Chapter Twenty-Five

Manipulative

(Part 1 of 3)

 

Because of Abihiko's escapades with yelling, elbowing, and kicking during the night, Nekohiko was too sleepy and irritable during the day. He tripped, he spaced out. He couldn't take Abihiko's nonsense as generously and quietly as before. And all that boded terribly for the thin thread that became shorter and shorter.

By the fifth day, its length was only that of two feet. Not even Kotone or Hifumi could fit within this length comfortably and so... alas, Nekohiko had to sleep directly next to Abihiko now.

Heavens save him.

Today, they decided to abandon their routine of escaping their classmates. Not like Abihiko studying with him one-on-one garnered any significant improvement to Nekohiko's Binding. The thing was, Nekohiko actually believed that Abihiko was kind of... good as a teacher. He was thorough and he was oddly patient. He could come up with endless variations of explanations of how this or that Binding technique worked -- more than any teacher had done for him before. Nekohiko even managed to understand several fusion laws and dependencies he couldn't prior.

But none of this mattered. Because, incomprehensibly, Nekohiko just couldn't Bind.

At all.

When Abihiko realized this at last, he no longer wanted to choke Nekohiko with his own hands for being dumb. For days, Abihiko had told him he was just not trying hard enough. But today, as Nekohiko broke down into tears from futility and embarrassment, Abihiko suddenly went quiet.

And scared.

"Hey. Hey." He poked Nekohiko in the side, sounding worried. "Are you crying for real? I didn't mean it..."

Nekohiko had never let himself appear so weak in front of anybody. He wasn't a vulnerable or a fragile type of person. He could take many things and push through them with nary a shift in his facial expression. But not sleeping enough every night and being unable to flee Abihiko's Binding greatness that was in Nekohiko's face continuously for the last few days...

All of this had piled up. And came out in tears.

At least he'd turned aside and hid his face in his knees before Abihiko glimpsed a single tear.

"Come on," Abihiko told him, slowly tugging at his thread. "I'll deal with it."

"Deal with what?" Nekohiko asked as he allowed himself to be led by the thread out of the library corner they'd inhabited and across the hall to the galleries leading over to the Shrine.

"I'll deal with your Binding issue." Abihiko's voice was steady yet somehow raw. "This is ridiculous. It actually makes no sense whatsoever."

It was too late to turn back when Abihiko broke into the Head Priest's office, fists at the ready.

"Hey, this girl is obviously cursed by some demonic Spirit!" Abihiko yelled into the closed doors, ignoring the Bound dummies that guarded it against the intruders. "Help her! This is not fair! She totally should be able to Bind like everyone else! She even gets all the techniques without any trouble! She tries so hard! Something else must be wrong! I demand justice! And a proper investigation!"

Nekohiko was mortified. His heart quickened until painful against his ribs. He tried to pull Abihiko away from the doors but Abihiko twisted him aside without even noticing.

Since some time ago, with how Abihiko had been teaching him the Nagare method, Nekohiko began seeing that most of Abihiko's martial art and fighting moves were aided by his Binding. It was little wonder Nekohiko couldn't win a single battle against him or others! Abihiko was constantly stealing the aspects of the surrounding elements like sunlight, wind, the solidity of the ground, the warmth in the area, the thickness of the air -- to Bind into his attacks and dodges.

This only further highlighted how much Binding was integral to having power in this country. When it would be time for Nekohiko to reclaim his throne, he would have to unlock his Binding. Without it, he wouldn't even have the chance.

But fighting wasn't the only thing Nekohiko had at his disposal, was it?

"I'll stretch the thread," he threatened, pulling the ever-diminishing pearlescent cord up to Abihiko's face. "Get away from the Head Priest's door. Now."

Abihiko gave him a stink eye. But he stopped his ruckus. "He has to make sure all his pupils have equal opportunities to learn. Don't defend him. He messed up. He needs to hear it."

Head Priest Suminoe? Messed up?

Who are you to dare claim that!

Nekohiko opened his mouth to rant but at that very moment, the doors slid open from within. The most solemn, calm, and elegant person in the world was peering at them from beyond the threshold. Nekohiko could only drop his gaze and shrink back in shame.

Suminoe.

Nekohiko never doubted that the Head Priest cared about him but he also understood that Suminoe could never show that. If, out of all the pupils in Izumo, he had singled Nekohiko out -- that would be like drawing a target mark upon Nekohiko's face for any of the Usurper's spies and assassins. Everyone knew how distant and unapproachable Suminoe was. How could Nekohiko demand anything from him, especially if that would endanger either of them?

Abihiko stuck his finger into Nekohiko's face but looked up at Suminoe -- as proudly as if he was talking to someone beneath him rather than a person two heads taller than him.

"She's cursed, isn't she? No way a Spirit-sensitive person would be as bad as she is with the simplest Binding techniques! There's something fishy about it and I want you to investigate that!"

Out of the blue, Suminoe smiled.

Nekohiko had never seen him do that. And with such tenderness, too.

"She is doing fine." Suminoe glanced at Nekohiko and his smile felt even warmer when their eyes met. "There is no curse on her. I promise you."

An indignant breath erupted out of Abihiko's mouth. "Yeah, right."

"But there might be something else that interferes with her skills. A temporary hindrance that will naturally resolve itself with age." Suminoe grew serious again. "The thing is -- it's not dangerous that she can't Bind yet. She learns the methods and techniques even if she cannot use them now. That is all that matters. The rest is patience. And humbleness."

He was clearly not getting through to Abihiko, so he focused on Nekohiko only. "Do you understand?" Suminoe asked him.

Timid, Nekohiko nodded. Although deep inside, he didn't agree.

What did patience and humbleness mean when he couldn't achieve even the simplest spells and ended up being mocked by everyone?

Abihiko was of the same mindset. "That's all nice of you to say. You're not the one suffering from it."

Suminoe quirked an eyebrow. "How is she suffering other than from a wounded ego? Does ego bleed? Does pride sting you? Does vanity torture you?"

...

"We understand. Forgive us the intrusion. We have to go," Nekohiko mumbled, backing away. But Abihiko wasn't budging.

"And what if someone attacks her? She can't even defend herself on par with everyone else!"

"Well. On an off chance I'm not there to protect her -- wouldn't you be there instead? I can attest that you're strong and brave enough to stave off even the most formidable opponents."

"...me?" Abihiko lost all of his steam, instantly flabbergasted. "Protecting her? I'm not her bodyguard."

Suminoe already slunk away from the door as though the conversation was over. He only turned long enough to give Abihiko a gentle wave of his hand. "Then what are you, throwing a tantrum on her behalf here? She doesn't seem to be suffering. She doesn't seem to be demanding anything either. You are. So what is your position in regards to her, exactly, if not her bodyguard's?"

"That man gets on my nerves," the boy complained to Nekohiko a few minutes later as the two, forlorn and embittered, made their way out of the administrative wing of the School. "So high, so removed from this shallow world and its concerns. I wonder if he ever goes to the bathroom, with that kind of attitude toward life."

Nekohiko didn't respond only because he knew rebutting Abihiko would incite him even more. Abihiko was rarely without a snarky opinion just about everything in the world, so Nekohiko let him grumble away. That placated him quickly enough to forget about his grievances and move on. Usually.

But not today, for some reason.

The crisp morning had only just rolled into noon. The many pupils were already hurrying about, trying to squeeze their lunch in between classes. With a sigh, Abihiko followed the currents and so did Nekohiko.

There was no more reason to hide away in the library since they had to get out in the open sooner or later. Might as well be today.

The multicolored ribbons on the eaves of the canteen fluttered in the breeze and from the overwhelming traffic of people going in and out of the main hall. The susurrus of many conversations and the soft clinking of chopsticks reached them even from beyond the doors.

Abihiko traded a braving breath in. "All right, whatever," he said, then prepared all his swagger in order to march down the main aisle to the meal counter, chin high up and expression defiant regardless whether there was anything to defy, or not.

Nekohiko didn't care about swagger, least of all because girls were supposedly not meant to display it. But he cared about acting exactly as he always did, which was to stalk about in the grimmest way imaginable. His hair hanging like a veil before him and his hunched figure avoidant and starkly distant to any human in the vicinity.

Save for Abihiko, of course.

The worst thing about The Fox Thread was that it was invisible to anyone who hadn't seen it being cast. So other than Suminoe, Kotone, and Takara -- everyone else in the world wouldn't be able to see it and thus would think that Abihiko and Nekohiko were constantly so close to each other because...

Just because.

Explaining some invisible magic to others also sounded too bothersome, especially the reasons of why it existed, so the way to go was to pretend that nothing weird was happening.

Sigh.

The two of them grabbed whatever was offered at the counter -- rice triangles, juicy pickled plums, egg twists with chopped onions -- and padded down toward the table Abihiko had spotted from afar. The novice boys' table. It was at first as bumbly and vigorous in their gossip and trashtalk as the girls' table was. But as soon as Abihiko and Nekohiko neared them -- it grew eerily quiet.

"What are you doing here?" one of the closest boys told Nekohiko when he noticed him. "Get away, shoo."

Nekohiko stared down at his tray and tried to put it on the table nonetheless.

"It's the boys' table," someone else echoed.

"Not only feebleminded but also deaf?" the first boy went on, wincing. "Do you need a kick to understand human language or--"

Abihiko threw a kick at the boy instead. "Shut up or I'll make you."

"Ow, what the hell!"

The canteen's interior consisted of cherry trees Bound together into a hall, canopies fused and stretched out to form the ceiling and the trunks themselves left around as some intricate columns amidst the beautiful, blossom-rustling space. Because so many trees grew in the canteen, most children oriented themselves according to their favorite trees under which they chose to dine. Abihiko's group of bullies always picked the biggest cherry in the center -- crimson, velvety, incredibly ornate blossoms sheltering everyone underneath. More of a Spirit-tree than a real one.

"We missed you so," one of the other boys told Abihiko. He dwindled out when he realized that Nekohiko wasn't going anywhere and was getting seated next to Abihiko like this was some kind of an obvious arrangement.

Under the biggest cherry tree in the canteen. Among the most amazing boys of the novice class.

He. A girl that nobody was willing to hang out with.

"Did you... forget something?" Koki asked Nekohiko with a scowl.

Nekohiko curled downward onto his bowls and pretended not to hear anything.

"Uh... Abi?" the other of the boys ventured out after a moment.

Without a single word, Abihiko gave them all a glare so powerful, everyone shut up out of simple fear. The first boy Abihiko had kicked for insulting Nekohiko was still rubbing his bruised knee.

"Are you two friends or what?"

"Yes. We are. I want to hear nothing more about this," Abihiko told the gathering then thudded his tray onto the table.

And "nothing" was precisely the reaction of everyone present from that moment on. In Nekohiko's presence, silence erupted at the table. However, how could any sort of silence be a bad consequence for him? If anything, he reveled in it.

The next few days proceeded in the same state of weary tension whenever Abihiko hanged out with his friends and classmates. Only tension. No talk yet. Nekohiko had no idea what the girls' reactions were to this bizarre news because Abihiko naturally wanted to be only around boys and Nekohiko never argued with that. But soon enough, he found out.

It was the third day after the reveal of their "friendship". And people had finally tired of eating around in silence.

"Kitten, you're a girl, right?" Koki asked him in the middle of the dreary breakfast-slash-cramming session with half of the pupils poring over their textbooks while they ate in preparation for the next, very difficult, theory class.

Nekohiko swallowed a knot, startled. "Yes?" he said. "I'm a girl."

Was it too obvious he wasn't?

"Say... what do you think about me?" Koki licked his lips and raised his eyebrows.

Now even Abihiko resurfaced from his picture storybook.

Another boy who constantly tried to fawn over Abihiko, Yatsuri, hurried to explain lest Lord Abihiko was too perplexed by something. "It's the boy celebration day soon, Kitten, you see? Girls have to pick the boy they like and give him sweets..." He began sounding wistful. "All the girls murmur and whisper and giggle all the time when they see any of the boys nearby. So we were wondering..."

"And Kitten is a girl, so you know... why not use the opportunity to learn something about the 'enemy' and their tactics, eh?" Koki finished. He turned back to Nekohiko. Out of nowhere, he gave Nekohiko a crooked smile. His voice dipped low. "Hello, pretty."

And before Nekohiko had time to blanch back too dramatically, a couple of the boys who sat further down the table also leaned in. "Come on tell us, Kitten. What kind of boy do girls like?"

"Yeah-yeah. Who's the cutest among us, for instance?"

Nekohiko felt like vertigo. Not a sound managed to escape his quivering mouth.

"Juro," Abihiko said, without looking up from his book. "Juro is the cutest among you, if you're so interested."

"Tsk, come on, man. Don't be weird." The boy who had to be Juro flushed rich beetroot red and shrank back from the dour looks of his peers. Nekohiko gave Juro an analytical glance just to remember for himself what "cutest" supposedly looked like.

To be honest, never in his life had he been concerned with such definitions and concepts. He'd heard others mention words like "cute", "pretty", "beautiful", "attractive" many times. But he'd never taken them to heart. At best, he learned to associate them with specific people so that if someone asked, he could repeat the answer correctly. But he never felt that he had a need to define anyone as these words.

Juro had thin facial features and straight, slightly concave eyebrows that gave him the appearance of constant anguish. Nekohiko couldn't for the life of him decide whether this was "cute" or not. But if Abihiko said it was...

"We're asking her," Koki said, clearly annoyed at Abihiko's reply.

"What's the big difference between her opinion and mine? I say it how it is." Abihiko threw his book down, flippant.

"Yes, but your opinion doesn't matter," Koki said. "Besides, you have a vested interest in this. You probably think you're the cutest boy around here, so of course you wouldn't want to share that title with anyone else."

"He's not wrong," Yatsuri said. "Everyone knows all the girls go insane for Abihiko. You're just jealous, Koki."

"Jealous? Of what? As if he cares which girls go insane for him and which don't." Koki and a couple of other boys made faces, then snapped all their attention back to Nekohiko. "So say... Do you like any boys at Izumo? If so, then who?"

"Morokata, obviously," someone snorted from the back. "Or Hifumi."

"When Abihiko grows up, he will show those two just fine," Yatsuri chimed in.

Koki let a heavy sigh out. "Yes, all girls are shallow, aren't they?"

This wasn't true, Nekohiko wanted to snap. Was Kotone shallow? Was Saho? If they thought like that, they probably weren't deep enough themselves.

"I don't have preferences," Nekohiko said very slowly. "But I think the Head Priest is very... magnificent."

Now even Abihiko was rapt. "The Head Priest? Are you kidding me?"

Everyone else had experienced just as shocking an impact. "Seriously? He's so old..."

"Thirty isn't that old," Nekohiko replied, nose in his bowl.

"It's exactly three times your age!"

"No, it isn't. I'm already eleven."

A crease appeared on Abihiko's forehead. "Since when?"

Oh, please. Nekohiko wasn't into discussing it in front of everyone but since they were all so agitated and intrigued... "Since four days ago."

"You had your birthday four days ago?" The tone with which Abihiko said that gave Nekohiko a strange pang. As though Abihiko felt betrayed. "You should have told me. I'd give you a present."

The best present he could get would have been freedom from the tormenting thread. Or a full night's sleep without being touched or tackled or slobbered on.

"Head Priest?" a couple of boys cried in disbelief. "Seriously? Out of all the men in Izumo -- the Head Priest?"

Nekohiko grew a bit frightened of such a reaction. Was Suminoe not refined and sophisticated? Was he not handsome by others' standards?

"But he's such a... log," someone said after a few moments of fruitless search for a better metaphor. "No more human than furniture."

"Yeah, like one of his Bound dummies," a few others snickered into their cups.

A surge of anger swept Nekohiko like a dark tide. His fingers creaked curling into fists under the table.

"A statue," Abihiko corrected. He let out a derisive sniff, eyeing Nekohiko with a wizened understanding. "If you like cold, calculating, and mechanistic, then sure. I always wondered why you're so limp and droopy around him. Now I know."

Nekohiko swerved to glare. What could someone as shameless as Abihiko or his shallow-minded friends possibly know about his nearly-sacred respect for Suminoe?

"He's not a statue. And not a log," he said, barely restraining his spite. "He's majestic. He's... perfect."

"Well, this cherry tree is also perfect and majestic and all that." Abihiko tapped the mighty trunk beside him with his knuckle. "But can you imagine me or anyone actually falling in love with a tree? Yeah, don't think so."

"I'm not in love with--" Nekohiko stuttered on his breath, appalled. But instead of repeating the rest of the obscenities he couldn't stomach even once, he jumped to his feet wishing to leave, and--

The damn thread.

Abihiko hissed, visibly upset at the further shortening after Nekohiko rebounded back to him. But he didn't speak or lash out as he usually did when they were alone. Sullen, Nekohiko sat down, straight as a stick.

With force, he began eating his dull rice cake again.

And the boys' behavior wasn't even the most infuriating. Nekohiko found that out when Abihiko, bored out of his mind by his friends' reluctance to talk in front of Nekohiko of anything other than boy-girl discrepancies, decided to dump his male-centered company. And try the female companionship instead.

What he hadn't accounted for was the fact that Nekohiko had no girl friends of his age. And no skills to approach them. The two of them had to depend on Abihiko's skills -- and among the girls, these skills had... quite the bombastic effect.

"Abihiko," misty-eyed coos came from all sides.

"Abiko," voices whispered like purling waters.

"Hi!"

"Hello, Abihiko."

Lips curved up and eyes glinting. "Hey, Abihiko."

Most of the noises around the two of them were non-verbal, though. Giggles, sighs, pouts that demanded attention by pretending to be inattentive, sidestepping clumsy bumps into Abihiko as though accidentally, and so -- much -- laughter among all the girls even when they weren't talking to Abihiko at the moment. For some reason, even when girls were a little bit aways from him, they started laughing at each others' jokes much louder than usual.

Oh, and Nekohiko still didn't exist to all those girls, so, for the two of them, there was no real point to preferring girls over boys. Unless, of course, Abihiko enjoyed all this weird performative girlishness erupting around him.

Which, luckily, he did not. In an odd way, Nekohiko had never respected him more for ignoring both the other boys and all the girls from that moment on.

"The two of us is fine," Abihiko told him as they dawdled, gathering their things after another class. Everyone else had already left but Nekohiko stayed behind as always.

And Abihiko didn't hurry him up this time.

"You know what the boys tended to call you before?" he asked Nekohiko when Nekohiko didn't react to his sudden proclamation. "The title we all gave you after the first week in Izumo?"

"The title?" Nekohiko had never even known other people thought about him that much.

Abihiko smirked. "You were acting all so unique and speshul and superior to everyone else, so yeah. We -- and some of the girls -- gave you an over-the-top unique title to reflect that."

"I did not act special and superior," Nekohiko said, offended.

Abihiko's eyebrows shot up. "You pushed me away when I offered you my friendship. You slapped me across the face when I asked if I could help you with classwork. When I shared my meals with you, you threw them to the ground or at my face in response. Had I done anything to deserve that, really?"

Well.

No. To be honest, Abihiko hadn't done anything to deserve it back then. He had been annoying, of course, but he hadn't been annoying on purpose, and not to Nekohiko specifically. He had just been himself, equally annoying to everyone around him.

Even in the past, Nekohiko had become very embarrassed to have slapped him for an offer of help. "I didn't mean to slap you," he said at last. "It was an accident."

Abihiko tilted his chin. "Then why didn't you say so? You just slapped me and turned away as though you meant to do it. I genuinely thought you were being a jerk to me for no reason."

Too ashamed of his past behavior, Nekohiko could only shake his head.

"Gods, you are such a dummy." Abihiko threw his hands in the air. "You could have spared so much bad blood in between you and me if only you talked to me like all normal people. We wouldn't be in this situation with The Thread now! Ugh."

"I'm sorry."

"Who cares about your sorrys after all the bad had already been done? Next time, just talk to me when you have an issue, dammit! Seriously. Words. They exist for a reason!"

"So... what was the title you and others gave me back then?" Nekohiko asked after a moment, already expecting some vile insult.

He would probably deserve it.

Abihiko leaned it for a whisper. "'Not-like-the-other-girls'."

"..."

Nekohiko had no clue as to what that could possibly imply about him. Or about "other girls".

"But before, I haven't ever realized how fitting this title is," Abihiko said.

Nekohiko blinked, lost. "What do you mean?"

"It means that you're not like the girls and not like the boys. You're... actually unique among other people. At least in my opinion. Now that I know you never meant to hurt me, you make me feel... safe than I've ever felt around others? Comfortable, I suppose. You know?"

I really, really don't, Nekohiko thought helplessly.

"I still hate The Thread, mind you. But I guess I don't hate the fact that I got to know you better because of it." Playfully, he jerked at the thread, amused by Nekohiko's apathetic reaction even more. "Come on, Not-like-the-other-people. We have more classes to visit and more annoying boys and girls to pretend to ignore."

A ghost of a smile tugged Nekohiko's heart even if it never came out on his face.

Pretend to ignore everyone else, ah. Something Nekohiko and Abihiko finally had in common.

If only that helped dissolve the Thread. Something had to, one day. And soon. Definitely.

Most definitely.

...right?