The Book of Firsts

Thirty-Seven

Friday was bitterly cold, wet and windy. Even wearing all the heavy clothes I’d picked up in Québec, I still felt damply miserable following the path to the faculty carpark, and was relieved when the app showed I could head immediately into the garden. Beneath umbrella, fur-lined hood and scarf, I wasn’t even certain whether it was Kyou or Bran who met me until we were in the summer house and Bran shed his outer layers.

"You get all the bad weather," I said.

"Seems like," he said, kicking a draft stopper into place before the door. "But this time I thought ahead and turned on the heater before school started. How’s the temperature?"

I hung my damp jacket on a hook just inside the door and paused for consideration. "No gooseflesh."

The summer house could never really be warm on a day like this, but he’d succeeded in making it tolerable.

"Do you drink coffee?" he asked. "Or do you want one of these things of Rin’s?"

"Coffee’s fine if there’s milk and sugar. You’re not interested in drinking your way through a world of teas?"

"A thousand flavours of dishwater? Not likely."

Bran filled the kettle, and took a French press, ground coffee, milk and sugar from his bag while the water heated.

"Download Tyranny," he said.

"No. No Tyranny. I’ll play it to death."

"And? From what I can see, you’re so far ahead on your subjects you might as well not attend class. And the exams are months away. Spend the entire weekend on it to take the first edge off the compulsion, give yourself an hour each evening for your study addiction, and spend the rest of it on the game. By the time exam prep comes around, you’ll have moved on from mastery to ranking, and there’ll be no real issue putting it down unless your ego’s so big you can’t stand the rankings drop."

"I’d rather do all that after the exams are behind me."

"Waiting until after the exams means you’ll still be in mastery stage when classes start at Helios U. If that course is the most important thing in your world, why set yourself up to be distracted from it?"

While I considered this unexpectedly good point, he turned back to the coffee, and by the time he put two steaming mugs on the coffee table, I had downloaded the game.

"Take off your clothes."

"Tyranny as foreplay?" I said, but obeyed, enjoying watching him unhurriedly shedding his own layers.

We settled together in a nest of blankets, coffee within easy reach. I set up my account and selected one of the base characters at random, running some solo training before joining Bran’s Yo-Yo for some duelling.

"Yo-Yo Ma?" I asked, after seeing the name.

"Mm. I had to Google yours."

"No surprise that I name myself for an engineer. Do you play cello?"

"Yes. It didn’t match the focus my parents wanted, so my foundation isn’t as good as I want, but after they gave up on that I was free to practice. They used to complain about the noise, but I moved to a converted garage attached to the house, which made a lot of things easier."

"I expect so," I said, sampling my mug, and then smiling in faint surprise. "You make good coffee."

"Hard to go wrong if you start with a good blend."

After I had the basic skills down, I switched to a random match. Tyranny’s central focus involved teams of four, but Bran didn’t join me, putting his phone down and entertaining himself roving his hands under the blankets while giving me occasional tips about the game’s particular quirks. I only lasted two games before I put my phone down and climbed into his lap.

"I’d like to think I have the willpower to play while you do that, but I don’t."

"Weak," Bran growled, nipped at my ear, then pulled me even closer. "I’d prove it was possible, but I need to pound you senseless."

"Time for both," I started to say, but was cut off when his mouth sealed to mine.

Bran liked to hold me extremely tight, barely letting me up for a breath from his kisses, and keeping as close as possible as we shifted, only stopping kissing me when he finally guided me onto my stomach. Then he delivered the promised pounding.

A long time later, he moved to lie beside me and gathered me close. "Kyou was right."

I was panting into his chest, not close to recovered. "About?"

"He said you like this position most. Rin said you like being on top most."

I laughed, and wiped at my face. "They’re both right. This was best with Kyou, and on top best with Rin. I didn’t realise I was that transparent."

"Even if you don’t caterwaul, it’s not hard to spot when you shift from enjoying yourself to seriously enjoying yourself. For one thing, you outright look happy. And you tend to do this little clutching thing with your hands."

"I’m learning so much about myself," I said, not entirely pleased by this analysis. "I liked this with Rin too, but being on top was extra good with him."

"Is it easy to judge?"

"Sometimes there’s a standout, sometimes I flip a coin. None of you are bad." I glanced at him, testing his reaction to a mischievous smile. "Well, you caught up extremely quickly."

He snorted, then said: "Rin said tickling you is a hilarious thing, because you have to hold back your laughter."

Bran was merciless, and did not stop until tears ran from my eyes. Efforts to tickle him back weren’t nearly effective enough, so I had to capture his hands to make him stop.

"Weren’t you going to prove you could play no matter what the distraction?"

"Play and win."

Having succeeded in distracting him from tickling me, I then curled beside Bran and watched him play with unimpaired competence despite the gentle stroking of my fingers. Just when I thought that he’d actually succeed, he tossed his phone onto the coffee table and pounced on me. There was no more Tyranny that session.

Still, the game now had its hooks in me, and I was itching to play it during Art Club. My thoughts kept straying back to it as we started on the massive pile of requests the Club had received for the upcoming school festival, but I decided that Bran was right in encouraging me to play now, rather than at the beginning of university.

"Mika, you should work on your model next," Carr told me, after we’d created several wooden forms which would be painted up into ghosts and ghouls for a haunted house display. "We can manage the painting. Besides, Ms Taylor will give me stern looks if I keep taking you away from that piece, because she’s planning a whole display around it."

"I’ve been coming after class each day, so I’m fairly confident of finishing in time," I said. "Help me lift it down?"

Even though the materials used for its construction were light, the model had naturally grown heavier as I added layers, and I had to hold it firmly to prevent wobbling.

"Other than locking it in the teachers' room, I can’t think of any safer place to put it," Carr said apologetically. "And even that wouldn’t really be safe."

"They always end up with fingerprints if they’re left within reach," I said, surveying my progress and frowning at a new dusting of fine particles. "I keep not getting around to making a drop cloth. Do we have anything lighter than the canvas material?"

"I don’t…" Carr began.

"We could ask over at home economics," Lania said, peering around Carr to study the model. "They always have a collection of off-cuts. "I’ll go check after we’ve done the haunted mansion pieces. This is so much further along since last time I saw it—how late have you been staying, Mika?"

"A couple of hours. It’s good to work when there’s fewer people around because there’s less distraction."

"Or interruptions, I’d bet," Carr said. "But you shouldn’t be here that long now it gets dark so early. Let me know when you’re staying late and I’ll give you a lift."

"I’m ahead of schedule at the moment, so won’t need to be staying so late. Besides, I figured out you live in the exact opposite direction to my apartment, so can’t in good conscience, etcetera."

"I don’t mind at all," Carr said, smiling warmly.

"Well, I don’t say I won’t hold you to that on the really cold and wet days," I said, heading to the store room to collect supplies. "I’ve now been thoroughly schooled on what people meant by bad winter here, and am quite prepared to be shameless out of fear of numb extremities."

The main superstructure of Helios' famous suspension bridge had already taken shape, and I intended to use varying thicknesses of string to represent the cabling. I’d shopped on the weekend for these supplies, not trusting an online order to get exactly what I needed, and now laid out a number of needles and did some test sections. Since this wasn’t the first suspension bridge I’d modelled, it was a matter of refining previous attempts, and I was quite satisfied with the result, managing to complete a small section of the cabling before the end of Club.

"Are you coming to the Tokley today, Mika?" Lania asked, appearing with a hemmed square of lime green stuff which would make a very vivid dust cloth.

"Not this week." I leaned over and whispered to her: "I accidentally started playing Tyranny, and all I want to do is collect all the champions."

"Really?" Lania, who had seemed subdued, brightened and laughed. "I’ll match with you, then. You going to play on the bus back?"

I nodded, borrowed Rick to help lift the model back to its perch, and played with Lania all the way home. The day’s other game I didn’t remember to score until quite late that night, putting Kyou first and Bran second. Rin’s third place still represented a very enjoyable experience, and I hoped we could revisit it for one of the less position-specific challenges.