Hold Your Course and Your Aim by Zero

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-1


Nights have started to come sooner.

He watches through the glass, his eyes fixed inside the barbershop. An old-fashioned establishment. Except it really isn’t. It just prides itself in tradition and what it upholds, what it shields itself from.

This is a testament to his victory. A triumph. It is for the man inside the barbershop who peers into the mirror and fixes his tunic, his hair, once pitch-black, now painted with silver strokes. The fade is lower than it used to be, a couple fingers towards the base of his head where it once creeped almost past his temples, when he was younger. The hairline has receded, but it’s still densely populated for a man his age.

After all these years, through all these winters, despite everything, he lives.

His breath materializes with every single exhalation.

He knows that stance, that straight line from shoulder to shoulder, that perfect angle to his back. He knows those hands. And he knows those eyes. And the voice, he can’t hear it through the glass, but if someone showed him the wavelength, just the spikes of breath and speech, just the way the lips, the teeth and the tongue move, he could know it’s his, even if he was deaf, even if he was in a world without sound, beyond this one.

His voice, his body, his eyes, they’ve always had a mass to them, that indentation in his life, in his own existence.

He exhales, as slow as his racing heart allows him, a trail of white smoke coming out of his mouth and counts to four.

Dry ice. Frostbite. Permafrost. A feeling that has long burned his chest.

There is a grip that feels stronger on his left hand. A pressure that tightens against his knuckles, an invitation to hold himself steady against it. He intertwines his fingers deeper, roots himself in the spaces between the others’.

A touch that says ‘here, please, don’t’.

"Have you really thought this through?" his partner leans closer, eyes him, his voice not pleading, but meditative in its calm.
"There hasn’t been a single day of my life that I hadn’t".

He is the hole at the center of the universe.




0


He checks the time of his appointment as he stands a meter away from the door. The red, blue and white of the barber pole reflects on the window. Two strings of color alternating endlessly against a muted crystal.

Long ago, this sight was part of his routine, a world that moved on its own axis.

Five minutes to spare.

He holds the emptiness in his chest. One. Two. Three. Four. He steadies himself and takes another breath.

He has studied photographs and videos of this place so much and for so long, he could come here blind. And there is a chance he will end up blind after this is over.

(He can navigate the dark. Long nights with suns a million light years away have taught him to).

He pushes the door open and steps inside. A bell rings. Laminate flooring. Meant to look like wood. But it isn’t. A faux wood parquet. He warms his hands with his breath as his gaze wanders.

Framed vintage posters. Witch hazel. Talcum. Hot lather. Steam. Pristine mirrors between cabinets and shelves. Exactly as he had seen them over and over again.

Three dark red leather chairs. Two empties. One occupied. The second to last customer still caped, being attended to.

Their gazes meet in the mirror in a flicker. His eyes. He can still see them even if he shut his. That shade of gray and green and blue, iridescent, meeting his own, the eyes of a deep-sea animal living inside an abyss.

"I’ll be with you in a minute" he tells him, and the sound of his voice is exact, from the choice of words to the tone, to the way his lips curve in a smile that is deceptively restrained.

The flare inside him. A neutron star at the center of his chest.

"Eduard, isn’t it?" the man glances at him through the mirror a second time, as he rips the paper strip from the neck of his customer.

He nods in response, untying his scarf and pulling off his navy-blue coat.

"Albert Morel" the man introduces himself, a second time to him.

Eduard undoes the bun that holds his hair. The locks come down to reach his shoulders. A mess of untamed waves for years he had forgotten he had, he had even forgotten the color of his own hair, a shade so dark it is almost black, until the sun grazes his head, and the chocolate and bronze are visible.

Morel brushes off the other customer’s shoulder and neck, bits of hair slide down the cape, tufts of gold against the floor.

"Sharp as ever, White" Morel brushes the close-cropped hair with his hand, it barely moves as he does.

Eduard stares at him as he stands up, rubbing his face with both hands. Seventeen? Fifteen? Light skin. Pale blue eyes that seem too transparent. A high fade and scarce golden hair buzzed down until the scalp is visible through the bristles.

The boy brushes just past him to grab a school bag from a worn leather sofa in the back, a soft ‘sir’ as he acknowledges him, barely audible.

He recognizes the crest embroidered in the front of the backpack. The swords. The torch. The star. The helmet. The laurels.

The golds and emerald greens, colors he once wore like a banner over his shoulders.

"Do you mind if I shut the blinds?" Morel’s voice resonates through the empty space "You’re my last customer".
"No, I don’t" Eduard offers him a smile.

And both of their stars are aspecting each other again.

The barber motions him to take seat as he pulls the blinds. They fall in line, almost in formation, one after the other, all the way to the bottom of the window. He then moves towards the door a couple of steps and flips the sign. He takes the keys out of his pocket and inserts them in the keyhole and leaves them there.

Morel mutters something about people walking up to his door despite the shut blinds, and the closed sign, a joke he doesn’t catch falls between his voice and a chuckle.

Eduard keeps his eyes set in the mirror in front of him.

It’s been eleven years.

He is no longer sixteen years old.

And Albert Morel.

On a day of his choosing, this man tore apart his entire life. Now, on this day of his choosing, he’s come to tear his world down.

He is invited a second time to take a seat, as Morel brushes the chair where the boy sat and whips the air with the cape.

Eduard moves towards the chair. He doesn’t let his body sink completely into the leather. His legs keep holding the weight of his body, he is aware of his center of gravity. Of the momentum it would require for him to stand up if he needed to.

The barber grabs a paper tissue. Morel lifts his hair at the back to secure it around his throat. Eduard feels the tension in his muscles the moment the touch lands, the mere physical contact setting his fight-or-flight response into motion. He barely manages to hold it back, filling his lungs down to the bottom of his ribs and holding his breath.

Then, Morel snaps the cape in the air, like a sail and ties it around his neck.

He sits with his back straight, as it has been hammered down on him. His gaze not wavering from Morel’s reflection.

"You’re a handsome man, if I may say so" the barber glances at him over his shoulder as he moves to his counter.

He smiles but he does not thank him. Refuses to.

"Okay, so, how are we cutting this?" Morel runs a comb through his hair "You do know I specialize in military haircuts, don’t you?".

The remark is so like him. The disdain hidden underneath the gentle, patronizing gesture, perfect to deny, to shift blame elsewhere.

"I know, that is exactly why I’m here" Eduard nods, calmly.
"Oh, you must have noticed when I cut that boy’s hair" the man smiles, a thrill all too familiar "The lad is so promising. He attends Highcrest. He is in the school’s drill team".

There it is. He hates that he still knows him. He knows him as intimately as he knows every deformity in his own body—from the left breastbone that protrudes more than the right, to the scar that led him to tattoo the snake coiling around his forearm.

"I was drill team commander myself back in high school" he wields a smile.
"I taught drill for many years" Morel’s eyes glint with glory "The ritual shaving for the competition season was special. I still get invited to support the current instructor in Highcrest".
"Is that so?" Eduard nudges him to continue.
"What can I say? I just have a soft spot for young lads" the man’s smile is all teeth "I’m the sort of guy who just wants to give those boys a tight bear hug and a rough kiss on the forehead, you know?".

His hands clench into fists at the armrests. His heartbeats, machinegun fire.

"The haircut" Morel leans his hands on the backrest "How do you want it cut?".
Eduard holds the man’s gaze in the mirror and wonders, if he sees him, if he knows, if he sees a whisper of him, if he can still see it "I want it shaved close all over".
"How close?" the barber moves his face and body forward, closer, towards him, lets him know this is his world and he will move in it however he wants "A buzzcut? A razor shave?".
"A zero" Eduard says without hesitation.
"You sound very sure" Morel walks back to his counter, opens a drawer, takes different blades and inspects them in his hand.

The last time he shaved like this. He knows Albert Morel is about to remember it as clearly as he does.

The barber rotates the chair and faces him away from the mirror. Eduard feels the hand on his crown, guiding his head forward, his chin into his chest. He feels the unbearable familiarity of the weight of the man’s hand, his touch, like everything he touches, he owns.

His hair naturally parts in the middle, at the base of his nape, the weight of it making it fall evenly over both his shoulders.

"Highcrest, you’ve said earlier?" Eduard speaks, his voice calculated, an artillery shell waiting on the command to fire.
The man hums with contentment, pride, the name of the academy plays a chord in him "The finest military school for boys we have. The one by the woods".

The clippers start whirring, the machine’s motor igniting, blades set in motion. His adolescence slipping right through its blare: the metronome of boots against the parade ground, the weight of a flashlight in his hand on a September night, the knot of a tie pressed high against his throat.

He swims from the depths of this trench inside his memory and takes a breath back into the surface.

"I actually attended that school for a few years" Eduard feels the blades bite into his nape first, right at the middle of it, he holds still as Morel moves them towards his crown, slowly, pressing down into his scalp "I had a friend there. His name was Laurent Waltz".
The man tightens his grip on the hair clippers, he keeps his eyes set on his nape. This time, his rapid-fire manner of speaking slows to a halt "Highcrest alumni, huh? It’s an honor to serve former students".

Eduard feels the coldness on the back of his head, the machine denudes his scalp. He focuses on the steadiness of the noise, on the locks of wavy hair sliding down his lap.

He can tell the man’s hand has been educated, trained, refined for this. His touch is finer than it was. The movement of the clippers, the way he handles them more precise than it used to be. A domesticated touch. Fit for the man he is, attempts to be. An animal that has learned to retract its claws, to hide its kill where they won’t find it.

"Why did you leave Highcrest, may I ask?" Morel has never been a man to stay very long without hearing his own voice.

Eduard keeps his voice controlled, even, as the barber moves the clippers to the side of his head next. He tilts his head slightly towards his shoulders, his muscle memory reacting on its own, making space for the hair clippers as they climb up his sideburn.

"I was expelled".

He feels the locks slide, shoulders, chest, lap, floor. The barber moves the machine with each scrape, from his hairline to the already shaved back of his head. The shriek of the clippers sinking inside his hair almost deafening.

But he knows Morel has heard him. He’s always had sharp senses. And age has not taken them from him.

"Couldn’t keep up with the discipline?".
"Not quite" he keeps his voice clear "I was accused of an infraction. They summoned me for a disciplinary hearing and everything".
"An infraction?" Morel’s eyebrows raise "What kind?".
Eduard just smiles "Sexual misconduct".

The silence swallows Morel’s voice. A quiet sound of acknowledgment is all he manages. He bends his right ear, his touch has lost something, momentarily, it lacks something it has always had and both notice it.

"They said my conduct was unbecoming of a cadet. Happened a lot back in the day to boys like me".

Eduard feels the barber go again over the higher portion of his temple. Shave closer around his hairline, changing the angle of the hair clippers over the stubble left on his scalp.

"Do you miss it?" Morel tries to steer the conversation elsewhere.
Eduard refuses to meet his eyes "Some of it".
The man stretches his hand, opens and closes it "Highcrest is a demanding experience, it holds boys to very high standards, as it should be. I had to keep my drill team shaved down religiously, keep them disciplined. They’re the pride of the school, you know?".
He feels a combustion inside him, a sun bursting through his veins.
"I know".

Eduard feels Morel’s hands hold his head in place again. This time, he asks him to hold steady, eyes forward. His gaze instinctively falls in the hair clippers approaching his forehead, they enter his hairline slowly. The vibration and the noise through his skin, his skull, his thoughts.

He sees his hair falling over his face, down to his lap, in thunders of raw umber and obsidian with each pass of the hair clippers over the top of his head. He doesn’t need a mirror to see himself in.

He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blink, doesn’t shut his eyes.

He is in control.

"Highcrest cadet through and through despite it all, aren’t you?" Morel has a hint of admiration in his tone as he speaks, the same pride of a man looking into another like a mirror "I see it in the way you hold yourself".

The hair clippers go once, twice, thrice across his cowlicks near his hairline.

"I’m shocked you got a disciplinary hearing; you don’t seem like you were that kind of student".

He knows exactly what he is trying to say, what his intent is behind the disarming candidness, and refuses to lower his guard as he wants him to.

Morel’s hand lands on his head once more, this time he throws his head over is opposite shoulder. He has finished shaving most of his head now. Only the left side is left untouched.

Eduard can still feel his hair grazing his collarbone.

He takes a deep breath. He tries to ease the tension in his shoulders and his neck. He stretches. He pulls them back, rolls his shoulder blades just barely to move the raging fever from his face and chest to the rest of his body.

He knows exactly what Morel will see just moments from now.

This is what he has come here for.

"You have a very…" Morel makes a firm, fast pass across his left temple "…interesting scar here".
"I know," Eduard replies, his voice flat, as if he's heard this many times before "I'm married to a neurosurgeon, I get that a lot.".
"You know, this scar… reminds me of something that happened in Highcrest back when I was an instructor there" the barber speaks again.
"Does it?" the smile on his lips is barely a twitch of a gesture "That’s a coincidence. I got this scar at Highscrest".

Eduard’s eyes flicker to the man’s face.

Morel’s face has fallen. His jaw has lost the set, firm line that holds all of the rest of his features in place. The color has gone from his semblance. A turbulence to his gray eyes that have been steel, the storm rearing in the depths. A lightning strike all over his face.

And as he touches his head to secure it in place again, his hands are ice.

"I-..." the man’s voice falls through his own throat, as he resumes shaving him, maneuvering the hair clippers across his scalp "I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up old memories. I was just thinking out loud. Forget what I said. You must get all kinds of questions about that scar, huh?".

Morel tries to keep his grip on the hair clippers from faltering. The twitch in his hands barely controlled.

Eduard doesn’t answer, the buzz of the clippers fills the space between them.

He focuses on the sensation—the cold metal against his skin, the rhythmic vibration. The feeling of hair being shaved down to stubble, like it was years ago.

"You mentioned an incident in Highcrest" he reminds him.
"It’s just an old man rambling," Morel tries to deflect, a smile to shield himself.

Then, he adjusts the blade on the hair clippers, moves the lever and starts tapering the cut slightly, almost imperceptibly to the untrained eye.

Eduard’s gaze sharpens "I don’t talk about Highcrest often. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to think about that place. But I’m thinking about it now. Thanks to you."

Morel loses his voice. A response malformed and aborted at the end of his lips, mutating into a silent gesture of reluctant, tense acknowledgment.

Eduard lets him nudge his head forward to shave closer at his nape.

The barber’s hands freeze mid air. He locks his gaze with Eduard. A second. Just a second.

"Of course" Morel smiles again, this time briefer, a blink of a smile, a gesture it’s getting harder for him to hold in place.

The machine quiets. Morel unfastens the cape and takes off the paper tissue from his neck. He brushes the shorn hair off Eduard’s shoulders, neck and face, dusts him in flashes of movement.

A mass of dark hair surrounds the chair, his face covered in stray strands, as his clothes. The sting of his freshly barbered and shaved head familiar.

"One night, I was patrolling the halls with a fellow drill team member, Laurent Waltz." Eduard’s tone is deliberate, every word measured as he gets to his feet, stepping over the shorn locks "Competitions were about to start, regionals. I had just been appointed drill team commander. Armed drill. Pressure was high. I was pushing myself harder than ever. Injured. Covered in kinesiology tape to handle the soreness in my shoulders and arms from long hours of practice."

He glances at Morel. He sees the barber’s expression, the forced neutrality, the rigidness in his jaw. The pretense that he doesn’t know this.

"I was summoned that night, past curfew, to our instructor’s office. A retired captain, wounded in combat." Eduard pauses, he shifts his gaze to the mirror briefly, inspecting the closely shaved, stark, military haircut. "It was just the two of us. Late. I asked him what this was about. He said he was concerned—about me, about how I was pushing myself, about my injuries, about the stress I was under. He told me he knew some physical therapy basics. Sport massages. He could help me."

Eduard leans in slightly towards his reflection, he tilts his face to the side, glances at his severely shaved sideburns, the light fade around his hairline. "I mentioned the patrol, said Waltz was waiting for me, that I had to report back in a few minutes. He looked at me, put a hand on my shoulder and said he was also concerned about the influence Waltz had on me. He told me to stay, that we’d talk while he checked my shoulders."

Morel sets the cape over the backrest of the chair, his fingers twitching as he lowers his free arm to his side. His eyes dilated, taking everything, their surroundings, the other, their weapons.

He tears his gaze away from the mirror, he holds his breath. "He said I needed to take off my shirt so he could massage the balm into my skin. So, I did. I trusted him."

Eduard walks towards the back of the barbershop, where he has hung his coat. He throws it on. He slips a bill out of his pocket and places it over the counter.

"At first, it seemed like simple physical therapy. He pressed into some pressure points. Asked me if it hurt. Then suddenly, I felt his hand move" he mirrors the memory with his own hand "From my shoulder. Down the front of my neck. To my chest. And he leaned in. His breath. Against my neck".

He locks his dark eyes with the barber’s once more "I tried to fend him off. I yelled at him to stop, to get off me. I tried to fight him off me".

Morel’s lips part. His voice still caught in his throat. He knows. And Eduard won’t let him pretend he doesn’t.

"Next thing I knew, a parade rifle hit me in the head. I was bleeding on the floor. I remember Waltz calling my name in the corridor, as I blacked out. The next day, I was accused of sexual misconduct against an instructor in a disciplinary hearing. Waltz tried to defend me. The instructor made sure he paid for it."

Laurent Waltz. They were both just boys, yet as much bruises and blood and storms as they were breath.

Eduard’s words are unrushed, his tone hardens "I was expelled. And I was outed. To my father. Then thrown into a religious boarding school for troubled boys. And it was hell. Absolute hell."
Morel finally finds his voice "You—".
Eduard’s voice snaps like a whip, cutting the man off mid-thought. "Do you know who I am, Albert?".

Then, he just stares. The lines in the sky that have put them back on a collision, a distance that closes with every passing star. Morel’s gray eyes dart to the door, the anxiety bleeding through as he pulls back.

"What… what year was this?" Morel stammers, his eyes fly across the room, as though searching for an escape route. His back presses against the wall, his breathing shallow and erratic. "What’s your… your last name?".
"Delacroix," Eduard states "Do you remember me? From that night?".

Morel is scared because Eduard is no longer a boy.

"I remember this story you told, Albert. About you sneaking up to a man during the war while he was asleep and slitting his throat open" Eduard walks towards the counter, he eyes the barbering implements, his gaze hovering until he finds it: the straight razor.

Morel fumbles with every step he takes backwards. He raises his arms, as if he wanted to guard himself, his left leg coming to the front, bent knee, a pale imitation of a boxer, hands trembling.

Eduard finds an opening as he lunges forward. His hand lands against Albert Morel’s throat, and he pins him against the counter, back almost slamming into the mirror. He feels his pulse underneath his grip, his body heat.

It’s insulting, the life pulsating in him.

"This is a misunderstanding. You’re confused. You’re misremembering. I’ve never…".
"Laurent Waltz. He remembers. Martin Ryder remembers. I remember" Eduard speaks quieter, slower if just to keep the tremor, the rage out of his voice "Do not act like you don’t".

He raises the blade at the jugular, he lets the steel touch the skin, caress it. It gleams underneath the ceiling lights. He presses it down and pulls downwards. The razor draws a thin red line, and Eduard can smell the iron of the blood.

"F***, Delacroix, please!" Albert Morel grabs his wrist, the hand that holds the blade and tries to pull away, the tears of fear glistening in his eyes "Please, Eduard!".

Eduard stares him down; he releases a breath.

Captain Albert Morel.

He remembers when he was starlight. His mentor. Younger, stronger, brighter, he held all his aspirations.

Now he is this.

A man pleading for his life. Every breath he takes underneath the blade, stolen.

And Eduard didn’t come here to forgive him. He isn’t here for mercy. And he didn’t come here to let Albert Morel forget.

He drops the blade. It clinks and shimmers as it meets the floor littered with hair.

"Listen, Albert, I find out you’re still pulling the same s**t at Highcrest, I swear on my dead father, on God himself—I’ll make you disappear." Eduard grabs him with both hands, by the collar and lifts him to meet his gaze "If you ever touch another boy, Albert, I’ll make sure no one finds you—dead or alive".

His chest rises and falls as he meets the man’s terrified eyes one last time.

This man has spent a lifetime with the certainty he would never be found. And perhaps that is what he also wishes for him.

But he has found him.

He doesn’t know if Albert Morel says another word.

Just that his heart pounds harder than ever as he walks away.

And that his hands can’t stop shaking.



1


The gates at Highcrest Academy are imposing before his eyes once again.

Eduard gazes up at the starry sky as he breathes in, the pines, the humidity, the chill, the earth, the rain.

His adolescence inhabits these sights, these whispering winds, these lights.

The pit in his stomach is all-consuming. He adjusts his tie, the knot the one he was taught here.

"Hey" his husband wraps an arm around his waist, holds him close, in a half-hug "We’ll be fine".

He hopes the stars will guard him this night. Silent. Countless. Pale fires. Heavenly eyes.

Eduard prays that whatever they will witness won’t come to haunt him. He hopes he doesn’t falter.

"And if not, we go home." his husband leans into him "And if you want to start something, I’ll help you throw hands".
Eduard laughs, he nuzzles him "Tempting".
"Do we go in?" his partner releases his waist, he steps closer to him and holds his open hand, waiting for him.

Eduard counts his breath again. He intertwines his fingers inside his husband’s hand. He can feel the metal of the other man’s wedding ring as he does.

The fire his touch ignites in him pushes away the coldness of the night.

"You have some nerve, returning to the school that kicked you out for being gay with your husband" his partner looks into his eyes.
"What are they going to do? Kick me out again?" Eduard eases as he grips the hand tighter, he leans in and pecks the other man on the lips.
"Is looking f***ing hot also an offense in their code of conduct?" his partner runs a slow hand from the front to the back of his head, feeling the stubble left, the harshness of the military haircut.
"Kenzo Arakawa" he caresses his husband’s cheek, a playful warning in his tone.
"What is it, Eduard Delacroix?" his eyes shimmer with amusement "Don’t make me visit you in jail. Romantic as it sounds" he cups his temple.
"We would make the most out of conjugal visits" Eduard leans into the touch and grabs and kisses his hand "And get f***ed, Kenzo".
"Love to" there is a pause "And hey, you were invited here, remember?" Kenzo reminds him.
"Yeah, as a PR stunt, probably" Eduard rolls his eyes.

Eduard walks hand in hand with Kenzo and steals glances at him. His suit and half-unbottoned dress shirt without a tie. His deep dark eyes. His silky black hair slicked back. His angular jaw and cheekbones. His husband. The man he has married.

He follows the music to the school’s yard. And there it is. The party. The class reunion. This place is still so monumental.

He notices the gazes, the glances headed his way, the flickers of eyes. He smiles and nods. He searches for familiar faces. His teachers. His friends. The people he once knew. The names write themselves inside his thoughts, coming alive in his memories.

Nights in the dorms. Detentions. Fistfights. Late night plots. Escapades. Cigarettes behind the bleachers.

"Eduard Delacroix" he sees him first.

He sees the man staring his way. The solid, stocky build, like a weightlifter. The freckled face. The auburn hair, cropped close.

"Waltz" Eduard looks his way, his heartbeat getting louder "Laurent" he says his name.

Laurent Waltz walks towards him, a strong stride. Eduard moves in his direction, mirrors him.

Then, his arms. Laurent Waltz wraps him in his arms. Eduard throws himself towards the embrace. They pull towards each other like oceans, a gravitational, ancient force leading them back to one another.

Eduard is barely aware of the tear that sets itself free from his eye, but he doesn’t care. He just clings to Laurent Waltz and doesn’t say a word. They don’t need to.

The night has reached its end.

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