Turning Saints into the Sea

August-October, 476 IC, Odin

Mittermeyer inserted himself smoothly into Yang’s friend group. At first, it was only the Saturday meetings where they played games against each other, but then he started sitting with Yang and Reuenthal at dinner every night, and in the afternoons and evenings coming to study with them. Yang wasn’t sure if it was he or Reuenthal who had actually invited Mittermeyer, or if Mittermeyer had just decided to show up, but he was a welcome addition to the group.

He didn’t end up following Yang’s advice about intentionally flunking his engineering courses, which meant that he spent a lot of time studying. In some ways, Mittermeyer took the opposite advice: he relied on his natural intuition, tutoring from Yang and Reuenthal, and extra practice to succeed at the SW program courses, while he devoted most of his actual academic struggle to pushing through engineering.

“Maybe I can tell my father that I gave engineering a good solid attempt, and that I hated it,” Mittermeyer said as he churned his way through a particularly nasty physics homework assignment. He had no natural talent or love for the subject, but he was a hard worker, rather the opposite of Yang, in that respect. “He might let me quit, then.”

“It’s unfortunate that you’re so tied to being honest,” Reuenthal said. “I find life is far easier when my father knows nothing.”

“It would be uncharacteristic of me to start lying now, unfortunately,” Mittermeyer said absentmindedly as he scribbled something down on his paper.

“Should I be worried that your corrupt morals are going to negatively influence my mentee?” Yang asked.

Reuenthal smiled, a grin that seemed to hold more in it than just a refutation of Yang’s question. “Perhaps.”

Life was filled with little moments like that. Yang was very glad to have gathered a group of friends around him. He hadn’t realized how lonely he had been, during that first part of freshman year when no one was willing to associate with him.

Having Mittermeyer around alleviated some of the odd tension that had sprung up between Yang and Reuenthal, the strange push and pull of unspoken boundaries that Yang couldn’t explain or put a finger on. Having another person in the room broke some of that spell, and, though Reuenthal couldn’t be described as open, it was a kind of improvement.

Occasionally, though, Yang had the nagging thought that he was glad he had met and become friends with Reuenthal first, because there was something about the way that he spoke to Mittermeyer that gave Yang pause. But then he would shake himself out of it and think that no, Reuenthal spoke to him like that as well, this was just the first time he had seen it with someone else. It was like looking through a window, but half catching his own reflection in the glass.

August was hot, September was beautiful, but October brought cold rain and winds sweeping through their part of Odin. Although Yang had jokingly threatened to boycott the annual hunt for top students at Neue Sanssouci, he knew he couldn’t, so he reluctantly attended.

As they rode the bus, Bittenfeld leaned over the back of Yang’s seat and kept up a continuous stream of jokes, excited banter about the hunt, and aspersions cast onto the rest of their classmates.

“You know, von Leigh, I have the worst habit,” Bittenfeld said.

“What’s that?” Yang asked.

“Not knowing how to shut up,” Reuenthal said, which made Bittenfeld laugh.

“No. I always manage to convince myself to stay up half the night laying curses on people I hate, and then in the morning, I’m shocked that they’re still alive.” As he said this, he glared down the bus to where Deitch and his company were sitting. He made sure to say all this loud enough that they could hear, but, as usual, he was steadfastly ignored.

“Maybe you just weren’t cursing them hard enough,” Mittermeyer said. He had abandoned his own classmates and come to sit with the sophomores on the bus, though the same could not be said of Eisenach, who, along with all the rest of the juniors, was pretending not to know anyone in the years below them existed.

“Me? Laying curses by half-measures?” Bittenfeld asked. “Never.”

“Please stop cursing people,” Yang said. “Even if it has no noticeable effect, I’m sure it’s giving you a headache.”

“See, the real problem is, the headache makes me think it’s working.”

“If you say so,” Yang said, shaking his head. Although he liked Bittenfeld, he could not pretend to understand the man.

Once they made it to Neue Sanssouci, they lined up in the reception hall once again. Yang’s confidence was bolstered by Eisenach in front of him, Reuenthal to his left, Wahlen (who had managed to snatch the number three spot temporarily) to his right, and Mittermeyer behind his left shoulder (having jumped up to be the freshman number one).

As he had before, Kaiser Friedrich IV came into the hall and spoke to them. He gave perfunctory greetings to the seniors and juniors, but he stopped at the sophomores after exchanging a few words with Reuenthal.

“Hank von Leigh, isn’t it?” Though the kaiser phrased this as a question, he clearly knew exactly who he was speaking to. His eyes had a sharp glint in them.

“Yes, sir,” Yang said, dying inside. He tried to keep his face a cool mask.

“Count Mariendorf speaks highly of you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“This year you will avoid needing the services of my personal physician, I trust?”

“I will try, sir.”

“Yes. I must hope that all my most promising future officers survive their school days.” The kaiser glanced down the line of sophomores as he said this, all of whom kept staring straight ahead, despite the unusual conversation that Yang was having. Yang couldn’t tell if this would encourage or discourage his fellow students from attempting foul play. After all, he suspected that it had been the kaiser’s words to him last year that had incited the violence.

Mittermeyer then got his chance to speak with the kaiser, which he handled well, and the students were sent to breakfast.

Wahlen leaned towards Yang as they walked towards the dining hall. “First, you’re of use to the fatherland, now you’re a promising future officer that a count speaks highly of. Seems like the kaiser likes you.”

“It’s not a good thing to stand out,” Yang said. “I’d prefer it greatly if the kaiser wasn’t thinking about me at all.”

“I think you should play the hand you’re given, Leigh,” Wahlen said. “Because it seems like you’ve got a good one.”

Yang frowned, though he nodded, if only to make Wahlen stop worrying about it.

After the breakfast, they began the hunt. The day was cold and drizzly, in the way that some fall days change between mists and light rain without warning and constantly. Yang was physically stronger than he had been the year before, which made horse riding a little easier, but he hadn’t actually practiced, so he was still very slow, riding a tawny mare out of the stables with his bow on his lap. At first, he was surrounded by the whole pack of his friends, but, unsurprisingly, Bittenfeld got distracted and galloped off, followed by Wahlen to keep him company and out of trouble. Eisenach decided he would rather stay with the juniors, and so that left just Yang, Reuenthal, and Mittermeyer riding through the woods after an hour or so.

Yang was chilled and damp, but since they couldn’t leave (potential injuries notwithstanding), they remained out, walking their horses through the forest quietly. Reuenthal and Mittermeyer seemed both intent on actually catching a deer, as well as being prepared for other students to come out of nowhere and cause trouble.

Reuenthal held up his hand silently, then pointed through the trees. There, barely visible through the lingering foliage, was what looked like at first branches moving up and down. But as Yang looked more closely, he saw that it was the antlers of a deer. Reuenthal and Mittermeyer looked at each other, communicating more in a single glance than they needed to with words, and peeled off from Yang, each taking one side of a wide circle around the deer. Both of them glanced back at Yang, though at different moments, Mittermeyer with a look of mild concern that they were leaving Yang behind, and Reuenthal with a slight nod for Yang to bring his horse forward through the middle.

Reuenthal and Mittermeyer seemed to move in perfect silence and synchronicity, until they both vanished from Yang’s sight. Yang nudged his horse forward, knowing that Reuenthal wanted him to be the center of this charge and usher the deer towards them. He didn’t try to ride quietly, and the deer picked its head up. Yang pushed forward a little more, the deer started away from him towards the two waiting hunters.

Yang drove it forward a little, and then, without him even seeing where Reuenthal and Mittermeyer were hiding, two arrows flew from either direction, both striking home in its chest. The deer jumped, then ran. Yang spurred his own horse forward, acting on instinct now, not wanting to lose it while Reuenthal and Mittermeyer remounted.

He followed the deer at some distance, watching it grow slower and slower. His own horse was trampling over leaves spotted with fresh blood. Part of him wanted to raise his own bow and kill it more quickly, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to make enough of a fatal shot. Eventually, the deer’s legs folded beneath it, and it crumpled to the ground. Yang was alone with it. It still breathed, shallowly, blood bubbling out from the arrow wounds in its chest with every breath. Its eyes were wide and panicked.

He dismounted his horse clumsily, feeling his legs like foreign objects after so long in the saddle, and looked around for the hunting knife he knew was in the saddlebags somewhere. He fully intended to kill the deer-- it was better than having it bleed out-- though he didn’t enjoy the thought. He wished that they hadn’t encountered the thing, and that the three of them could have just enjoyed their ride through the woods without violence. He found and unsheathed the knife, coming up next to the deer and crouching down next to it.

Better to end the violence as painlessly as possible, wasn’t it?

Its head was on the ground, now, too weak to hold itself up. As Yang considered the most optimal way to drive the knife, the buck stopped breathing. So, he had been too late. Somehow, he felt worse about this than if he had been able to do something.

Yang stood again and waited for Mittermeyer and Reuenthal to come. They did after a minute or so, apparently having had trouble finding him. They both were in high spirits, smiling and looking at each other, and Yang put on a smile and congratulated them.

Along with the actual spoils of their hunt (which someone on the staff at Neue Sanssouci butchered and prepared for them, and which they had sent half to Mittermeyer’s family home, and half to Count Mariendorf’s, seeing as the three students had no actual use for the meat and other assorted trophies), they were presented with a bottle of whiskey for being the first students to successfully hunt a deer that day.

By the time they returned to the IOA on the bus, Yang’s spirits had risen considerably. After all, nothing bad had happened. He had been on edge all day, and finally stepping off the bus in the drizzling evening was a relief. The tension and weird feeling that had been lingering over him dissipated in the bright familiarity of the dorms.

“Shall we celebrate?” Reuenthal asked, holding up the bottle.

“It’s your prize,” Yang said. “If you want to share, I certainly won’t refuse.”

“You helped,” Mittermeyer said. “You chased it down.” Yang appreciated Mittermeyer’s desire to give him undue credit.

“Come on,” Reuenthal said. “It really doesn’t matter.” He led them up to his dorm room and let them in.

Reuenthal’s room was spotless and classy, quite unlike Yang’s. Second year students were afforded a bookshelf, which Reuenthal had decorated with interesting knickknacks: a whorled piece of driftwood, a small bronze cast statue that reminded Yang of something his father might have collected, a huge chunk of copper and pyrite rock, and other things of that nature. On his walls were a few prints of famous paintings, including one that had given Yang pause the first time he had been in Reuenthal’s room.

“Why do you have a painting of Kaiser Kaspar I on your wall?” Yang had asked. The painting in question showed a young man, in his early twenties maybe, with delicate features, sitting almost casually, his legs crossed, leaning with his elbow on the chair’s elaborately carved arm. Kaspar was smiling, a weird, small smile, though he wasn’t looking directly out at the viewer. Behind him were heavy red velvet drapes decorated with the insignia of the Goldenbaum dynasty. If one looked closely, one could see in among the drapes, just past Kaspar’s left shoulder, someone else’s arm and hand. It was a strange image.

“It’s a nice picture,” Reuenthal had said, a little too delicately. “Am I not allowed to have a favorite Kaiser?”

Yang had laughed. “I suppose, as favorites go, you could do worse. He abdicated before he could cause any trouble. That’s about the best we can hope for.” Reuenthal had just smiled at that.

Now, Yang hardly noticed the painting and just sat down on Reuenthal’s desk chair, pulling his knees up to his chest. Mittermeyer hesitated fractionally, then sat on Reuenthal’s bed as Reuenthal himself opened his closet and pulled out a set of glasses from the top shelf.

He poured them all some of the alcohol, left the open bottle on his desk, then sat down next to Mittermeyer.

“To Oskar von Reuenthal and Wolfgang Mittermeyer,” Yang said, raising his glass. “Congratulations.”

“And to Hank von Leigh,” Mittermeyer said.

Yang couldn’t help but meet Reuenthal’s eyes at that moment. “To Hank von Leigh,” Reuenthal said, but the humor in his tone and the twist of a smile around his eyes comforted Yang. Reuenthal was playing along with the joke for his sake. Yang could have told Mittermeyer his small secret, but there was no need to make this evening about him. He would probably tell him the truth someday, since he trusted his mentee and friend, but not now.

“Prosit to us all, then,” Yang said with a roll of his eyes.

“Prosit!” Reuenthal and Mittermeyer said in unison, then leaned forward to clink their glasses on Yang’s.

The alcohol was warm inside of Yang, and after his second drink he shrugged off his dress uniform jacket, draping it over the chair back. The atmosphere was relaxed.

“It’s too bad we couldn’t play a match today,” Mittermeyer was saying. “Wahlen was going to play me next.”

“You’d beat him,” Reuenthal said. “You’re better than he is.”

“That’s not the point,” Mittermeyer said.

“I don’t know why you like playing so much,” Yang said. “GMing is way more interesting.”

Reuenthal shook his head. “I think all the studying history has permanently changed the shape of your brain, to make you like the strangest things.”

Yang didn’t take offense. “It’s only strange compared to people here. You don’t think most other people wouldn’t prefer not to make war?”

“We’re not like most other people,” Reuenthal said, again with the tone that Yang had come to associate with Reuenthal speaking on two levels at once.

“You’re in the wrong school,” Mittermeyer said. “How did you even get here?”

“Long story,” Yang said.

“You must be a chronically unlucky man, to have talent for something you don’t even enjoy,” Reuenthal said, freeing Yang from having to tell or not tell his life story to Mittermeyer.

“I’m not saying I don’t enjoy it,” Yang said, then took another sip of his whiskey. “I don’t know what I’m saying. Forgive me, I guess.”

“It’s better than the other way around. To love something, but have no talent,” Mittermeyer said.

“The heart wants what it wants,” Reuenthal said. “It’s fortunate that talent in most places can be substituted for hard work and dedication.”

“Not in SW, I don’t think,” Mittermeyer said.

“To an extent,” Yang agreed. “There’s some intuition that I don’t know can be learned.”

“It must be a rare thing,” Mittermeyer said.

“As I said, we are not like most other people.”

“Can I propose a stupid idea?” Yang asked.

“Propose whatever you like,” Reuenthal said.

“Remember back that first time you played each other?” Yang asked, nodding at the other two. They glanced at each other.

“Of course.”

“We talked about how the practicum doesn’t actually reflect reality. Maybe we should…” Yang struggled to put his thoughts into words. “Maybe we should try to play it as though it did. At least in our games. No arbitrary starting conditions or win conditions. Make it less… false.”

Mittermeyer nodded slowly. “But how would you judge it, then?”

“It would have to be an ongoing campaign,” Reuenthal said. “Each engagement would just have to be a piece, so that the consequences of wins and losses would mean something.”

“I just think we should—if we’re going to—you know. If we don’t have to play for status, we should try to actually learn something.”

“This kind of thing is the reason you should be number one, but you’re not,” Reuenthal said. “In a fairer world.”

“I don’t think we’ve ever claimed to live in a fair world,” Yang said.

“No, we certainly don’t.”

“I like the idea,” Mittermeyer said. “But it would be a tricky thing to get going.”

“It’s just an idle thought.”

“Your idle thoughts often have more value than most people’s deliberate efforts,” Reuenthal said, which made Yang flush. “We can talk to everyone else about it when we see them.”

Yang nodded, then took another sip of his drink, coming to the bottom of it. His stomach grumbled uncomfortably, and he realized he was hungry. He glanced at the clock. It was past dinner time, but the commissary would still be open for another hour or so.

“I just realized that I’m starving,” Yang said, putting his glass down on the desk with a kind of finality. “Before I get too drunk to move, I’m going to change into a less gross outfit, then run down to the commissary. You want anything?”

“Thanks for looking out for our health,” Reuenthal said with a sardonic smile. “You know what I like.”

“Of course.”

Mittermeyer described what he wanted from the commissary, and then Yang was off to his room. He changed out of his dress uniform into his normal cadet pants and shirt, and was down the stairs and almost out the door of the dorm building when he found he had forgotten his charge card. He returned to his room to look for it, spent several minutes pulling all his possessions apart, then realized that he had left it in the pocket of his dress uniform jacket, which he had left in Reuenthal’s room. Since he would be unable to complete his errand without it, he returned to Reuenthal’s room and pushed the unlocked door open.

It took him a moment to process what he had walked in on. Reuenthal and Mittermeyer were leaning into each other, their faces pressed together in a kiss. Mittermeyer’s eyes were closed, and his hands were on Reuenthal’s face. Reuenthal’s hands were on Mittermeyer’s hips, and his eyes were open, widening in shock as Yang came in.

Yang felt like he went through every possible human emotion in the fraction of a second before he stepped back and closed the door.

He walked unsteadily back to his own dorm room and flopped onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to process exactly what he had just seen.

Several things in Yang’s life abruptly made a lot more sense, though he almost wished that they didn’t.

First: Reuenthal was a homosexual. Mittermeyer, too, apparently, though that thought had less of a weight in Yang’s mind.

Second: last New Year’s, Reuenthal had definitely been about to try to kiss him.

Third: that meant that Reuenthal had thought that HE was a homosexual, too.

Fourth: every single conversation that Yang had ever had with Reuenthal suddenly made more sense, when he thought back to that odd undertone that Reuenthal used. ‘We are not like other people.’ Indeed.

Fifth: Yang realized he was the most oblivious person on the planet. Possibly in the entire galaxy.

His thoughts were tumbling around in his brain so chaotically that he couldn’t even put names to them beyond those barest statements of fact. One thing he knew was that he felt unequivocally bad about what he had just seen.

If he tugged on that feeling, there were only two options for what to name it.

The first option was disgust. It was the name that his analytical mind wanted to give to the feeling, because it would free him from a certain measure of personal responsibility. It would be the normal, the correct, the acceptable thing to feel. Rudolph von Goldenbaum had made it his mission to rid the Empire of homosexuals. Certainly, what he had seen Reuenthal doing was against all codes of behavior for IOA students. If Yang reported him, he would be kicked out of school, and maybe even jailed. It would be reasonable, then, for Yang to feel the same disgust that everyone else clearly felt at that behavior.

But he knew that wasn’t correct, because he had absolutely no desire to report Reuenthal to the IOA authority.

He knew it wasn’t correct, because when he thought about the situation, Mittermeyer was equally complicit, and Yang didn’t feel anything bad about him at all. He could imagine Mittermeyer in that situation with anyone else in the world, and it didn’t stir up whatever this feeling was.

He could run the feeling over and over in his mind until it was as smooth as a river rock, but he couldn’t convince himself that it was the rational thing that he was feeling. Which left only the irrational.

He picked at the emotion like an open wound. He had felt this way about Reuenthal before, to a lesser extent. When he had been at the New Year’s party at the Mariendorfs’, and he had stood around and watched Reuenthal dance, he had been pretending that he was feeling bored and anxious-- but more than that, the feeling of standing alone on the edge of the party, he had labeled that feeling as “lonely”. If he had simply been alone at the party, though, he wouldn’t have felt it. It was the specific feeling he got when watching Reuenthal…

Yang pulled his pillow up over his face, pressing it down hard, as though the physical sensation could free him from his overactive thoughts.

Why had he felt lonely when Reuenthal changed his behavior towards him? Why had Yang missed, but couldn’t express that he missed, Reuenthal brushing up against him casually? Being alone with him? Sharing unguarded moments?

Why did he feel so odd when he watched Mittermeyer and Reuenthal speak to each other, in what felt like perfect synchronicity?

Why did he look around carefully to make sure he wasn’t being observed, whenever he leaned in close to Reuenthal?

Why had he told him his real name?

Why did he care so much about stupid, ridiculous, confusing Reuenthal?

Yang would have said that he hated himself for feeling this way, if he had been forced to put it into words, but what he really hated was that he hadn’t realized that he felt this way until it was far too late. He hadn’t understood it, and he had spent so long in ignorance that he had ruined it. Stupid. He was so stupid.

He was stupid, and he was hungry, and his jacket with his charge card was still in Reuenthal’s bedroom, and there was no way he was going back there to get it, so Yang was forced to lay in bed and ruminate until he simply passed out.

Yang woke up later than usual, and discovered that he had missed both breakfast and Sunday physicals. It would be a demerit on his record, but it was too late to do anything about it now, so there was no point in worrying about it. The reason he had slept so late was that his phone had run out of battery during the night, and thus could not wake him up with his usual alarm.

He set it to charge with some hesitation and then went to shower. When he came back, he turned it on and waited to see what came up. Reuenthal had sent Yang a single, innocuous seeming message.

This was completely in character, but what was not in character was that apparently Reuenthal had also texted Eisenach, who had then texted Yang. Eisenach was not averse to sending exactly as many text messages as it took to tell his story.

Yang responded to Eisenach, typing out the message in between steps of changing into a fresh uniform.

> i was just asleep

> i’ll talk to him

> can I ask you a question though

> ages ago, you said that you and reuenthal had something in common

> what was that thing?

> ok

> thanks

Unable to procrastinate by texting Eisenach anymore, Yang perched on his bed and hovered his fingers over his phone keyboard. He deleted and retyped several messages, eventually settling on ones that he hoped wouldn’t make Reuenthal think that he was intentionally avoiding him or otherwise about to do something destructive.

> just woke up

> I’m about to get lunch

> haven’t eaten since yesterday morning

> I think I can safely make the assumption that you would prefer to meet after that

> let me know where/when

With that, he stuck his phone in his pocket and headed to get lunch at the dining hall. Bittenfeld and Wahlen were both there, still sweaty after physicals. He got lunch and sat down with them.

“How many more demerits on your record can you afford, Leigh?” Bittenfeld asked.

“No matter how many I get, they’re not going to be enough to drop my rank, so you don’t have to worry about it,” Yang said through a mouthful of french fries.

“Congratulations on your catch yesterday, by the way,” Wahlen said.

“I didn’t really do anything.”

“I figured you didn’t, but congratulations are in order nonetheless.”

“Did you catch anything last year?”

“No. But it’s fun to just get off campus for a while.”

Yang nodded in half-agreement. He would have preferred to leave campus to go somewhere that was not Neue Sanssouci, but he supposed he didn’t really have that luxury of choice. “Not like any of us have any use for venison.”

“You missed a great time at physicals this morning,” Bittenfeld said.

“I’m sure.”

He launched into a description of the training that Yang was glad to have slept through. It was nice to sit with Bittenfeld and Wahlen and just completely tune out anything other than the day-to-day motions of life at the IOA. But eventually he finished his lunch and he looked at his phone.

Eaglehead was a park technically off campus. Public, but there were plenty of private paths one could go down to escape other people’s eyes. A tactical choice. Yang could understand why Reuenthal wouldn’t say to meet him in his dorm room, even though that would have been far more convenient. Yang hoped that Reuenthal would remember to bring his jacket-- he didn’t need the uniform very often, but he definitely did need his charge card.

Yang said goodbye to Wahlen and Bittenfeld and made his way off campus, towards the park. The day was sunny but cool, and the last leaves on the trees wavered as though each breath of wind sapped their remaining strength. Reuenthal was waiting for him at the park gates, leaning nonchalantly against the brick wall, Yang’s dress uniform jacket draped over his arm. He straightened at Yang’s approach and held the jacket out.

“Thanks,” Yang said. He took the jacket, fished through the pocket for his charge card, and held it up. “This was what I was looking for.”

Reuenthal wasn’t in the mood to laugh, so he just nodded and started off silently down the path. Yang stuck his charge card in his pants pocket, slung the jacket over his shoulder, and followed Reuenthal, a few steps behind. They walked in silence for a long time, going about half a kilometer down one of the branching paths into the forest before Reuenthal judged it safe enough to say anything.

“Have you spoken to Mittermeyer?” he asked.

“No, why?”

“He doesn’t know what you saw,” Reuenthal said.

“Oh.” It was true that Mittermeyer had had his eyes closed, but Yang had assumed the sound of the door opening and shutting would be more noticeable. Mittermeyer had been very distracted. “Was he confused when I didn’t come back?”

“I told him you had probably sat down on your bed and fallen asleep.”

“That ended up being basically true, so your conscience can be clear in that respect.”

“In that respect.” Reuenthal’s voice was cold and hard.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Yang said. “Look, Reuenthal, you don’t have to worry. I’m not going to do anything.”

“Why not?”

“What do you mean, ‘why not’?”

Reuenthal stared straight ahead of himself. “It would be the reasonable thing for you to do.”

“I don’t even know why you would think that.”

“If I was sent away, you would be number one by default.”

“This isn’t about the stupid ranks!” Yang said, a little more forcefully than he meant to.

“It’s about something,” Reuenthal said. “I apologize for allowing you to see me behave in a way that disturbs you.”

“I’m not ‘disturbed’.”

“Disgusts, then. And I apologize for putting your mentee in a compromising situation.”

“Will you stop, Reuenthal? I’m not--” Yang shook his head, rubbed the back of his neck.

“You are upset.”

Yang had to give up on his original plan of pretending not to be unhappy. “Just because I’m upset doesn’t mean I’m going to go ruin your life.”

“Again, I have to ask, why not?”

“You don’t have to ask that, because it’s a stupid question.”

“It’s not.”

“I can’t imagine why you would need to know.”

“So that I can avoid doing things in the future that would cause those reasons to stop being in play.”

“I don’t want to stand here and dictate terms of surrender to you,” Yang said. “It’s cruel of you to imply that my word is worth so little.”

“I apologize,” Reuenthal said, then fell silent.

“Look, Reuenthal,” Yang began. “Even without going into the rest of it, you could just as easily denounce me.”

Reuenthal nodded slightly. “Mutually assured destruction.”

“Will you cut it out? I said that first just in case it’s the only thing your stubborn brain is willing to accept, but that’s not even the reason, okay?” Yang paused a moment, trying to stuff his frustration down, and scuffed at the path with his foot, kicking up wet leaves in front of him. Reuenthal didn’t say anything, so Yang continued. “I told you my name because I trusted you. You’re my best friend. You saved my life, once. I’m not going to throw that away over…” He trailed off.

“My immorality?”

Yang stopped in the path, in front of Reuenthal. “I’m not Rudolph von Goldenbauum,” Yang said. “I don’t care if you’re a homosexual. Or Mittermeyer, for that matter.”

Reuenthal crossed his arms, defensive. “You’re angry, though.”

“You don’t understand--”

“No,” Reuenthal said. “I think it’s you who doesn’t understand. I accidentally placed myself in a compromising position. You have power over me, and you’re angry. It’s a dangerous combination.”

“I’m not angry at you,” Yang said. He tried to relax, intentionally loosening his shoulders and staring up at the sky. “I swear.”

“Mittermeyer, then?”

“No.”

“Then you’re right, I don’t understand.”

“I’m angry at myself more than I am at you.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

Yang took a moment to try to phrase things correctly, in a way that Reuenthal couldn’t misconstrue, despite the fact that Reuenthal seemed to be deliberately misconstruing everything that Yang was saying. “I’ve spent the past year being a complete idiot,” Yang said. “I should apologize to you for that, because I really have no excuse.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Reuenthal said, very delicately. “You haven’t behaved in any way that’s improper.”

“Last New Year’s,” Yang began, and heard Reuenthal take a kind of half breath in. “You were trying to kiss me, weren’t you?”

Reuenthal hesitated a moment, then said, “I shouldn’t have.”

“I didn’t understand what was going on,” Yang said. “I…” He took a deep breath. “You should have tried it again when I was sober, is all.”

“Oh.” Reuenthal closed his eyes for a second, as though he were in pain. Yang kept talking.

“I guess-- I know you were trying to tell me something-- I couldn’t understand--” Yang ran his hand through his hair. “I was stupid, okay. And then I spent a year wondering what was going on, and neither of us could say anything, and now it’s this. That’s all. It’s not you.”

“Wen-li--”

“Don’t,” Yang said. “Please.” He didn’t meet Reuenthal’s eyes, and he jammed his hands in his pockets. “Mittermeyer is a lot less stupid than I am.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing. You didn’t-- there’s nothing that you’ve done wrong.” He shrugged, miserable but calmer, now that the air was clear between them. “You can have this.”

“Thank you, then, if you won’t let me apologize,” Reuenthal said, though there was a note of hesitancy in his voice. “I feel as though having your permission makes it worse.”

“Why?”

“Because it feels like an admission of defeat.”

“Not everything is a war game,” Yang said. “And if it was, it isn’t one that I would want to play.”

“Why?”

Yang sighed. “I’m not blind. I did see the way you were acting with Mittermeyer-- he makes you happy-- you make him happy-- I’m not going to try to take that away just because…” He turned away slightly.

“I thought I had really disgusted you,” Reuenthal said. “I thought I had really crossed a line.”

“What, now?”

“Now and on New Year’s.”

Yang shook his head. “I wish I had made it clearer that it was just confusion. I think I wanted to say something to you, but I couldn’t figure it out. You didn’t disgust me. I don’t even think you could.” Maybe that had been too much to say, too close to an admission of continued feelings to be acceptable.

Reuenthal smiled a little, though. “Perhaps I tried because you are the only person who would ever say such a thing to me.”

“Reuenthal--”

“Don’t worry about it, von Leigh,” Reuenthal said. The veneer of distance was back in place, but Reuenthal’s voice was warmer, now, and he glanced at Yang as though looking for approval.

“I feel stupid asking, but I have to, because I clearly can’t figure things out unless they’re said to my face.” Yang said. “We’re still friends, right?”

“If you want to be.”

“Yeah. I do.”

Reuenthal smiled, then, a genuine expression. “Good.”

“And you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Yang kicked at the leaves on the ground again. “You should probably tell Mittermeyer that I know.”

“Why would I do that?” Reuenthal frowned a little, his secretive nature coming back into full effect.

“I think it would make his life easier. And I don’t think Mittermeyer would appreciate living in a lie of our construction-- he’s an honest man.” Yang was not looking forward to the inevitable sense of being a third wheel that hanging out with his friends was now surely going to bring, but it was better than having no friends, a fate that he felt like he had narrowly just avoided. The conversation had felt like walking along a knife blade.

“You should tell him.”

“What? No.”

“He’s your mentee.”

“You’re the one who--” Yang sighed. “You tell him. If he wants to have some kind of talk with me after the fact, that’s his prerogative.”

There was a slight pause in the conversation. “Am I allowed to ask if you’re okay?” Reuenthal asked, turning Yang’s words from a while ago around on him.

“You’re allowed.”

“Are you?”

Yang let out a huff of breath that might have been half a laugh, if he had been in a better mood. “I don’t know. I wish that-- nevermind.”

“What?”

“It’s not something that I can pretend doesn’t exist, so I can’t go back to my blissful ignorance.”

“You’re a historian. Isn’t that about wanting to know the truth of things that happen in the world?”

“History is only made up of what gets written down,” Yang said, thinking of false battles. “This sort of thing-- you’re not going to be writing it down. People in the future can pretend that it doesn’t exist. But I’m not-- I see it with my own eyes. It’s fine.”

“I can never mention this again, if you like.” It was funny that Reuenthal said that, because Yang had been assuming they wouldn’t speak of it again anyway. Still, Reuenthal opening that door gave Yang a chance to not close it.

Yang shook his head. “No, that wouldn’t make it better.” Refusing to talk about things had been what put him in this uncomfortable situation in the first place. “If Mittermeyer makes you happy, I don’t want you to feel like-- You know. I’m fine.” Yang felt unbearably awkward, but he was trying his best to make it clear that even if his jealousy-- and that was what it was, if he admitted it to himself-- was unavoidable and obvious, he wasn’t going to use it as a cudgel.

“How emotionally mature of you,” Reuenthal said, which actually did make Yang laugh.

“I don’t think I would call it that.” He paused. “You’re okay, right?”

“Of course.” Reuenthal was back to his cool and calm self, now that the crisis had passed, for the most part.

“You apparently scared Eisenach earlier.”

“I figured you would talk to him first, if you were going to report me.”

“Why? He likes you, I think. And I think he knows, anyway.”

“I’m that obvious?” Reuenthal said with a frown.

“I wouldn’t know. Or maybe he’s talking about something else. I don’t know. He confuses me more than you do.”

“An impressive feat, apparently.”

“I’m glad I’ll be able to tell him that I’ve dealt with our problem.” Yang wanted to change the subject, and he did so about as gracefully as a car crash. “So, about next Saturday, I was thinking that maybe we should split our group into two teams…”