Nicholas wondered if it would disturb her a lot if he asked quietly to borrow one of her magazines.

  He leaned across the aisle. “Coach, can I—”

  Coach held up her magazine so that Nicholas could see the back. At home in Kings Row, Coach had many sayings that were forbidden, all posted on the wall of the gym. Boys were forbidden to say that épées were better than sabers, or despairingly claim “We lost because of me.” If anyone said forbidden phrases, they were punished by having to do suicide runs. On the back of her magazine, Coach had taped a note that read, COACH, CAN I TALK TO YOU DURING THE FLIGHT?

  Realistically, Coach couldn’t make him do suicide runs on a plane. Could she?

  Coach’s dark eyes met Nicholas’s over her magazine. Nicholas subsided back into his plane throne.

  “Great choice, Cox,” said Coach Williams, and returned to the Saber Evening Post.

  Aiden had also been lucky with his seat assignment and was supposed to sit with the captain. But since Aiden was a disaster, ungrateful for the good things the world provided him with, he was standing in the aisle, making complaints in a lazy voice that Nicholas had heard one of Aiden’s fans call languid. To Nicholas, languid just seemed like a fancy word for lazy.

  “Sir, I have to ask you to sit down,” said a flight attendant, who looked a bit dazed by Aiden in the way most people did, as if Aiden’s face were the equivalent of a two-by-four that struck heads with great force. “It’s in the regulations.”

  Aiden winked. “I have to ask.…Do rules
really apply to the handsome?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure they do,” said Harvard, when the flight attendant failed to reply.

  “If you recline both chairs and bring down the armrests, you can lower a small pod over yourself and sleep in a luxurious pod bed,” the flight attendant offered helpfully. She demonstrated, bringing down Harvard’s armrest to create a larger space.

  Aiden flushed as though suddenly startled, but with no other spots available, he had no choice but to sit next to Harvard. He gingerly lowered himself into his seat, keeping his eyes focused straight ahead.

  Nicholas looked around to share this Aiden-related weirdness with Seiji, but Seiji had produced a book from his bag. On the cover was a woman in hijab, holding a fencing foil balanced lightly against her shoulder. Seiji was already some way into the book and had an air that suggested there would be dire consequences if he was disturbed.

  Deciding to disturb Seiji later, Nicholas craned his neck to see Bobby and Dante immersed in a conversation that was mostly Bobby talking and Dante giving nonverbal cues.

  Harvard and Aiden seemed to have settled down.

  Nicholas turned back to Seiji and tried to get a look at his book. Seiji shot him an annoyed glance, so Nicholas elbowed him. Then the plane, which had been zooming down the runway, jolted into the air and seemed to leave Nicholas’s stomach on the runway behind him. Nicholas flailed, yelped, and hid his face in Seiji’s shoulder. It was a sudden and shocking feeling, after sixteen years spent on the ground.

  Seiji made a sharp irritated noise, then a relenting but still irritated sound, and patted Nicholas awkwardly on the shoulder once.

  “Let go of my shirt, Nicholas,” he said. Nicholas found Seiji’s icy annoyance comforting in its familiarity.

  Nicholas kept hold of Seiji’s shirt. The plane could lurch again at any moment. He only detached when the flight attendants came by with what was apparently just the first round of free food. They were offered tiny sandwiches and fancy flavored sparkling water in glasses with stems. Nicholas and Eugene had a conversation with the nice flight attendant about what was in the sandwiches and why they were so tiny.