Escape artistry

6. Best nights of his life (then)

The green carpet looked grey in the dark, like most things did.

He was grateful for how soft it was as it muffled his footsteps. He was unfamiliar with this part of the orphanage, so he didn't know which floorboards creaked, and it was crucial he wasn't discovered.

He stepped in through the kitchen door. A window at the far end lit up the huge room with an eerie light, reflecting in the many metallic pots and pans required to feed a large group of hungry, growing boys.

He easily found the fridge, and when he opened it, he lit up. As he suspected, the leftover chocolate cake made to celebrate one of the boy's eighteenth birthday, no doubt as a way to wash over the fact that he would now be let out on the streets to fend for his own, was standing there on its white plate.

Izuna tip-toed around, looking for plates and a knife and cutlery as quietly as he could. Even if his heart was pounding, scared as he was of being discovered, he found the whole situation thrilling.

He used the knife to cut two pieces of cake that were large enough to satisfy a young boy's sweet tooth yet thin enough so nobody would notice the cake had been eaten, put them on two plates, washed the knife and put it back in its place so as not to leave any trace, and went out.

He managed all of this without being discovered, and he was bubbling with excitement as he climbed up the window of their bedroom.

"Tobirama!" he hissed up the steps. "Some help, please! I can't carry this and climb at the same time!"

Tobirama looked over the edge of the roof and down on little Izuna, and his eyes became large as he saw the cakes. Izuna thought he looked very sweet then; he was sixteen, almost an adult, but even so the child within him couldn't help but shine through at night.

They sat and ate their cakes in silence, and Izuna thought it was all the more delicious now than earlier that day just because he had it out on the roof at night with Tobirama. Izuna wondered if Tobirama though the same.

Their nightly encounters were by then followed by snacks Izuna had stolen from the kitchen. Usually fruit, which was the most easily available, but sometimes cookies and even cakes. After their studies, which they still did together, Izuna would sneak down to the kitchen and they would spend another fifteen minutes or so just eating and looking up at the sky. If it was cold, they would share a blanket, slung over their shoulders in a carefree way that was very important for Izuna because it meant they were friends. If it rained, they shared an umbrella which Tobirama always held.

Izuna thought it was the best time of his life.

"Are you ever sad you don't get adopted?" Izuna suddenly asked one night.

The question surprised him. He hadn't really planned on posing it.

Tobirama seemed to think for a while, simultaneously putting raisins into his mouth.

"No", he said. Then, he turned to Izuna and grinned. "You're my family. Being with you is much more fun than being with any parents, anyway."

Those words took Izuna by surprise, and he felt a warmth bubble up within him that rendered him unable to speak for a long time.

He wanted to remark on those words, but found he was unable to. What Tobirama had just said was too large for his small world.

"You're going to get a scholarship", he said instead. "To go study when you turn eighteen."

"And so are you", Tobirama said.

Izuna shook his head.

"I'm better at maths now. But not good enough to succeed in the tests I would need to take. I wish literature courses didn't require us to understand maths."

"It's unfair", Tobirama agreed.

They were quiet for a long time. When Tobirama opened his mouth to speak again, Izuna was certain it was to say he should try to get some sleep, that was still the way they concluded every night.

But he didn't.

"My father killed my mother", he said and the revelation was so shocking, Izuna just stared. He knew it was rude, but he couldn't help it. "He wasn't a bad man, unless he drank. And he drank a lot. He would beat me up when he was drunk." Izuna remembered the bruises he'd seen Tobirama's face when he had just come here. "On the night I came here...", he continued, as if he had read Izuna's mind. "She stood in the way for him. He killed her."

"I'm so sorry", Izuna said even if he knew it was far from enough.

"I have made a promise to myself never to drink. Not a single drop. Not even at university." He smiled a crooked, sad smile. "It would have been easier if we were the same age so we could start university together. I'll be an outcast."

"You won't be an outcast", Izuna tried to comfort his best friend. Something suddenly went up for him. "Is that why you didn't want me to defend you when the other kids bullied you?"

Tobirama nodded

Izuna was quiet for a while before he spoke.

"I'm going to try", he finally said. "I'll do my best to get a scholarship. So the year after you start, I will follow you to the university to study literature while you study something math-related."

Tobirama grinned at him again.

"I would like that", he said.