Nao managed, with great difficulty, to focus on the lesson. The hours slipped past in a steady stream, and at long last, the four o’clock bell rang. Rin and Wen Xulong headed for the gym, while Nao remained sitting at his desk and started on his homework.

He didn’t end up getting much done. Several people approached him, asking dozens of questions. In the end, he’d only answered two problems by the time Rin and Wen Xulong returned.

Wen Xulong didn’t stick around long; he walked with the two to the station, said his farewells and promised to take them out soon, and left. Nao and Rin stood among the loose crowds of departing students.

“. . .Should we head to the library to study. . ?” Nao asked, turning to look at Rin.

Rin opened his mouth to give an affirmative response, then overheard a group of students nearby make plans to head to the library. Switching lanes rapidly, he said, “Let’s just head to my place.”

Nao’s eyes widened, and a light blush colored his face. “Are—are you sure? I wouldn’t. . .I wouldn’t want to impose. . .”

Rin hummed and headed down the steps, hands in his pockets. “It’s not an imposition. Sandie-san always cooks extra anyway. Come on.”

Nao was left with no choice but to follow Rin and accept his help getting into a two-person travel pod. He could feel the weight of many gazes on his back, and it made his face burn, but before long, the school had faded from view entirely. It was only him and Rin, sitting side-by-side, only separated by a small partition. They sat in silence; Nao didn’t know how to break it, so it stretched on until Rin spoke.

“Looks like snow tonight,” he said, looking out the window. “Hope we don’t get caught in it.”

Nao looked out his own window, feeling a little awed. “Snow?”

“Mm.” Rin glanced over at him. “Have you ever seen the snow before?”

Nao shook his head. “I haven’t. It did snow sometimes, but I usually missed it.”

“. . .Nao-kun. . .What was your past like?”

Rin had wanted to ask this question for a long time, but Nao had seemed so saddened by his past that Rin hadn’t dared. Although it was probably still a sensitive topic for Nao, they were closer now; Rin thought that maybe it wouldn’t be so hard for Nao to talk about it with him.

For a moment, Nao didn’t say anything, only smiled a little—melancholic with a wry twist. His tone was bittersweet when he replied. “Not like you’d expect, I’m sure. What do you want to know about?”

“. . .Anything you’re willing to share.”

Nao sighed softly and gazed into the distance, watching the buildings flash past. “Well. . .I don’t know if I really had what you'd call a childhood. My parents were really sweet and they did the best they could for me, but back then. . .Back then, if you showed intellectual promise, then you had to grow up fast and put it to use. I’d passed all of my Lowerlevels by the time I turned nine, and after that, I was admitted to Schola de Futuro. My days were spent in the lab, and my nights were spent. . .staying up to finish projects, or asleep.

“I got really skinny,” Nao continued in a quieter voice. “Skipped meals to study because I felt that even a second’s delay could mean a person’s life. Put off sleeping or showering. If I wasn’t writing formulas or sketching concepts out. . .” He swallowed. “I started working on the metamatrix and MEI when I was twelve. MEI was born—in her most rudimentary form—two years later, and a short while before my seventeenth birthday, I turned the base of the metamatrix in.”

He smiled again, without a trace of joy; all there was inside the expression was the heavy weariness and sadness of time’s ceaseless turning.

“I promised my mom, that morning before I left, that I would come home in time for dinner,” Nao said. “And I left early enough. I fully intended to keep that promise, but I. . .I never made it back. . .”

Nao’s voice thickened until he could no longer speak without sobbing, so he stopped. He was about to reach up to wipe the tears that had built up out of his eyes, but his hand was suddenly caught in a tight grip. He looked up.

Rin’s eyes were also heavy with tears, not quite spilling over, shimmering in the dim light. He had leaned closer; the scent of jasmine pervaded the air around Nao. Nao’s gaze fell from Rin’s eyes down to his lips—lips that were slightly parted, faintly pink, close enough for Nao to reach out and trace the curves. . .

Nao unconsciously leaned in. Rin took the glasses from his face and pulled him into a hug across the armrest; Nao found himself with his face buried in Rin’s flowery shirt for the second time in two days. Rin had one arm around his back and one hand cradling his head; he planted a single kiss on his scalp.

Nao twisted his fingers into Rin’s shirt and pressed himself as close as possible, breathing in the smell of jasmine and discovering all sorts of other undertones—coffee, red bean paste, vanilla. He could feel Rin’s heartbeat, thumping rhythmically within his chest, and he suddenly had the inexplicable sense that he had finally returned home.

Rin spoke in a voice that was a little hoarse. Just the sound comforted Nao—but the lines that were spoken reached deeper and seemed to draw poison out of his heart.

“It wasn’t your fault. And you aren’t alone.”

Nao’s fingers tightened into a fist. His shoulders trembled, and tears slipped down his cheeks; for a good time, he didn’t speak at all, and only when he had returned to a somewhat normal state did he finally say, “Thank you, Rin-san.”

The snow began to fall.

The two didn’t break apart until the travel pod started to slow down, at which point it was snowing steadily. Rin handed Nao’s glasses back, then stepped out and helped Nao down. The ground was dusted with white; Nao paused for a moment to watch the falling flakes before following Rin up the path to his house.

Rin’s house was on a fine line between modesty and luxury. It was a minimalist-style house, with two stories. There was a porch with a swing, and big windows diffusing soft warm light across the bushes and grass. Nao was tempted to take a detour off the stone-paved path to sink his feet into the green yard, just to see what it felt like, but as this was someone else’s home, he held himself back.

Rin led Nao inside and called out a phrase in Japanese that Nao, for once, recognized: “I’m home.”

He exchanged his shoes for house slippers, then slid a guest pair over to Nao. They fit perfectly, making Nao wonder if they had perhaps been Hanaka’s in the past. While he swapped his shoes, Sandie came over. She hugged Rin, then Nao.

“It’s lovely to see you again, Nao-kun,” she said. “Dinner will be done shortly, do you like chicken lo mein?”

“Yeah, that sounds great. . .”

Nao slowly trailed off as he got a look at the interior of the house.

It was all very elegant—impersonal and clean, yet seemingly imbued with the warm nostalgia of one’s home. The rooms were spacious, with large windows showing a view of everything outside. Nao could see all the way to the back yard, where there was an in-ground pool. He could see the kitchen, where things were cooking away, and the comfortably-decorated living room. He could see up the stairwell for a short stretch. But the thing that truly caught his eye was the ceiling.

Growing along every edge, down the arches, in full bloom, were jasmine vines. Nao wasn’t sure which kind, exactly. Their delicate fragrance dispersed among the air, filling Nao’s lungs. It made him feel warm, and all of a sudden, he realized why he liked the scent so much.

His mother had grown jasmine vines; they were her favorite flower. After her own plants took off, she always smelled like the blossoms.

Sandie noticed his gaze tracing the vines and smiled. “You like the flowers? Those are treasure jasmine—bred by the Takara family. Many years ago, back in the First Age, the Shiniamas received sprouts as a gift.”

Nao’s heart squeezed. Looking at the delicate, yellow-tinted petals, he felt as if his mother’s spirit was very close, lingering with these vines that she had bred with time and care. He pulled in a deep breath of the flowers’ smell and let himself steep in it for a moment, then exhaled.

He felt as though with that breath, he had released a great burden.

“Please let us know when dinner is done,” Rin said. He beckoned to Nao and headed toward the staircase. “This way, Nao-kun.”

Nao looked at the treasure jasmine one more time, then turned his eyes to Rin and followed him up the stairs.