The next day after we became "lovers" I was uneasy that night. It was right before the weekend, too, so after dinner I asked Clive to shower first then try some "minimal" physical activity.

Normal words disappeared and I tried to imitate my father with his particular terms, which was what Richie picked up. Now I remember, I once talked normally with Daniel, but when I was in school I put on a facade. I wanted to be a knight in front of them. 

In front of Clive I was that child again. I had nothing worthy so I pretended I did. 

"Are you sure?" he asked. I nodded.

That night when entered to Clive's surprise, I gave him a surprise hug with a sheet.

Laughing, he hugged me through it and closed the door behind us. In the dark he reached for me and I laughed, ticklish, until we were on my bed.

"Do you want to do it?" Clive whispered.

"I don't know what to do. Well, with a boy at least," I said. I didn't know how to have sex, even with a girl.

"Then I'll touch you—"

"Wait!" I was surprised at my own exclamation. "First, kiss me."

Clive kissed me and I pressed my lips tightly before opening it to relish his ticklish bites and then his mouth went down. He licked my neck and I jumped a bit.

His tongue was like being of its own, making me squirm and hold back the boner that was growing.

"You're so adorable, Nathan," he whispered to my skin.

Clive bit my earlobes softly and I held his hand.

Raising his hands to my face I felt how rough it was against my cheek, then I licked his fingers eagerly. I sucked on them, my tongue encircling it again and again.

***

That was my first experience, although I had a bad feeling when we were called out the following night. We had another job to do, and this time we had to kill a head rebel. He lived in a good house and when he caught sight of us, he ran behind his house into a marsh surrounded by reeds.

It took Clive nearly jo time and soon the rebel crouched before Clive, his chest wet with blood, and still he held Clive's legs.

This rebel was hard to kill, he seemed like a veteran fighter and had deflected most attacks until Clive gave it his all. I caught the man from the back and stabbed him fatally twice. He had not expected Clive and I to attack from both sides.

Even now, his lines face was hard and lined with regret.

"Just die already, or we'll have to stab you again," Clive whispered to him.

"You're beautiful," the man croaked, making my fists tighten.

"Damn fool! What are you saying!" I shouted.

Clive was quiet.

"You remind me of Achilles, or was it Paris? A beautiful youth with flying golden hair. I have never seen such a lovely sight in my years in battlefields," he went on, annoying me.

"Are you still not dying?" Clive said, so soft and concerning you would've thought he was an Angel of death.

"Kiss me, and I will wait to bleed out or let you stab me—"

"Nonsense!" I pulled out my rapier, ready to give a death blow until Clive held out a hand.

"Just a kiss, right?" Clive asked.

"Yes," the rebel grinned, crazed.

"Promise?"

"Yes."

"Wait!" I froze up as Clive moved.

Clive took of his mask, and true beauty was revealed. The man also made a soft sigh of surprise.

Somehow these nights we killed I felt closer than ever to Clive—I knew he was mine and I was his. We kept our making out and kissing as minimal as possible in the academy but nights like this we didn't.

We mixed pleasure and pain—we tried to sweeten our guilt conscience with each other's presence.

The strangest feeling overcame me when I saw Clive bend down and his lips on that man's.

My whole life I had never felt such an intense rage. My sight grew red and I felt hot, ready to kill or hurt anything in sight, only there was Clive in front of me. I watched as the fury bubbled in me.

Clive let go of the man's face and he fell down, hands loosened and finally bleeding to death. He might've not even relished his last kiss, but the fact Clive would kiss someone other than me drove me mad.

He put on his mask, hiding his face again, but the two of us stood there, and I showed no sign of leaving.

"Nathan, it was just a kiss," he said.

No. No, it wasn't!

"You're my lover. You can't kiss anyone but me, isn't that obvious!" I stuck my rapier into the soil, clutching the handle hard. "Would you kiss anyone if they asked me to?"

"It was a dying man's last wish," Clive said, strangely calm and sensible to my first tantrum.

"So you would kiss anyone? Make love to anyone? Rebels, other men, anyone?" My voice grew and echoed in the wide forest.

"I'm sorry," Clive said.

"Sorry? Are you really?" I snidely said. "And I don't want to settle for sorry. This is much more than apologizing, don't you understand?"

"I don't!"

Clive walked past me, and I turned to see him walking out to a clearing. The lake was clear and reflected the moon and stars, but the lonely silhouette of an assassin made me enraged.

"I don't understand," he repeated. "I've killed so many people, and if I could atone or do one thing to make them happier, I would. Their lives are fleeting, and I don't know why a kiss bothered you like that, it was the saving grace of that rebel man before he became a corpse. Empty. Dead."

I walked over and roughly grabbed his shoulders.

"This is why I can't trust you!" The words poured out of my mouth. "Love? I knew when you said it you were only throwing these words around and you probably said it to everyone, maybe even Whitecross. You'd give any boy a kiss, fuck any of them—you don't love only me!"

Clive reached out and smacked my mask covered face. I felt the pain and the mask cracked, but I pulled myself up straight again.

"Clive! Don't you dare smack—"

Then I saw it.

Illuminated by the stairs in the sky and lake was Clive, truly as beautiful as a youth could be at seventeen. He sniffed, then took off his mask, tears making their way down his cheeks. He sputtered, not really saying anything, but undeniably hurt by my comment. He had never cried like that, not when he talked about his life in his home country, got injured with his arm, or anything.

I deserved that smack.

"Clive, I'm the one who should be sorry," I finally realized. "What I should say is—I love you, Clive. I don't want you to kiss another man—or woman."

"Then just say that! Whatever, I'm going home. Don't talk to me for a while, I want time alone."

Clive didn't put his mask back on as he steeled his expression, tears and snot still making their way to his face. He walked in the direction of our horses outside and I looked at the lake.

I picked up a stone and skipped it, the ripples I cause like the hurtful things I said to Clive. I could never undo those ripples nor take back my words. I could blame my cold demeanor on the burden of the Rottings house, but my cruelty to my partner and lover was not warranted. I wished to go back in time and skipped rocks again and again, my arm aching from the wild swinging.

The worse thing was I felt as though I understood that man's last wish. In this ugly and cruel world he was indeed like a light that all of us moths were drawn to. If I could have a kiss from Clive, I wouldn't mind dying.

***

Spending our time in the lounge with their other boys in our grade was common until Clive and I got into a fight.

My answer was to start going to the library with Will. The two of us seemed more like companions as we studied and asked each other exam questions.

"Did you get into a fight with Clive?" Will finally asked, not even looking over at me. He was engrossed in copying down the Latin dictionary.

"Why do you think that?" I said, feeling uneasy.

"It's blatant, Clive doesn't even look at you much less talk to you. You two used to be close." Will was even writing down notes as he spoke.

"Fine," I whispered back, "we had a small spat."

"Those small spats are dangerous if you want to keep being a team. Whitecross and I hate each other but manage to follow one another's lead so we get by, but you and Clive are different."

"Oh, why?" I asked.

"Clive sought you out in tenth year, and brought you, the high and mighty Rottings, down to earth and to people like me. He's the only string between you and your former lone wolf lifestyle—letting go of Clive means returning into who you were in the past." Will surely passed psyche class with flying colors. He had analyzed Clive and I to a disturbing degree, but it was all true.

"I won't let Clive go," I promised myself. "Clive is also an important person to me, or should I say entity?"

Will snickered. "What? Entity? Look, you should never idolize someone—never ever put someone on a pedestal. It will affect your teamwork, and their flaws will be all the more visible once the gold rubs off."

"I don't think of Clive as an Apollo or anything," I argued, "I like him because he's human. He cries and he laughs, he gets hurt and I have to bandage him, and if I get hurt he gets mad for me. He's just—he's a really great partner."

Clive said it easily, phrases like "I love you", "you're so adorable", "you're the best", the simple compliments he gave were countless.

Maybe the way he did the opposite of my father and always threw these sweet words made me more wary. It made me think they meant nothing, and so the kiss hurt more.