Bickering
dark heroIt was just another school day.
After everything that had happened over the past few weeks, Nezu had almost started to appreciate how uneventful those could be. The teacher talked while most of the class made varying attempts at pretending to listen, pens moved across notebooks whenever something important appeared on the board, and somewhere near the back of the classroom, a student was doing a particularly poor job of hiding a phone beneath the desk.
Nezu sat beside Segu, looking toward the board and following the lesson with little enthusiasm but even less reason to complain. Nothing had exploded, nobody had a gun, and there were no mysterious keys, secret organizations, kidnappings, or people trying to kill them.
It was boring, ordinary school.
Nezu found that he didn’t particularly mind it.
The teacher finished writing something on the board and placed the chalk down before turning toward the class. “Before we continue, we have a new student joining us today.”
That immediately produced more interest than anything she had said during the previous twenty minutes. Conversations started quietly around the room, students straightened in their seats, and almost every pair of eyes turned toward the door.
Segu barely reacted.
Nezu did, although only slightly, lifting his eyes from his notebook toward the front of the classroom as the teacher smiled at whoever was waiting outside.
“You can come in.”
The door opened, and a girl stepped into the classroom with long red hair, perfect posture, and a face Nezu hadn’t expected to see standing there.
Akane.
The classroom immediately came alive with whispers, but for a few seconds Nezu barely registered any of them. He simply watched her standing beside the teacher while something warm and familiar stirred inside him.
He was happy.
He knew that much. Seeing Akane again made him happy, even if the feeling seemed to encounter some invisible barrier between wherever it existed inside him and the face that was supposed to express it. His features barely changed at all.
Beside him, Segu went completely still.
Akane looked over the unfamiliar faces until she found the two she had been searching for. Her eyes settled on Nezu first, and for a moment she simply stared at him.
He hadn’t changed much physically. His hair was still an untidy mess, his uniform was still worn with the same casual disregard for how it was supposed to look, and he was still unmistakably Nezu.
Yet something was different.
There was less on his face than Akane remembered.
For one brief and uncomfortable moment, she wondered if seeing her meant nothing to him. Then she noticed the smallest change in his eyes, something so subtle that nobody else in the classroom would have paid any attention to it.
Akane did.
A small smile appeared on her face before her attention moved to Segu, and that smile immediately became considerably more cautious.
Segu was staring at her.
Not surprised.
Not confused.
Angry.
Nezu glanced at his sister, then returned his attention to Akane.
This was probably going to become a problem.
“My name is Akane,” she said, bowing politely to the class. “It’s nice to meet everyone. I hope we’ll get along.”
A quiet sound came from beside Nezu.
He turned toward Segu. “What?”
“Nothing.”
It did not sound like nothing, but before Nezu could investigate further, the teacher began looking around the classroom for somewhere to place their new student.
“There should be a free desk near—”
“Here is fine.”
Akane had already spotted one only a short distance from Nezu and Segu and started walking toward it before the teacher could finish. Segu watched her approach with an expression that became progressively less welcoming with every step.
Akane stopped beside the empty desk and looked at them.
“Good morning.”
Segu narrowed her eyes. “No.”
Akane blinked.
Several nearby students turned toward them, apparently deciding that whatever was happening here was already considerably more interesting than the transfer student’s introduction.
“No?” Akane repeated.
“No.”
Nezu looked between them before turning to his sister. “Segu.”
“What?”
“She said good morning.”
“I heard her.”
“Then why did you say no?”
Segu slowly turned toward him and stared at her brother for several seconds, apparently searching his face for any indication that he was joking.
There wasn’t one.
She closed her eyes. “Never mind.”
“Okay.”
Akane quickly covered her mouth.
Segu’s attention snapped back toward her. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was breathing.”
“Do it quieter.”
The teacher cleared her throat loudly enough to remind all three of them that they were still standing in the middle of a classroom.
“Perhaps we can continue the reunion after class?”
Akane recovered immediately and offered her a perfectly polite smile. “Of course.”
Segu folded her arms while Akane took her seat, and Nezu returned his attention to the board as the teacher resumed the lesson.
So much for a normal school day.
Segu waited until lunch.
She had spent the rest of the morning watching Akane whenever she thought nobody was paying attention, and although Akane had attempted to speak with her more than once between classes, Segu had found remarkably creative ways of either ignoring her or answering with as few words as humanly possible.
She waited until Nezu left to buy something to drink.
Akane had barely stepped into the corridor when Segu followed her.
“Why are you here?”
Akane stopped and turned around. The amusement she had shown earlier disappeared almost immediately when she saw Segu’s expression.
“I transferred.”
“I noticed.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Don’t play stupid with me.”
Akane studied her for a moment before sighing. “I’m not.”
“Then why are you here?”
This time, Akane understood what she was actually asking. She glanced away, considering her answer before finally settling on the simplest one.
“I wanted to come.”
Segu gave a short laugh without the slightest trace of humour. “That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to explain why you suddenly decided to come back.”
“I didn’t come back.”
Segu’s expression hardened.
Akane continued before she could interrupt. “I never went anywhere.”
“You left him.”
Whatever answer Akane had been preparing disappeared.
Segu stepped closer. “You left him.”
“I know.”
“And now you just walk into our classroom and smile at him like nothing happened?”
“I wasn’t pretending nothing happened.”
“It sure looked like it.”
Akane’s patience finally began to crack. “What was I supposed to do, Segu? Walk into the classroom crying?”
“I don’t care!”
Her voice carried farther down the corridor than either of them intended, causing several students to glance in their direction. Segu didn’t seem to notice, or perhaps simply didn’t care anymore.
Akane lowered her own voice. “I know you’re angry.”
“You don’t know anything, Akane.”
“I know enough.”
“No. You don’t.”
Segu pointed back toward the classroom. The anger remained in her expression, but something else had started to appear beneath it now, something that Akane hadn’t expected to see.
Fear.
“Have you even looked at him?”
Akane frowned. “Of course I have.”
“Then look again.”
Akane didn’t answer.
“He got worse.”
The anger disappeared from Akane’s face.
Segu saw it immediately.
“He was already like that before,” she continued, her voice quieter now. “I know that. I’ve always known that. But he was getting better.”
Akane remained silent as Segu struggled to put years of small changes into words. Most people didn’t notice them. They met Nezu as he was now and simply assumed that was who he had always been.
Segu knew better.
“He talked more. He wanted to do things. He complained about stuff. He argued with me.” Segu paused, her hands tightening at her sides. “Sometimes I could even tell when he was enjoying himself without having to guess.”
Akane looked down.
“And then you left.”
“Segu…”
“He got worse after you left.”
“I didn’t make him like this.”
“I know!”
The answer came so quickly that Akane stopped.
Segu looked away, and when she spoke again, much of the anger had disappeared from her voice.
“I know you didn’t.”
That somehow sounded worse.
“I’ve watched it happen for years. Little things disappearing one after another. He stopped laughing. Then he stopped getting excited about things. Then angry. Then…” Segu shook her head, unwilling or unable to finish. “He was getting better with you.”
Akane’s eyes lowered.
“With us,” Segu corrected herself.
She looked back at Akane.
“And you left.”
Akane said nothing.
There were things Segu didn’t know, and more importantly, things she couldn’t know.
Akane had already seen what happened to people who became involved in matters they weren’t supposed to understand. Hannah had learned that lesson. The Browns could have been next, and death wasn’t necessarily what awaited people who crossed the wrong lines.
Sometimes they simply disappeared.
Diana. Steve. Segu. Nezu.
Akane couldn’t risk an entire family being dragged into a world they didn’t even know existed simply because she refused to step away from them.
So she had left.
She hadn’t wanted to, but wanting something had nothing to do with whether she was allowed to have it.
Coming back didn’t erase any of that either. The boundaries were still there, as were the people who enforced them, and Akane couldn’t explain any of it without placing Segu exactly where she had tried so hard to keep her: on the other side of that boundary.
Segu watched her silence for several seconds.
“Do you even care?”
Akane’s eyes snapped toward her. “Don’t.”
That reaction caught Segu by surprise. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t ask me that.”
“Why? Because you don’t like the answer?”
Akane’s hands tightened at her sides. “Do you think I wanted to leave?”
Segu went quiet.
Akane regretted the words almost immediately. She had already said more than she should have, and Segu wasn’t the type of person who ignored an opening once she found one.
“Then why did you?”
Akane looked away. “I had to.”
“You had to?”
“Yes.”
“That’s convenient.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me.”
Akane couldn’t.
She couldn’t tell Segu what would have happened if she had stayed. She couldn’t explain the people who had already proven how easily someone could be removed when they learned something they shouldn’t. Most of all, she couldn’t tell Segu that Nezu had never been the only person in danger.
Segu was too.
The entire Brown family was.
“Well?” Segu asked.
Akane remained silent.
“Explain it.”
“I can’t.”
Segu laughed bitterly and shook her head. “Of course you can’t.”
“Segu—”
“No. You left him, he got worse, and now you come back and won’t even tell me why.”
Akane had no answer that Segu was allowed to hear.
The silence stretched between them until Segu finally asked the question Akane had known was coming from the beginning.
“Then why are you here?”
Akane hesitated.
“I wanted to see you again.”
Segu stared at her. “Us?”
Akane nodded. “Both of you.”
Segu didn’t look convinced, and Akane couldn’t blame her for that. There was too much missing from the explanation, too many things Akane was asking her to accept without being able to provide a reason.
“I’m sorry.”
Segu watched her for a long moment.
“Don’t apologize to me.”
Then she turned and walked away.
Akane remained where she was, watching Segu disappear around the corner. She had expected Segu to be angry when she transferred. She had even prepared herself for it.
She hadn’t expected Segu to blame her for what was happening to Nezu.
Worse, she hadn’t expected to wonder whether Segu might be at least partially right.
“She is angry.”
Akane nearly jumped.
She turned to find Nezu standing several metres away, holding two drinks and watching her with the same unreadable expression he seemed to wear more often than not.
“How long have you been there?”
“A while.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“You were talking.”
Akane closed her eyes for a moment.
Of course.
When she opened them again, she glanced toward the corner where Segu had disappeared. “She hates me.”
“No.”
Akane looked back at him. “That sounded a lot like hate.”
“Segu is louder when she hates someone.”
Despite herself, Akane smiled.
Nezu walked toward her and held out one of the drinks.
Akane looked at the bottle and then at him. “You bought this for me?”
“Yes.”
“How did you know what I wanted?”
“You always bought this one.”
Akane looked down at the bottle again.
He remembered.
That shouldn’t have surprised her. Nezu remembered almost everything, particularly the small details most people discarded as unimportant. Even so, something about him standing there with the same drink she used to buy made it difficult to answer immediately.
She eventually took it from him. “Thank you.”
Nezu nodded.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Akane found herself doing exactly what Segu had told her to do.
She looked at him again.
Really looked.
Segu was right.
It wasn’t something Akane could easily point to, and someone meeting Nezu for the first time would probably have noticed nothing unusual beyond his already strange lack of expression. Akane had known him before, though. She knew the small movements, the subtle changes in his voice, the almost invisible reactions that had gradually become enough for her to understand him.
There were fewer of them now.
Less movement. Less expression. Less reaction.
It felt as though Nezu were slowly retreating somewhere inside himself, leaving less and less behind for everyone else to see.
Her fingers tightened around the bottle.
“Nezu.”
“Hm?”
“Are you angry with me?”
“No.”
Akane hesitated before asking the question she was considerably less certain she wanted answered.
“Did I hurt you?”
“Yes.”
There was no hesitation.
No accusation either.
Nezu said it exactly as he might have answered a question about the weather or something they had studied that morning. It was simply the truth, stripped of anger, resentment, or any attempt to make her feel guilty for it.
Akane almost wished he had shouted at her instead.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
She waited for something else, but nothing came.
“That’s it?”
Nezu looked at her. “What else?”
“I don’t know.”
Neither did he.
Akane looked down at the drink in her hands. There were explanations she wanted to give him, things that would make what she had done easier to understand, but explanations created questions, and questions eventually led to answers Nezu was safer without.
So she let the silence remain.
Then another question came to her, one considerably simpler than the others.
“Are you… happy I’m here?”
Nezu looked at her for a moment.
“Yes.”
Once again, almost nothing changed on his face.
This time, however, Akane knew where to look.
There it was in his eyes, so small that she might once have missed it completely.
Akane smiled.
A real one this time.
“Good.”
Nezu nodded, and for a few seconds that was enough.
Then Segu’s voice came from somewhere farther down the corridor.
“NEZU!”
He looked toward the sound. “Coming.”
Segu appeared around the corner a moment later and stopped when she saw Akane still standing beside him.
Her expression immediately soured.
“Why is she still here?”
Akane’s smile vanished. “I go to school here now.”
“I know. Unfortunately.”
“You’re going to have to get used to me.”
“I really don’t.”
“You really do.”
“No.”
Akane crossed her arms. “You can’t just keep saying no to everything.”
“No.”
Her eyebrow twitched.
Nezu opened his drink while the two girls started walking, their argument continuing almost immediately. Segu complained that Akane was annoying. Akane informed her that she had barely done anything. Segu called her an idiot. Akane told her she was behaving like a child, only for Segu to point out that they were, in fact, children, which apparently wasn’t the point despite being technically correct.
Nezu followed a few steps behind them, listening as their voices filled a corridor that had felt considerably quieter the day before.
He took another drink.
He was happy.
Nobody looking at him would have known.
But he was.
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