"You’ve decided not to use the book, then?" I asked, finding that opening up the list of challenges required me to offer up my thumbprint a second time.
"After Rin so neatly demonstrated its potential to be left about? No. We’ve removed the pages, and transferred everything to the app. The medical reports have been shredded as well." He gave me a faint smile. "Once this became real, we needed to be a lot more serious about secrecy."
I put my phone down, the screen displaying several of the things he would be doing to me toward the end of the year, and sipped tea, looking at him.
"Which of you is the best rower?"
"Technically, me," he said. "But both Rin and Bran have a slight advantage in strength. When they’re on their game, they’ll usually win, but I’m far more consistent."
"And what did you win to be here today?"
"A capture the flag run in Dare to Fall."
I laughed. "Do you usually win the gaming challenges?"
"No." Kyou put down his phone and stood, circling behind me. "No, I was making a particular effort." He rested his hands on my shoulders, and then, instead of my expected massage, he slid his hands forward to cover my breasts.
I straightened; the tea I was holding almost spilling. He was testing me again, and I refused to give him the reaction he sought, simply putting the cup down, and dropping my arms to my sides.
Unhurriedly, Kyou cupped me through my shirt, then began a gentle kneading, not using any great pressure, just a pleasant, rhythmic motion. A massage after all.
Leaning against the back of the café chair, I let myself enjoy it. Sunlight, tea, and a very attractive boy. But I wanted to add his beautiful voice to the mix.
"Did it take a lot of time to put the app together?"
"That one’s not exactly complex—just an adaptation of an established secure framework. Took Bran about ten minutes."
Resting my head against his stomach, I closed my eyes. His boundary testing only made me want to push back, and I was liking this interpretation of a massage, but I was starting to really feel the need for more, wanted to see what he could do with his mouth, given how much I was enjoying his hands.
Kyou’s phone beeped, and his hands stilled immediately, though he didn’t move away, standing with my breasts just a little lifted. We were breathing almost in unison.
Then he went for his phone. As he shut off the alarm, I straightened my shirt and picked up my tea. Beyond being a little flushed, neither of us gave any sign of what had passed, and after I’d finished my drink, I left without a word.
Six
Friday was a perfect day to test out the Cheshire app, along with the new route, as it was positively pouring. But a check of the app showed no cancellations, and so I dutifully made my way down to the dovecote and poked my phone’s screen to indicate my location. After only a couple of minutes a green dot appeared in the image of the garden.
It was not a day to be outside, and though my folding umbrella kept most of the wet off me as I navigated my way behind trees and hedges, I was still feeling a little damp by the time I reached the removable bars.
Rin must have been waiting just inside the gate, since it opened as I reached the fence. "Let me get that for you, Cheshire."
He unscrewed the bars, and held his own umbrella high so I could fold mine and duck through.
"I’ve no idea whether this was by accident or design," he said, returning the bars to their proper place. "But I thoroughly appreciate the convenience."
"Not a day for wall climbing," I agreed, part of my attention on the long stretch of path to a pair of double doors that could emit teachers at any time. The hedge shielded most of our activities, but this was still a tiny moment of risk.
"Tuck your umbrella just outside the door," Rin said, after locking the gate and ushering me to the summer house. "I’ll just get something for the floor."
I hesitated in the shelter of the eaves as Rin fetched a couple of towels out of a storage space beneath one of the seats, and used them to mop up his damp footprints before folding them into a pad before the door.
"There really should be a mat here," he said. "I’ll bring one in. It didn’t occur to me when I was putting in supplies."
I slipped off my shoes, and crossed to inspect the space beneath the seat. Too small for hiding in. "This didn’t come with the summer house?"
"Some of it. The glasses and the table and so forth. The rest is ours."
There was a basin, a couple of bath sponges and some shower gel in with the towels. For challenges that required cleaning up after, I presumed, and grimaced wryly.
Rin was watching with the gentle smile he wore in official photographs. "If there’s anything you want kept here, let me know."
I suspected a spare underwear stash would not be wise, and just nodded. "The app came in handy right away," I noted.
"One of Kyou’s better notions, and Bran put it together without problem."
A faint undertone caught my attention, and I examined his expression as he checked the level of water in the jug and set it to boil.
"You’re still worried about him?" I asked, and he shrugged, a simple gesture made beautiful by his natural grace.
"I didn’t expect to win the race yesterday—I was behind."
Sitting down, I considered. "This isn’t something you’d want to force anyone into."
"I didn’t think I was. Bran doesn’t go along with things he doesn’t want to do, and he was definitely fascinated by the idea."
"Anyone can have second thoughts. But if he does keep losing—deliberately or not—then it’s going to be a little difficult to score these challenges."
"And since the entire point was a comparison with Bran…" He hummed softly, then turned to pour tea. "No point wasting energy on that. If Bran is no further in a month, we can reconsider." His long lashes shaded his eyes—and his thoughts—and then he said: "How are you finding the school, Cheshire?"
We chatted lightly about the need for more lunch places, particularly inside to cope with the crowds that crammed into the refectories on wet days. Then he folded a blanket into a pad, sat me on the floor between his feet, and fell silent, concentrating on rubbing any hint of tension out of my shoulders.
Rin was strictly circumspect, but also very good at finding knots, and I let out a long breath and melted. His efforts left me beautifully relaxed all weekend, despite a constant downpour that would otherwise be less than amusing. It put me in an excellent frame of mind for study, and I made solid progress on catching up. Literature was a weak point for me here, since every country had its own set of books it considered important, and I was going through works studied in previous years so I had the same foundation as the rest of the class.
If Bran continued to not participate… Well, it was better not to think of that right now.
Seven
"So, what’s your view on the Seniors' Ball?"
I looked up at Lania from my assigned task of cutting out dozens of cardboard gingerbread men.
"That’s some time in Spring Term, isn’t it? Do I need to have a view now?"
"You obviously haven’t been paying attention." Rick turned from the group painting cardboard cut-outs into gingery life. "Now’s when everyone has a view. The nominations for the theme close next week."
"What are they likely to be?"
"The frontrunners are Old Hollywood, Steampunk, and Black and White Ball."
I snipped around the arms of my current cut-out. "From a practical viewpoint, Black and White sounds easiest."