Prove to me that I can trust you with their life.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Foreign Songs
Current Date: September 29, 2022

Character: Hakim Saab
Race: Human
Age: 37
Current residence: Yamanashi Region, Japan
 

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It only took a few months before I had a small apartment in the building where the staff that stays year-round lived. I was more than ready to move back onto the school grounds. Everything in the little apartment I’d shared with Nathan reminded me of him and I was struggling to deal with his passing. Jacomus, thankfully, was patient with me. I know that he went through his own period of grief when he lost his daughter so many years ago and I felt as though I could trust him with helping me with my own.

Not that I took up much of his time. I only worked longer hours at the library because being alone was too hard for me to handle and I didn’t want to be a bother to him and the others he has added to his family over the last year or so. It has been such a change to see him smile as much as he does. It’s soothing in its own strange way. I might not be very social, but I still watched, and I still saw.

Much as I see when fretful parents come and have a look at the school before they decide to drop their kids off. This school is special, it is a fair distance off from most things and, well, the waiting list is long. I have lost count of the number of parents whose paths I have crossed while they were touring, their eyes the size of a saucer. Working here is a gift, even if certain days are harder than others, even for a lowly librarian such as myself.

Jacomus would roll his eyes at me if he heard me speak of myself this way, but I still struggle a little with the ups and downs of the loss of my partner. It was worse back in March as that was the anniversary of it all, but I’d like to think I still have made progress about everything.

I used to have dreams of Nathan. I know they were dreams more than memories because the Nathan in the dream wasn’t like my Nathan. There were similarities but they still were different enough that the dreams left me confused more than broken-hearted. The Nathan in my dream spoke of how I needed to prove to him that he could trust me with the life of others I had never met. Others whose names meant nothing to me. Others that, at times, I think were people he might have met on the other side.

Death changes people, right? It must. There are days when I believe in the afterlife. I believe in souls being reborn, I believe in ghosts, spirits and a lot of things in-between. These are the times when I feel as though the dreams make some sort of sense. If I refuse to open my mind to these possibilities, the dreams only baffle me and make me cling all the more to the fact that my heart feels as though it may never be whole ever again.

Nathan saw me for who I was—who I am. I know that I’ve changed in the years since, but he saw me as I was. The skirt-wearing effeminate man who needed just a little boost as far as his confidence was concerned. I was comfortable hiding in the folds of these long, floor-length skirts. They flowed about, giving me the freedom to hide. I know it might sound strange, but it was how I felt.

I’ve outgrown this part of my life now, it seems. I don’t know if it is so much Nathan’s departure or something else. It might have happened before, and I wouldn’t really be all that surprised. It is hard to remember when my wardrobe changed into something a little more masculine. I believe that most of my outfits are fairly androgynous in nature and my long hair hardly helps when people try to gender me.

The students at the school have long since stopped trying. Most know, most likely from hearing Jacomus speak of me, at times, during the assemblies, but I have no issues with that either. I am who I am, I feel as though that should never change. I may be all the more introverted since Nathan was taken from my life, but it doesn’t change who I truly am in the long run.

I try my best. While it has been a year and a half at this point, I have days when it is still very difficult to go through the day without thinking about him or feeling my heart constrict because I do miss him so terribly much. I do not believe it has had an impact on my work and Jacomus has not told me anything on the subject, so I will keep on moving forward slowly.

Final Word Count: 811

People care about you. Myself included.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Foreign Songs
Characters: Hakim Saab
Race: Human
Age: 36
Current residence: Yamanashi Region, Japan
Final Word Count: 862 words
 

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I’m more than a little aware that it was an accident. It was something that I couldn’t have done a thing to prevent, not really. It happened out there. There are days when I still ask myself whether or not I could have stopped it, though. I know it’s futile, but it seems to be the only thing I can do when my mind dwells on the darker side of things.

James has even offered for me to take time off so I could focus on getting better, but I don’t know about what I would do with time off other than wallow in self-pity and cry myself into exhaustion every time I would open my eyes. I need to work to be able to focus on something other than his departure and that’s all there is to it.

It happened during the brief break at the end of March when the kids are let out after the ending ceremony. I guess he went with his brother to help him move; I don’t have the details of what happened between him and James, it’s none of my business and James has just perked up so much since. He told me he would be back in a couple of days, they—Nick and Nate—were moving off the island and way far back out there into the states. Nathan would help them at least move the bigger of their items and all into the apartment Nick had found out there somewhere in the states.

That was fine, I mean, it’s all right. Whatever is needed for things to be all right; Nick and Nathan are brothers, it’s normal to help family, especially in a situation like this one. A couple of days away from him wasn’t much of a price to pay for his brother and son to be settled comfortably somewhere. He called briefly once they’d landed but the difference in time zones made talking for any length of time difficult.

It was by the end of the third day when I still hadn’t heard from him in more than twenty-four hours—he should have gotten on the plane back that particular morning and he’d promised he would at least text me to let me know—that I started worrying. It was only by the end of the fifth day, after countless calls to his cell and no answers, that I got a call from Nick about the accident.

I don’t know how I managed to let him finish telling me about things. He sounded so broken; Nate was his older brother, I know that they’d not always quite gotten along but the loss of a brother still had to be painful. As an only child, I couldn’t imagine the loss of family—my parents and I weren’t close—but I could imagine the loss of a lover and it was the loss of someone I couldn’t even be with when it would be time to put them into the ground.

I spent the following week after hearing the news as a hollow shell. James must have heard about things fairly quickly too because he checked in on me only hours after I’d gotten the information from Nick myself. He told me to take all the time I needed; that I wasn’t alone and could come to him to talk if I needed to. I know that I often need to be reminded that there are people who do care about me, even though I’m the biggest wallflower there ever was.

I think that, what hurts the most at this point, is the fact that this one phone call from Nick was all I got. I didn’t get any follow-up on when the potential funerals would be. I didn’t get any follow-ups on whether or not there was anything in Nathan’s paperwork about me. It isn’t as though we’d been married though we’d been together for years.

In the long run, it was through James that I heard about when the funerals took place; it’s through him that I learned that Nick had stated that he wanted his brother’s things shipped to him as soon as possible. It hurt in a way I couldn’t put into words, and it was only during this summer’s break that I managed to do that. The man can do what he wants at this point, no one else was there to go through Nathan’s things and they were mixed in with mine. I wasn’t about to force myself to go through the things of the man I loved so soon after losing him, especially without any proper closure from his passing.

The slight apartment that we called ours has been feeling empty since I finally managed to go through his things—with help. I find myself working longer hours in the library because I can’t handle being in the apartment. I’ve asked James to let me know when another one might open up in the slight building that serves as housing for the staff that stays year-long and I know that he won’t make me wait too long. I just need to be patient.

Neither of you can be trusted around my kitchen or an open fire. While I’m at it, you also can’t be trusted with a freezer.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Foreign Songs
Characters: Hakim Saab
Race: Human
Age: 34
Final Word Count: 672 words
 

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I usually would prefer to not go out to gatherings but, every so often, it seems to be a necessity. Especially when it is the faculty that prepares the gathering and hosts it. It’s not so much a bad thing, in these cases. These are mostly all people I’ve crossed once or twice, if not more often, but most of them normally have no idea as to who I am because of how well I blend in. When they tend to see me step in with Nathan at my side—wonderful, perfect Nathan who still works on the grounds—they ask to know if the invitation had been a plus one, when told no, they then ask me if I’m new.

I’m not.

I’ve been working here for more than a decade but it’s just so rare that I’m out of the library. With the Wolsey issue fixed, it’s gotten so much quieter again. They did send someone else to replace him, a just as quiet but efficient woman named Tabitha. I do quite like her and we get along just fine, usually on either end of the library.

What I learned about Tabitha, however, is that in the kitchen, she doesn’t share. I’m told by her husband—who actually does work in our kitchen—that she claims the kitchen as her own. That the reason she works in the library here, is because kitchen work is too stressful an environment for her but the kitchen at home and, in cases such as these gatherings, the kitchen is her domain, and you best watch your toes.

I’m not going to lie; it was rather humorous to watch her bark orders at the other two people who were working in the kitchen for the gathering to get them moving. Not that she was simply standing there, she was working hard too and it really was something to witness. Eventually, however, she sighed and told the other pair that they could go, she could finish on her own—there still was plenty to do but somehow, I knew she would be fine.

Later on, as we were watching the others mingle and I stood not far from her, she let me know that she knew she couldn’t trust either one of the two in a kitchen or even around an open fire. As was, she was pretty certain she wouldn’t have trusted them with a freezer either. It made me smile, mostly because as she was saying those words, her eyes were full of mirth and affection for the two she had chased out of the kitchen earlier on.

As it did turn out, she managed just fine, since most preparation work had been done before anyone had actually come in, it had mainly been a matter of cooking, baking and plating and, well, when most of the food is cold food, it’s one of those things.

Her decoration skills on the cake are something I’m jealous of, however. I’m not going to lie, that cake was gorgeous and it looked like it had come straight out of a professional bakery.

All in all, the gathering itself wasn’t so bad. James asks us to attend these about four times a year, near the end of each term, usually to give us a small break where everyone can be together and talk a little and discuss things. It’s supposed to strengthen our bonds and I guess it might work. I’m just glad that Wolsey keeps his distance. I barely saw him during the gathering. He kept to his side of the large room and, trust me, that was a welcome thing. Since I did to him what he’d done to me for three solid years, he learned his place and he stopped being a jerk.

Though I don’t know if he’s started that up again now that he’s back on the administrative side of things but I can’t imagine he will. If he has, it’s not really my problem at this point. Que sera, sera.

If you’re taking my vacation days, I’m taking yours.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Foreign Songs
Characters: Hakim Saab
Race: Human
Age: 33
Final Word Count: 583 words
 

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I think there’s always going to be that one co-worker that gets on your nerves, no matter the job you have, no matter how many other people you get along with. There’s always that one person. No matter how much you try to get along with them, there’s no helping it, and it’s not going to work.

Now, you have to realize that I’m probably the biggest wallflower you’ll ever know and unless you go out of your way to get on my case, you’ll probably never notice I’m even there. I just do my own thing, I mind my own business and that’s all there is to that. At least, that’s what I used to tell myself until Wolsey came into the picture.

At first, Wolsey was just Wolsey. He minded his business, I minded mine we, didn’t bother one another because we worked in two very different departments but I suppose that once someone realizes you exist and somehow they decide on the spot that they don’t like you, things change. I still did what I could to be a wallflower, I did my own thing and he would do his, except, for some reason I can’t even begin to understand, he asked to be transferred into my side of things.

He used to work for the main office as a sort of secretary but now he works directly in the library and I feel like he’s doing it to spite me. Over the last three years, he’s found excuses to get in my way at every chance he could get. He’s found excuses to take his vacation time right as I had been planning mine—or he called in sick, resulting in needing me to come in. I’ve seen my vacation time go up in smoke because somehow there would suddenly be a need for me to be at work because he couldn’t but somehow, he’d still get his vacation time later on. Talk about unfair.

So little wallflower me decided that I’d had enough. I’ve never been one to hold on to anger or grudges but this was pushing things and I was hating every second of it and yet, seeing that look of disbelief on his face when I put my plan into motion was priceless and it actually helped me sleep a little better.

He’d claimed a vacation time spot for two weeks around the end of the summer. Just as he was expected to drive off to the airport I let our supervisor know that I had a dying family member I had to tend to for at least a week or two, that I was sorry to spring this on them and that I was the only one who could look after them. It was a half-lie, I did have a friend whose mother was dying and I spent a bit of time with them, but it gave me the time off I had requested last minute and look at that, Wolsey had to stay behind.

Do I feel bad that he paid for a full-group trip and didn’t get to go and probably didn’t even get reimbursed for? Somewhat, just barely—actually, not really. Not for how long he’s made my life hell.

Of course, he’s actually been so much quieter since then. He’s been keeping to himself and last I heard, he even asked to be transferred back into the school proper. We’ll see who else gets sent our way to replace him.

Why do you feel a constant need to argue with me?

Timeline/World: Modern Monotony – Beyond the School Grounds
Characters: Hakim Saab
Race: Human
Age: 32
Final Word Count: 562 words

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I have always been the meek, uncertain one. The man dressed as a woman because that was how I felt safer, and yet, I know it was bound to be confusing for some others who were trying to be open-minded. I was not a man who felt like he was born a woman in the wrong body, I was simply a man who felt more comfortable and safer in women’s clothes. My androgynous features have always helped me blend in, I’ve always been the slender, indeed feminine kind and my long hair has helped me along with this need to not really stand out in a crowd.

When Nathan entered my life… how do I even put that into words? Tall, outgoing, breathtaking and likely the type of man who could win over anyone he set his mind to. I didn’t want to care about him at all, at the beginning. He was too tall, too strongly built, too strong and it frightened me out of my wits. Somehow, however, he wormed his way into my life, made everything just so much easier to handle, he made everything perfect. Perfection took its time, of course, but all good things do.

There is only one person in the whole world I’ve ever been able to argue with and that person is him. I know it must sound odd to the ears of some but it was true; what makes this amusing, to me, is that the arguing was never about things that really mattered. It was about wearing this skirt or that one, this scarf or that one, this shade of gloss or that one, where these flowers were going in our house and when to start preparing things. It was always little, mindless things that were argued more out of amusement than anything else and I always played coy when it happened, he loved it and it made me feel alive.

By the end of each of these arguments, Nathan would give me this playfully exasperated look and ‘cave in,’ letting me have the last word. We’ve never had a fight, at least not one where it came down to yelling. We’ve had a few misunderstandings but I think that every couple out there does. It led us to spending miserable nights—rarely more than one at a time—apart and by morning we had thought things over and we were discussing it all like reasonable adults.

I love him. I do. I love him more than I imagine I could have ever loved anyone. My father’s harsh nature and disregard for what made me feel safe had left me in a state where I wondered if I was not damaged goods but Nathan has managed to prove me otherwise and he does so wonderfully. I would want for nothing else in this world but to have him in my life forever and the ring on my finger lets me know that this, at the very least, is the one thing that is truly mine.

Most every other thing is unneeded, at least, those things that are not necessary for daily survival but the rest—everything else really—I know I could live without, so long as I have him at my side and that our relationship continues to blossom as it has for the last decade and then some.