e had wondered once if it would ever be easy.
‘Easy’ wasn’t right; nothing about this was easy. It was that he’d wondered, if he looked at it in the face of it, if Aremu would ever recognize him on sight.
He wasn’t sure when he realized it. When he thought about it. Maybe it’d been last time, after Aremu had left the lobby of the Crocus’ Stem and he’d gone back up to his bedroom alone; maybe it had been then, pressing his face to the sheets and smelling their mingled scents and wondering that the other man’s was more familiar than – his own. Shutting his eyes and letting the tears well up, holding the linens and wishing he could hold that scent, familiar-unfamiliar, in his mind forever, wishing men never forgot such things.
Sometimes it felt like forgetting. He thought Aremu hadn’t known him at first, when he’d climbed out of the coach in his robes of state. Or rather, if he’d known him, he hadn’t seen him at first; how could he have? And he wondered with increasing horror if Aremu looked just as much a stranger to him, because there’d never – not even Before – been a time when he hadn’t been able to see that strange liar’s mask he wore, the thing he’d never known how to name, but that’d always given him pause.
He didn’t know, in the end, if Aremu had recognized Tom this morning under the shade of the tsug. He thought he had, though, because Tom had recognized Aremu without a flicker of uncertainty. The Circle seemed damn set on tangling up their feet every time they took a step together, but –
It’d been a very kind morning, Tom thought, and an even kinder afternoon.
He’d recognized the tension in the set of the imbala’s shoulders, for all their polite smiles and bows, for all their secret flashes of grins and tender brushes. Campus was even thicker now, like milk foaming on the stove. They hadn’t spoken of it; there’d been no need.
He thought he’d be able to do something for the muscle tension later, at least, if not the cause of it. He hadn’t told Aremu yet about the room he’d reserved in Three Flowers under a false name, or the fact that he’d cleared the bulk of tomorrow to spend with him – away from prying eyes, just to breathe and be – if he wanted, if he could. He’d thought of it all week, since that strange parting; it was all he could do, he thought, for all the chances they’d missed once.
He’d never been much good at this. It’d been Aremu taking him under the blossoms, Aremu tearing his stitches carrying him back to the house, Aremu with the room in Three Flowers and the pendulum and even now the observatory. He’d never known he was that kind of man, Before, and he ached with every discovery of it.
He’d shared chan with him once. But himself, he felt like he’d forgot how to treat a man, somewhere around the time he’d lost his face; he’d become a creature of thin smiles and distance, of dangers and complications. He wanted to show his love, too, and not fail utterly in the gesture.
The observatory was just outside Es’tsusiqi in the college of Away’qexo. The sky was clear today, Circle thank, and the sun was hot; he was already flushed and tired. But the walkways here were covered with trellises crawling with vines and hanging plants, some with little signs underneath naming and describing them in Estuan and Mugrobi script.
He was full still from the cafe they’d spent the afternoon at, mostly-empty at off hours, another of Aremu’s choices, after kofi and the bookstores. The taste of sour-tangy flatbread and spices and greens was still on his tongue, a taste like contentment, soft bastly shift against the prickle of his nerves.
He was wearing white; his amel’iwe was embroidered at the edges with a band of repeating flowers in orange.
They’d not spoken in a while. Between waterfalls of greenery, shivering strings of green dewdrops, he caught glimpses of the tops of buildings.
There was a round courtyard just before Es’tsusiqi; he only knew where they were for the vines, and for Aremu’s guidance. A small fountain in the middle was encircled by wrought-iron benches. “Do you mind if I sit a moment, ada’xa?” he asked, taking a deep breath. “Only a moment,” he added, looking over finally at Aremu, dappled by the light through the leaves, with a smile that wasn’t quite so thin. “I need to catch my breath.”