Escape artistry

8. Subway ride (now)

"Come on, pretty boy!" I chastised myself, clapping myself on the side of my face to pump myself up a little. It didn't work. "Get yourself together!"

I looked at myself in the mirror, trying to have soft and kind eyes regarding my appearance.

It had been easier these past year. When I was a teenager, I had been ashamed of my smallness. Now, at twenty-five, I had accepted it. What other option was there, really? You were given one appearance and I could either like it or not. My hair, washed yesterday because it was always at its best behaviour day two after a wash, tumbled down to my waist, and I had collected it into a low fishbone braid, letting my curtain bangs frame my face. I had matched my oversized, off-shoulder cardigan with black suit pans, chunky black boots and a grey beanie. I put on my black-rimmed glasses, some lip-gloss and felt done. I had embraced my feminine appearance and nowadays enhanced it, and I thought I was, if not hot, then at least sweet.

My doorbell rang.

"Coming!" I said into the intercom and went down.

I had been excruciatingly nervous for this after-work, my first one ever, but as soon as I opened the door, the group of colleagues who had come to collect me shouted and hugged me. I smiled. I had never before felt such a belonging in my previous working space. After five years of university, I had worked at a telephone company for two years before deciding it was time to move on and find something better paid containing new challenges. So now, I was working with as a programmer for a solar panel company. I had immediately felt at home in a way I had never done at university, and never at my previous working place, either.

I think I might have found my forever home.

My arms were grabbed on both sides as we walked down the street.

"Where are we going, Chris?" someone asked.

"I told, you, the location of this after work is secret!"

"How can it be after-work when it's on a Saturday?"

"Aren't you glad? At least we have time to get ready at home."

"True. But still!"

"You just want to complain!"

The soft bantering continued and it calmed my nerves. It went on even as we went down to the New York subway to go to the secret after-work place Chris had decided for us. I had been afraid New York would be too big of a city for me to live and work in, but turned out, the buzzing and excitement and constant speed was a perfect place for a shy boy like me to hide. I loved watching people on the streets, going about their everyday lives to make the world work while I remained unnoticed.

I closed my eyes on the subway and leaned my head on Chris's shoulder. Chris was a handsome man about my age with chocolate-covered skin who, unfortunately, was as straight as the precision rulers I used to make paper diagrams.

"How are you, Izuna, man?" he asked.

"Tired", I said. "Didn't sleep well last night."

"Nervous about today?"

With anyone else, I would have denied it, but I felt I could trust Chris.

"Yeah... I have never been to an after-work."

"It's like a university corridor party for adults", he said.

"Oh... I've never been to one of those either."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" he said happily, although he sounded as if he genuinely was sorry, and that he also didn't mind at all. "Any particular reason?"

I looked down, thinking of Tobirama. Or, rather, the absence of him.

"Yes."

"We have a long subway ride. Might as well tell me if you want to."

I appreciate this directness, so I decided to tell him.

"I grew up in an orphanage. I befriended this other boy, Tobirama..."

I told him our story shortly if our teenage years together, and then confessed we had kissed.

"So you tried to go to the same university as him, only different courses?" Chris asked. "How did it go?"

I sighed.

"That last year, without Tobirama, I worked myself half to death with mathematics. Every waking hour, I spent practicing. In the end, I took the same scholarship application test Tobirama had taken. For physics, instead of literature."

"Why?" Chris asked.

"Because he never responded to my letters. No contact, none at all. We had been orphans, so we didn't have cell phones and computers, but not a single letter. So I felt I needed to be as close to him as I could. I don't know if it was to try to show him what he had missed when he ignored me by proving myself better than he was, or to punish myself."

"Izuna, I'm so sorry."

I smiled a genuine smile at Chris. It had been so many years, it didn't hurt as much anymore, even if this was the first time I talked about it.

"It's okay", I said.

"And what happened?"

I was silent for a while. The soft whooshing and pounding of the moving train car was somehow the only thing noticeable in the silence, even if the others were still shouting and laughing together.

"I passed the test", I said. "And I accepted my place", I continued before Chris could ask. "But when I got there, Tobirama was gone."

Chris frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"Gone. I asked the administration, and they confirmed he had been a student there, but only for two weeks before he quit. They had no idea where he had gone and I haven't been able to find him. He has just... Disappeared. I have even searched death sites but thank God, he's not there, either."

"Wow", Chris said. "And, and sorry for asking, what does that have to do with you avoiding social situations?"

I leaned my head back on Chris shoulder.

"I had always been shy, but imagined that with Tobirama by my side, I would be braver and dare to go to parties and such. But he wasn't there. And I never forced myself to."

"I understand", Chris said.

"Thank you", I said.

"Well, this is our stop", Chris said.

I stood up, unknowing that I was heading for another major turning point in my life.