Quinn looked over the table uneasily before voicing, “I would like to remind everyone that I failed art in school. Repeatedly.”
Seiji put the last bag on the table before assuring him, “There’s many parts to this. I suggest an assembly line. Someone to cut strips, someone to write the boundary word, then another to tie the strips onto the tent stakes.”
Oh, that was what the white cloth and paint were for. I wasn’t sure how he was going to mark the tent stakes since they were just wires, but that made a lot of sense.
Seiji pulled out a marker and quickly wrote out a kanji on a corner of the white cloth. Then he held it up for all to see. “Who has faith they can reliably copy this?”
A few hands went up, more or less the people I expected: Eli, Hannah, Gwyn, Booker, and myself. Davina held up both hands in a warding gesture, shaking her head, clearly not comfortable with the job.
“Why is it in kanji?” Gwyn asked him curiously. “What’s the word?”
“The word is kyokai. Boundary. And it’s in kanji because it looks cooler.”
A few wentpffft, and Quinn said, “It’s an honest answer, if nothing else. I’ll tie. That, I can do.”
We divvied up projects depending on people’s skill levels, and I ended up second seat in the assembly line on one side of the table. Seiji and Gwyn were on the other side from me, I assumed so he could see most of the scribes, as he could see everyone from the middle.
“Brandon, cut me off a piece to practice on,” I requested.
He did so, and I picked up a marker. I had no experience with calligraphy brushes and now seemed a poor time to learn. Messing up a boundary marker came with consequences I couldn’t foresee, so I’d just skip that potential pitfall.
Brandon stood near the head of the table, and he wasn’t cutting the strips so much as notching the cloth with scissors and ripping along the nape of the fabric. A faster method, for sure. Hopefully I could keep up with him as he churned out strips for me.
The first minute or so, people didn’t say much as they settled.
Then Eli, still carefully drawing the kanji, drawled, “So, Seiji, how long have you and Lachlan been dating?”
Without missing a beat, he returned, “Our unofficial first date was four hours ago, thanks for asking. We’ve got an official first date planned once this insanity is over.”
Wow, Lachlan must have confessed the second they got in the car. Never say the man couldn’t move once he had a direction.
Lachlan, for his own part, seemed quite smug. That little grin playing around the corners of his mouth and the lingering hand he put on Seiji’s shoulder as he passed behind him—oh, that was bragging right there. Bragging without a word. Seiji’s head turned a little to catch Lachlan from the corner of his eye, a matching smugness on his own face.
There was going to be no living with these two. For weeks, at least, until the giddiness died down a little.
There were a few congratulations going around the table, my own included, because I was happy my friends were dating.
People either stood and worked, sat at the island, or gathered around the table. Someone got music playing; it was a nice background to our work. Group projects like this were always fun. I liked the camaraderie of the moment, the feeling of teamwork. Maybe I was the weird one, but I liked group projects.
I was also taking advantage of having Seiji right in front of me. “Seiji, how busy are you on an average basis?”
“Depends on the time of year,” he said, eyes glued to his brush as he wrote out the kanji. “Winter? Nothing’s happening. I don’t work when it’s colder than twenty degrees outside, not unless it’s an extreme situation.”
“Fair, man. I don’t freeze outside unless I have to either.”
Brandon snorted. “Only you consider anything below fifty degrees to be freezing.”
I snorted, nose high and lofty. “I haveSouthernblood, merci.”
He was, of course, delighted his teasing hit the mark. Lord save me with this man.
“I would say from March until end of October, that’s when I’m insane and can’t catch my breath.” Seiji paused and glanced from me to Gwyn. “Scheduling?”
“You’re going to be the hardest person to schedule lessons with,” I said.
“You’re wise to think of it now,” he acknowledged. “Some lessons I can do via Zoom. This lesson, for instance. I can teach her how to do the prep work without being physically present.”
Gwyn paused in her writing to glance up at him. “Do you have, like, a course book? Something I can study?”
