Poston

Chapter twenty : The Beginning of the End

After careful thinking, Nino agreed to become the substitute English teacher at the Poston High School. The high school was built differently than the elementary school and the barracks. This school had a main building that was made out of brick, and it seemed to be like the auditorium. The classrooms where then made from eight wooden barrack, much like the elementary school and the housing. There were a lot of students when Nino joined Jun and the rest of the staff for the rising of the American flag that first January morning. It intimidated him, but once he saw some familiar faces from his baseball team Nino felt a little better.

"Here is your classroom," Jun said leading Nino to one of the barracks. It was separated in half and filled with a teacher's desk, a chalkboard, and lots of desks for the students. Nino was very close to freaking out at this point, but he forced himself to calm down as he made his way to his desk.

"I understand how nervous you are," Jun told him as he sat on one of the desks. "When I first started teaching here, I was terrified. Teenagers are a lot different than first graders. But I like it here. I can have real conversations with the students and get them thinking. They're the smartest bunch of kids I've ever met."

"Thank you," Nino said finally before sitting next to Jun. "I don't think I would be so nervous if I knew that Masaki was already back in Melbourne. Or if I knew if Satoshi was safe or not."

"Masaki said that he would write as soon as his ship landed in Australia," Jun assured him. "But I understand. Sho and Yuki were both a mess when he left yesterday. As far as Satoshi goes, have you heard from him in a while?"

Nino shook his head. "Not since Christmas. It's been over a month and it's freaking me out."

"It could be worse. You could have gotten a telegram. In a way, no news is good, right?"

This time, Nino nodded. "Yeah, I guess."

Jun turned his head towards the door and stood up. "I think I hear the students making their way into their classrooms already. I'll come check on you at lunchtime."

As Jun left, Nino stood up and walked up to the blackboard to write his name. It felt so weird to write Mr. Ninomiya on the soft, chalk covered board. He remembered being in high school and wondered if his teachers once felt this way.

After a few minutes, each desk was occupied by one student, and Nino was pleasantly surprised to see the boys were still talking about comic books and sports ("Gee, did you read the latest comic book? Superman all but pulverized him!") and the girls were still messing with their jackets and asking each other questions about makeup and clothes as if there wasn't enough to talk about ("How did you get your victory rolls so perfect, Nancy? That shade of lipstick looks amazing on you!"). When Nino saw just how normal these kids were and how much they hadn't changed since he was in school, it calmed him down immensely.

"Hey! Coach!" Yuto smiled as he walked inside the classroom. "We heard the rumors but you're really here!"

Nino smiled. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

--

"So how do you like high school?"

Nino smiled after he swallowed his breakfast. "Well, I can finally say that after eight weeks of being a high school English teacher, I am thoroughly enjoying it," he told Sho. "I mean, those kids are so smart! They don't let anything you say go! They hang onto every word!"

"That they do," Jun agreed. "I love teaching high school."

"More than you like teaching us, Papa?" Samantha asked him.

Jun laughed. "I teach you everyday, Sammy. Just because it's not in the classroom doesn't mean I don't teach you." He looked over at his son and he frowned. "Charlie, you need to eat or you'll be starving in church."

Charlie shook his head. "I'm not hungry."

"Charlie said that his stomach was hurting this morning," Samantha said.

"Your stomach hurts? Still?" Jun asked. "You said it was hurting yesterday too. Do you still feel like you can be sick?"

Charlie nodded. "I'm afraid if I eat, I'll be sick. Papa, can we go to the doctor today?"

"They don't open until after ten," Jun said feeling his son's head. "After church, we'll go straight to the doctor, okay?"

As soon as he said that, Nino and Sho looked up to see Mao finally coming inside to eat breakfast. "I'm so sorry I'm late!" she said sitting on the other side of Charlie. "I had to help Papa in the church. Jun is everything okay?"

Jun nodded. "Charlie is complaining of his stomach still hurting."

Mao looked surprised. "Still? This is day two, isn't it? Charlie, where does it hurt?" After Charlie pointed out where, Mao gently put a hand on his lower right side and let go when he winced sharply. "Jun, it might be his appendix."

"His appendix?"

"It's not uncommon for children," Sho spoke up. "There's been quite a few children coming into the doctor's ward with an appendicitis. Maybe it's something we've been eating here lately."

Mao gently put a hand on top of Jun's. "Why don't you take him to the doctor? Service starts at ten, and the doctor opens at ten. I'll explain to Papa why you weren't there today. Me and Samantha will go to church together."

"Yay!" Samantha smiled.

"I'll even be your church date, Miss Mao," Nino offered. "If, of course, your protective boyfriend will let me."

Jun must have spaced out because it took him a second to respond. "Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure. That's okay."

Mao seemed a little upset, but smiled and ignored Nino's knowing look as she ate.

On the way to church, Jun took Charlie to the hospital and Nino held Mao's hand in his elbow. He was surprised how close the two of them had gotten since she had arrived. She seemed like a normal part of the family by now, and if anyone besides Jun and her father were protective over her, it was definitely Nino. It also gave Nino someone to look after since his boyfriend was over in Europe.

"You seem distracted," Nino told her as Samantha ran ahead to race Yuki. "Is it because of Jun and Charlie?"

Mao frowned. "They say that the war is almost over," she answered. "It's almost April, and sometimes I wonder if me and Jun will still be a thing after all of this fighting is over."

"What makes you think you won't be?"

"Just the way he's been acting. I understand about Charlie this morning, but this has been going on for a few weeks. It's almost as if he's avoiding me."

Nino stopped the two of them and held her hand in his. "Jun has a lot on his mind right now," he said. "He's been trying to figure out the right way to explain Charlie and Samantha's mother to them, and maybe all of that is scaring him a little bit. The last woman he loved left him with not so much as a goodbye. Maybe he's hesitating a bit as he's trying to figure out where to go next."

Mao listened and eventually nodded. "Maybe," she agreed. "Nino, I love him. And I love his kids. I don't know what I will do if he decides he doesn't want to be with me anymore."

Nino smiled. "I know for a fact that that will never happen. I know he loves you too, and I honestly don't think he will leave you, but don't quote me on that."

That made Mao chuckle before nodding. "Okay, I'll just be patient and give him some time. We should hurry to church before Papa worries about us."

--

Church went on like normal. The congregation sang songs with the piano, had their weekly communion together, and Nino found that Samantha had situated herself between him and Mao very nicely and seemed to be enjoying herself. As everyone inside the small church sat down, Pastor Inoue stood up and started his sermon.

"I feel like this war is finally coming to an end," he began. "The radio announces it almost daily. And while I couldn't be more thrilled, I know that many of you are excited about getting back into the real world, being back in a city filled with people again. I sympathize with most of that. I miss having my own house with my own grass to water. I miss seeing my daughter teaching in an actual school instead of a wooden building, and I miss having my own, cool office to sit in instead of a hot, smelly barrack. But as we begin to make preparations to go home, we have to remember that the real world is full of temptations. We have been living in the middle of nowhere for so long that it feels like we have been exempt from the devil's temptations. We have each other to lean on and have nothing from the outside world to damage our minds or our hearts. However, the longer I am here, the more this illusion of perfection seems to fall."

Everyone looked over at each other, whispering what he could possibly mean.

"We are corrupt!" Pastor Inoue announced, silencing everyone. "Because we have been here for so long, it seems as if some people have forgotten the true Christian values that we live by every day! We have been cheating, we have been stealing, we have been drinking ourselves to oblivion, we have been idolizing movie stars instead of our one true God, and we have been ignoring the seemingly harmless friendships that suddenly take a turn down homosexuality!"

Everyone started talking among themselves in shock.

Nino only felt his heart sink lower and lower.

"First Corinthians chapter six verse nine begins, 'Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieve, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.' Do you all not understand this? All of these things that you continue to do will not give you passage into the glorious kingdom! By drinking, by doing sex before marriage, by cheating, by sleeping with the same sex, you are destroying any chance of getting into Heaven! God wants to see you, his precious child, follow the path he has chosen for you, but by continuing to do these things there is no way you will make it! The devil plants lust and greed inside our hearts when we are the most vulnerable! He plants lust inside of our hearts and makes us think that sleeping with other people is okay! He makes us think that sleeping with someone of the same sex is okay! These things are a sickness that will never go away if you don't treat them! Please, my congregation, let us pray for those surrounded by sins and let us pray that they will find the help they need to finally please the one true God. Let us pray."

As everyone bowed their heads to pray, Nino kept his head up and found it extremely hard to breathe with the realization.

He knows.

And if he knew, then who else knew about him? Who else knew about Satoshi? Who else knew about the two of them? Was it a kiss? A letter? Did they slip up and hold hands in public?

But how could they know? Nino wondered. Mr. Inoue probably found out at Christmas, but everyone else? How the hell did they ever find out?

"Nino."

He looked up and saw Mao watching him carefully. "Act natural," she whispered to him. "Don't say anything. If you look suspicious, people will start to look at you."

Nino nodded, but still found it hard to say anything.

He felt like he was going to be sick, and that was the least of his worries.

--

"How did he find out?" Nino asked, pacing the barrack floor when they got back from church. "We were careful! We never did anything in public! We never held hands, we never kissed, we never even hugged! How could he have possibly have known?"

Yuki and Samantha were sitting on one of the beds with Mao, watching him pace as Sho tried to calm him down. "Nino, calm down," he said. "He was here for Christmas, remember? Maybe he guessed when you got the picture frame."

"But we were so careful!" Nino nearly yelled. He felt himself start to shake, and he couldn't breathe. "God, Sho-san! I can't—I mean I just can't—We were careful! We did everything we could! We only did stuff when we were here inside the barrack!" As he tried to hold himself together, Nino found it harder and harder to keep a straight mind. He felt like any minute he was going to fall to pieces and it scared him beyond anything else. "Oh god! Sho-san, what will Satoshi do when he gets here and finds out the pastor knows about us? What will he do when he finds out that everyone knows about us? He'll leave me! He'll deny me! He'll send me away to a mental hospital! He'll be so mad at me that he'll never want to see me again—"

This time, Sho grabbed Nino's arms and shook him. "STOP IT!" he yelled, finally making Nino shut up. The only sound that could be heard from Nino was his uncontrollable sobs. "Nino, just stop it! Please! You are going to drive yourself mad with all of this! Nobody here knows about you! I doubt even Pastor Inoue knows for sure! You cannot allow this to control you! And who really gives a flying fuck if everybody else knows?! That is their problem! You are not sick! There is nothing wrong with you!"

Nino gasped, trying to breathe and calm his shaking down. "Satoshi," he finally said. "When he gets here and finds out that I screwed up—"

"You did nothing! You didn't—"

"When he finds out, he'll leave me. I was supposed to keep the secret and I let it go carelessly."

The silence inside the barrack was almost deafening, and slowly Nino fell to the ground in defeat. He couldn't help but cry his heart out. All the buildup from Masaki being gone to Satoshi so far away seemed to finally catch up with him.

It was unfair, he thought. Satoshi needed to be home. Satoshi needed to be here with him to assure him that everything was okay. But he had been gone for so long that Nino didn't even know what his embrace even felt like. He didn't know what his kisses tasted like or what his touches felt like. He was losing everything of Satoshi's.

"God, I miss him!" Nino exclaimed. "Sho, he needs to be here! I can't.... I can't do this anymore!"

Then before he knew it, four pairs of arms had wrapped themselves around his small frame, holding him as close to them as they possibly could.

"He'll be home soon, Nino," Mao assured him. "He'll be home soon."

--

The girls spent the rest of the day hanging out with Nino's aunt and uncle to play with the twins, and Sho sat outside on the steps waiting for Jun to finally come back from the hospital. Nino stayed inside, wrapped up in his blanket and laying on his bed facing away from the door. After his breakdown, Sho put him in the bed and told him to rest for the rest of the day, which really wasn't all that hard to do.

Later that evening, as the sun was going down, Nino heard Jun finally return. Sho stopped him and told him everything that had happened since he left, and Nino could tell by Jun's silence that his temper was starting to build slowly. When Jun finally came in, he didn't go over to Nino to talk to him. Instead, he paced around for a minute before throwing a book against the wall as hard as he could. The loud noise made Nino jump, but he didn't get up.

It took him a few minutes, but eventually Jun came and sat next to Nino on his bed. "Nino, I'm so sorry."

"I'm not looking for your pity, Jun," Nino said.

"I'm not giving you any! God dammit.... I thought maybe the picture would have helped. Satoshi hoped it would have too. Then you started working at the school and I thought... I had hoped that—"

Nino looked up at the picture of Satoshi before looking at Jun. "Whose idea was it for the picture?" he asked.

Jun finally looked back at him, a look of guilt and shame shadowing his features. "It was Satoshi's idea," he said. "He asked me for a picture of you, then he asked me to buy a frame for a picture he was sending home. He said that he didn't want you to ever forget what he looked like. He didn't want you to think he was an illusion."

Nino sighed and looked back at the picture of Satoshi. "Sometimes illusions are easier to bear than reality," he answered. "I love Satoshi so much that sometimes I wonder if he's real or not. If he dies, I don't know what I'll do with myself. I want to believe that I'll just move on and find my own path again, but I'm nothing without him. Without him.... No, without this god forsaken camp in the middle of the desert, I would have never found him."

He felt Jun place a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Sho told me that you were afraid Satoshi would leave you if he knew that Pastor Inoue and others knew about you two. Nino, do you remember when you and Satoshi first got together? Remember his parents and how angry they were at you two?"

Nino froze at the memory, nearly forgetting about it completely.

"When his father confronted you two, he didn't deny you then. When his mother hit him and told him unforgivable things, he didn't leave you because of how they felt. When his parents left, he stood up to Aunt Seiran and told her that it was either the two of you or no one when it came to accepting him. Now that Pastor Inoue knows, and perhaps other people, do you really think Satoshi will be so quick to run away from you? He's the one who has stood up for you two the most! He loves you more than anything and I know for a fact that it would kill him to see you this miserable! I can't even imagine how hard it must be for him to be away from you."

After a minute, Nino sat up and looked at his friend, seeing how tired and worn down he was. "I'm a terrible person."

"You are. Sometimes. But he's in love with you. He's told me with those very words. Someone who has fallen in love doesn't give up that easily."

"I'm not giving up on us."

"But you're afraid he will."

Nino couldn't deny the truth.

"Nino, I know how it feels to have somebody fall out of love with you. This isn't it."

Suddenly, Nino knew that Jun was right. He had become so lost and unfocused that he couldn't think straight. The real illness had concealed itself as 'being okay' when he had really fallen apart. He wasn't okay, and it took him this long to finally realize just how wrong he had been this entire time. "I'm a fool," he finally said.

"Yes, you are," Jun chuckled in an attempt to lighten the mood. A tear fell from his eyes before wrapping an arm around Nino. "You are the biggest asshole I've ever met, but I'm so glad to have met you. We are going to get through this, Nino. We are here for you no matter what, and we are going to help you do whatever it takes to finally be happy again, with or without Satoshi."

For the first time that day, Nino genuinely smiled and leaned into Jun's embrace. Taking a shaky breath, he realized that he was going to be okay. "Thank you for everything, Jun."

--

Nino joined everyone for dinner that night. He sat with his friends at their usual table and participated just like he normally did. He felt better than he had all day. He didn't feel tired or depressed or scared. Instead, he felt like Nino. He felt like himself for the first time in a long time.

"I'm so glad that Charlie is okay," Mao said after Jun explained where he was. "And he's in recovery now?"

Jun nodded. "Yeah. The doctor said that we were very lucky his appendix didn't burst. He said it was close to, but we caught it in time. Charlie was awake when I left and he already felt restless being there. The doctor suspects that he'll be in the hospital one more day before he can come home."

"We're so happy it wasn't anything worse," Sho added. "But Charlie is a tough kid. He'll be up and normal in no time."

"I will for sure keep him in my prayers tonight," Pastor Inoue said.

The silence that fell over the table for a split second was too loud not to be noticed.

"So what did you think of my sermon?" Pastor Inoue finally asked. "This group didn't seem too pleased with it when you all left."

"Honestly, I didn't think it was one of your better ones."

Everyone froze and looked at Nino in shock.

"Why is that?" Mr. Inoue questioned.

Nino shrugged. "By blaming everybody here for falling into temptation, don't you think that's a little harsh, Inoue-sama? Everyone has their moments of weakness."

"Sometimes those moments turn into a defining part of ourselves."

"But do we have to blame them for it? Sometimes those defining moments are things for the better, not something to be ashamed of."

Mr. Inoue looked shocked. "Are you saying it is okay for people to commit things such as adultery, alcoholism, and homosexuality, Ninomiya-san?"

"What I'm saying is you shouldn't judge a person based on their decisions or life choices, Inoue-sama. Aren't Christians supposed to love unconditionally no matter what wrong choices a person has made? Love the sinner, not the sin, right?"

Pastor Inoue, for once, didn't have anything to say. Nino smiled and took it as a personal victory before eating some more of his rice.

--

"Okay, are you two ready?" Nino asked the two children next to him.

Samantha and Charlie smiled wide and nodded. "Ready!"

"Okay...." Nino took a deep breath and opened up the door to the mess hall. "GO!"

The two kids ran inside and started ringing the two bells in their hands, immediately running over to their father eating at a table and singing, "Ding! Dong! Ding! Dong! Do you hear the bells go ding dong?"

"Do you know," Charlie sang. "Do you know why they're ringing?"

"Why, no!" Jun answered her, playing along as Nino played his guitar to the song. "I don't know why they're ringing."

"Well, you're gonna get a big surprise," Samantha sang. "Because I'm gonna put you wise!"

Now it was Nino's turn to come in and sing with the two kids who now joined his side.