Chapter Text
Tasuku had always worked better with numbers than with people. He wasn’t antisocial, not by a long shot, but the familiar noise of wooden beads on an abacus soothed any turmoil he felt better than words ever would.
Numbers obeyed rules. Numbers stayed where you put them. If something didn’t balance, it was because he had made a mistake, not because they’d decided, arbitrarily, to shift beneath his feet.
That was probably the reason that he’d found himself Student Council Treasurer in his first year.
The student council’s ledger laid open on his desk, pages already soft from use. Tasuku’s pen moved steadily, precise to the last stroke. Ink dried quickly in the afternoon light spilling through the council room windows, lazily-drifting dust specs illuminated by slats in old, wooden windowshades as if the world itself had nothing urgent to attend to.
As he pored over table after table, writing calculations in the smallest corner of his scrap paper, the specifics of what the money was going to hardly interested him.
Facility maintenance was accounted for (and rose sharply in expenditures since the previous year, likely due to the renovations to Kurotama Dormitory). Club budgets were managed, small awards and day trips had been funded. His eyes traced up and down neat columns of numbers, a strand of hair falling out from behind his hair, as his gaze caught on a certain category for the umpteenth time.
Lunch expenses. Though it didn’t sound like much, Nyutou and Sutoreito were both fond of cuisine befitting their regal tastes, something which Tasuku himself had also been able to partake in due to his role on the student council.
The figures themselves were reasonable. Perfectly so, even, well within the discretionary budget allotted for council operations. No auditor would ever look at them twice. Tasuku knew this. He wrote the numbers down anyway, once, then again in the margin, then a third time on his scrap paper.
One expensive lunch set at the restaurant down the street equaled five measures of rice at current market prices. Six, if bought in bulk. If stretched carefully, that was a full day’s worth of meals for a family of three. He erased the conversion before the thought could fully settle, the soft scratch of rubber against paper sharp in the quiet room.
He did not begrudge them the food. That was important. Tasuku told himself this firmly, like a line item being checked off a list. Sutoreito was the heir to the dukedom; Nyutou came from an earl’s house. They had been raised on these things. To deny them would be petty, unbecoming. The student council’s image mattered, after all.
Still, his pen paused, hovering just above the page.
Tasuku adjusted the numbers until they balanced perfectly and moved on.
Later, when the others drifted in one by one, the mood in the council room shifted as it always did, voices overlapping, lounge chairs scraping softly against the floor, the faint scent of tea carried in on expensive sleeves. Tasuku closed the ledger and slid it neatly to the side of his desk, expression already composed.
“Hard at work as always, Nekoma,” a visitor remarked idly, glancing at the stacks of papers as he headed into his meeting. “You really do live up to your family’s status.”
Tasuku smiled at the appropriate angle, small and polite. “I only do what I can.”
The comment passed without scrutiny, absorbed into the general flow of conversation. No one asked what reputation they meant, or how far back it extended. No one wondered what kind of house could produce a person like him and yet remain so quietly unremarkable.
By the time that Tasuku left the meeting (after everyone else, like it always was during this time of year), the sun had begun its slow descent, staining the windows amber. Tasuku gathered his things with habitual care. The ledger went back into its drawer, squared neatly against the sides.
The washroom down the hall was empty. He turned the faucet on and watched the water run clear before placing his hands beneath it. Pale skin, unblemished, ink-stained at the fingertips. Clean, for the most part.
He scrubbed anyway. At first, he washed them normally. Then a little longer. Then longer still.
The motion was methodical; palms, backs of hands, between the fingers. The water ran clear, as it always did, but he scrubbed until his knuckles burned and the skin along his palms flushed red.
He welcomed the sensation. Pain was easier to account for than unease. When he finally looked up, his reflection met him calmly from the mirror: tidy uniform, carefully arranged hair, a face that fit neatly into the space allotted to it.
Only when his hands began to sting did he turn the tap off.
He dried them carefully, straightened his sleeves, and practiced his smile once more before leaving.