The Book of Firsts

Twenty-Seven

It wasn’t until Wednesday evening that the subject of hickeys resurfaced on the school forums. There were several excellent photographs from the Tuesday afternoon basketball game that brought speculation about Bran’s new girlfriend back to fever pitch. Thankfully Rin and Kyou, similarly dressed, no longer had their matching marks, or who knew where gossip might have led.

There wasn’t much about me on the forums, all of it revolving around sandcastle, and none of it connected to any kings. I’d faltered in my plan for a low-profile year, but it seemed I would be able to return to the background.

Friday was a mild day, neither warm nor noticeably cool, but the upcoming change to winter uniforms had me thinking again about practicalities of cold weather. The quick shower I had before these meetings posed no difficulties, but I’d be less than keen to sluice off under a hose in a typical Helios winter. It would even occasionally snow in this city.

There were few leaves left on the trees, and the brown carpet they’d made crunched as I headed into the wooded nook, the sound mixing with a few notes plucked on a guitar, and then a brief melody from a violin, high and sweet. I hesitated, double-checking the app, because those two very distinct instruments were just on the far side of the wall from me, but the green dot remained steady, so I shrugged and climbed the nearest tree so I could see into the garden.

Bran and Rin, holding acoustic guitar and violin respectively, but no-one else. I slipped over the top of the wall, dropping down lightly.

"Threesomes weren’t on that challenge list," I said mildly.

Rin laughed.

"We could change that," Bran said, with a sudden doubling of intensity.

"But who gets the points?" I asked, glancing at a scattering of handwritten sheet music on the café table. "Sudden inspiration? Want me to come back later?"

"Be our audience," Rin said, lifting the violin back to his throat. "There’s something tangled in the central phrase, and I’m determined to unpick it, but if this playthrough doesn’t get it, I’ll try again another day."

I sat obediently, sliding my backpack down to rest on my feet. Bran picked up the guitar and sat down. Rin crossed to stand near him, making it usefully easy for me to ogle them both at once. Very beautiful boys, elegant and lightly burnished by sunlight, the golden wood of their instruments gleaming, hands moving with complete confidence, expressions abstract. The music was primarily a guitar piece, steel strings vivid, with the violin in counterpoint, and I wondered if there were accompanying lyrics. The tone moved from melancholy to what felt like anger and defiance.

Rin played like he did everything: with consummate grace. Bran was relaxed, almost sprawling on the chair, and apparently entirely unconcerned, so I could only presume his dislike of performance didn’t extend to exclusive concerts. I was trying to decide if I had any useful commentary when Rin stopped playing and walked quickly to the café table, snatching up a pencil to make a few deft marks. Bran lazily followed, and read the changes as Rin made them. Then he handed the guitar to me.

"I hear you know a few instruments, Cheshire. How about you give it a shot?"

"Not a precise restatement of what I said," I murmured, but took the guitar, and slid the sheet music over.

Rin raised his violin again to accompany me, and although my unpractised hands had none of Bran’s virtuosity, I was at least able to pick out the notes. But after only a quarter of the song, I gave up, handed Bran back the guitar, and blew on stinging fingertips. "Now I remember why I stopped playing."

He laughed, and took up the tune where I’d left off, leaning against the wall as he played. I found myself catching my breath. Truly, Bran had all the charisma.

A faint noise caught my attention amidst the music. I reached down, pulled my phone out of my bag, and flipped open the cover to discover the video feed Bran had told me about. Then I briskly grabbed my backpack and strode off behind the summer house. Bran looked surprised, but didn’t miss a note, and continued playing as I sat down on the grass near the tap and hastily muted my phone.

The feed showed five people, two I didn’t recognise and three I did. First was the Principal, who was a very distinctive man, all beaked nose and swept back hair, like a white-crested hawk. Immediately behind him was Katarina, and then Sirocco. From the resemblance, one of the strangers was almost certainly Sirocco’s mother, and the other a man of around sixty, very expensively clothed. At the distinct clunk of the garden gate’s lock, I immediately regretted not risking a quick scramble directly over the wall, or even staying sitting at the table. If any of them came around the back of the summer house, instead of being an innocuous audience, I would look peculiar and guilty.

Rin and Bran had kept playing. I thought through my options, then pulled a couple of books out of my backpack, arranging them artfully around me. Next, I pulled out headphones, lay down using my backpack as a pillow, and began to play Battle of Lothra with the sound up high.

I’d only completed a single game when movement at the summer house’s corner caught my eye. I glanced, saw with relief that it was only Rin and Bran, and sat up, pulling out an earbud and raising my eyebrows in query.

Rin offered me a bemused expression in return. "Even from you I didn’t expect this level of insouciance."

"I was going to say you told me I wasn’t allowed to listen," I explained. "Though why I was here in the first place, and what was so secret is something I’d have left to your ingenuity."

"Bran’s new girlfriend, hanging around irritatingly, barely tolerated by me, so distracting," Rin said, with a curling smile. "I hate nosy ants listening when I’m composing. They always interrupt."

"Would she still be my girlfriend if they’d found her bouncing up and down on you?" Bran asked, with a low chuckle.

"That would be an interesting sell," Rin said. "At any rate, I’m finding this garden to be far less secure than I expected. And yet I can’t think of a better location."

"Steal the key?" Bran suggested.

"Maintenance has the spare, and then there’d be questions."

"Break the key," I said. "Bend it just enough that it can’t turn the lock, buying us enough time to…stop bouncing."

"That’ll work." Rin fished in his pocket and handed a lightly tarnished key to Bran. "Break mine, and then switch with the faculty copy. The rest all look too new."

Bran went and found his own key, gave it to Rin, and then paused to pull me hard against him and kiss me breathless. "You’re still not anywhere on the list of potential girlfriends," he said, letting go and picking up the guitar. "Cheshire lurking in the shadows, and all the hunters blind."

He left, and Rin locked the gate after him, then came back to me.

"Do you think he’s truly gotten over Meggan, or is this flaunting all about her?"

"If she didn’t still matter, he wouldn’t be flaunting," Rin replied. "Bran usually hates anyone knowing anything about his private life."

"Will he flaunt enough for me to be worried?"

"I am one hundred percent sure he will no longer jeopardise this game. It seems to be feeding quite a few of his fantasies." Rin packed away his violin and sheet music, expression wry. "In fact, I think this game has shown us that Bran and Meggan would never have worked out. She’s essentially very proper, and from what I’ve seen so far, Bran is not at all vanilla. I expect he would have added threesomes to the list in a heartbeat, if you’d sounded interested."

Was I interested? Probably. But: "I still don’t see how I’d allocate points," I said, shrugging. "What was the impromptu visit about?"

"Tour for a new patron. And unnecessary nosiness, which has soured my mood considerably." He picked up his phone. "Kyou said you’ve been playing Lothra with him. Let’s hope you’re a little better with it than you are at guitar."

I stuck out my tongue, but followed him into the summer house, and settled down to play, again sitting with my legs across my team-mate’s lap, a pose Rin insisted upon. His game handle was Downward Spiral, which I recognised as an album reference, and in the lulls between games we talked about the types of music and games he admired.

"I’ve always been fascinated by game music," he said, giving up on Lothra in favour of running his hands up and down my thighs. "But Journey was the point where I knew I couldn’t stand to do anything else. I replay it whenever I’m hating the world because it invariably resets my frame of mind. I want to create something that does the same."

Journey, a wordless and exhilarating trek, was definitely a game where music could whirl you away. "What part of your game were you working on today?"

"Today was a sideline. Bran and I compose and arrange popular music. We’ve yet to produce a sizeable hit, but we can reliably sell songs." He smiled faintly. "We’re going to need a lot of money to fulfil our ambitions, and can expect no support from our families."

"What degree are you taking?"

"Master of Music and Master of Music Technology and Sound Design."

I laughed. "Are you trying to cover all the roles in a game studio just between the three of you?"

"For the size of the games we want to make, three people is a drop in the ocean, but we each have core areas we’ll lead, and want to understand them thoroughly. We have one game in current production, which will only require a small team, primarily in the graphical area, while the second is an enormous undertaking that we aren’t ready for."

His roving hand had found its way to my underpants, and he hooked a thumb and pulled.

"What’s your favourite game, Cheshire?" he asked, dropping my pants on the coffee table.

"Tetris."

"Be serious."

"I enjoy things that involve building—Minecraft, Bridge Builder, so on—but perhaps less than you’d expect given how much I like design. I don’t particularly enjoy really busy little micromanagement or time management games. Always appreciate puzzles. Love big open world RPGs. I try out a lot of the MOBAs, though I mainly like the ones that focus on the champions and don’t have a lot of troop management. I guess Mass Effect 2, if you need a game that isn’t stacking blocks, though I agree that Journey is inspirational."

He had unbuttoned my shirt as I spoke, and now began trying to take my bra off while leaving the shirt on.

"Afraid of them coming back?" I asked, wriggling the straps free.

"It’s difficult to not think about it," he said. "But it’s more that I like this look." He ran a finger down my exposed chest.

"So, your fantasy costume is going to just be one of your shirts?"

He pulled me forward so that I was sitting properly on his lap, and kissed me in answer, his hand sliding to squeeze flesh he’d exposed. I moved so I was straddling him, the better to enjoy his growing arousal, but I stayed kissing him without anything further until, a hectic flush highlighting his cheekbones, he tugged off his belt impatiently.

"Not enough bouncing, Cheshire."

I laughed, and moved off him so that he could adjust his clothing. I ran a finger lightly up the bloom that immediately sprouted, then moved back, slowly settling, watching him close his eyes in pleasure. But I held off on the bouncing, instead unbuttoning his shirt.

"You have beautiful collarbones, Rin."

"Thank you."

I draped my arms across his shoulders, hooking them behind his neck, and raised myself up a few inches. "Great leverage," I added.

He made an amused sound, but also wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me even closer to him, so that when I moved up and down my breasts rubbed against his chest. He also propped his feet on the edge of the coffee table, changing all the angles ever so slightly, and this felt so good I murmured approval. Rin’s size in this position went from almost too much to exactly right, and I came before I’d hardly started, but kept going after the tiniest pause because I wanted the feeling again and again. When it was finally his turn to stiffen and gasp, I immediately afterwards went limp against his chest, exhausted.

Rin stroked my back. "You’ve worked hard. Well done."

I poked him in the ribs, then tested to see if he was ticklish, but that only led to me being pinned on the couch while he delicately bit my breasts, and then kissed me.

"I don’t think leaving most of our clothes on works," I said, a while later. "If someone came now, I couldn’t just pull myself together. Also, I think my skirt probably needs washing."

"More technical difficulties than I anticipated," he agreed calmly. "Would still do again."

We paused for laundry, discovering that Rin’s uniform also needed cleaning, and played Lothra in our underwear while our clothes dried in the sun.

"The season’s getting a little too cool to rely on this," I said, donning my still-damp skirt. "I guess I’ll add more spare clothes to the underwear I’m keeping in my locker."

"There’s always the sports uniform," Rin said calmly, knotting his tie.

"There’s only so many weeks I could get away with changing into my sports uniform on Tuesday before someone wanted to know what the heck I was doing during lunch. I’ve got to go buy my winter uniform—I might need more than two sets."

"Go for the tights over the trouser option," he said.

I snorted. "You run around in tights in winter and I’ll join in."

"Always an option," he said, unfazed. "The uniforms are theoretically unisex."

I paused, then said: "If all three of you wear the tunic and tights on the first day of winter uniform, I will wear tights on the not-entirely freezing days."

"Done."

"Was fantasy costume one of the challenges you added?"

He offered me the gentle, opaque smile that hid so much of him. "Your tunic has to be at least mid-thigh, but preferably higher."

"Any underwear preferences?"

"White and delicate."

"I’ll see what I can do," I told him, and left.