Part Three: Intrigue I

Murasaki Suishou and The Queen of Blueberry Toast

In the spinning wake of Ken's forced departure, Ran rubbed his cheek against the glossy marble column he was currently lounging on, delighting in the icy feel of it on his slightly fevered skin. He could have stayed like that all night, slumped on his knees as he wanted to be, with his arms wrapped tight around it, but it wasn't to be. Someone with spun silk hands wanted him to come away.

He balked at first, twisting towards his unwanted assistant with a cutting remark at the ready, and found nothing but air. And then he looked down to find a grim little girl staring up at him.

He thought of another one then, and very nearly called this one by that one's name, but he caught himself just in time.

"Savil-sama..."

She nodded gravely, and tugged at his hand, urging him from his perch. Ran relented with a vague murmur of protest.

Trudging after her, more or less letting her guide him through the grove and the thronging lovers and their heralds, Ran's mind drifted back to the colorful welcoming committee who had come to receive Ken.

So there were heralds and mages in Terra, and one of the latter, a Ysanne, was a bitch.

Really, Savil-sama...

And Ken was to become the owner of some villa, and...

He loved him.

Oh, yes, he'd heard that last remark through the woolly fog in which his brain was immersed, but it had done little to alleviate his confusion over their situation. Although, the fact that Ken had so publicly declared his affections had made him feel...Well, happier than he had been when they had first arrived.

Made him have a few second thoughts too.

So...Nothing is so set in place...?

And maybe...I jumped to conclusions?

But what the hell am I supposed to do, now? How do I...?

Oh, hell...

There were so many things he had to think about, talk about, and he would...Later -- after the world stopped see-sawing.

He slung his uniform over his shoulder and swiped at his forehead with the back of his hand, and glanced blearily down at his herald.

"Where are we going?"

Savil was startled by the sound of her charge speaking. She'd nearly managed to convince herself that he'd gone mute for the time being. Funny, he sounded ever so little, there among the crowd of Terrans, the patches of woodland sprung up form the marble floor...

He sounds younger than me.

"We're going to get you something to eat," She informed him with a smile. "You haven't had anything all day. And unfortunately, you can't live on rose candy and sugar violets."

This out, she spent a moment or two watching Aya rather than where she was going, and yet somehow or other deftly managed to avoid the passing bouquets of chatty boys. Did Aya look hungry? Not in the least. "Well, you can't!"

The route took them out from under the arch of the main ceiling, and into a somewhat less imposing hall. In other places, not of their present world, doubtless this hall would have had the most delectable, scrumptious aroma -- all hot curry, warm bread and chicken soup. But that was the thing about violets. One whiff could drown out any other smells, and often for quite a long time, even if the smell did fade here. Somewhat. It was a bit dimmer too, what with evening having come, and the dinner hour long past. No, not many people at all remained behind the long windows, scrunched up at intimate little booths, watching their candles die. One could actually make of bits and pieces of conversations floating nearby. Laughter. Sweet nothings.

She'd heard it all, and so only worried after Aya.

Eventually, the two of them reached an innocuous white fa‡ade that actually had quite a few tables strewn out into the hall before it, and a stretch of ceiling above it painted with and armada of fluffy clouds before an azure sky. She waved to the host and he waved back. A few of the waitresses tossed her thumbs up, to see her in full uniform.

Well, Aya quite possibly mistook them for waitresses. Particularly cute teenage boys in full French maids' costumes was a bit more accurate. Really, they were the only remotely odd thing about the caf‚, and but for them, it might have been a psuedo-parisian bit of d‚cor on any Antiterran street.

Savil often came there and so had the privilege of seating herself during less busy hours. She took Aya to her favorite nook- one just below a bit of rendered cirrus that resembled a woman wheeling with a bunch of birds.

And then she sighed. "Order whatever you want. It's on me. After all, I owe you. I didn't know they were going to take Ken, and now I have to go myself. I'm supposed to check in and all, but if this isn't extenuating circumstances, I don't know what is." A small shrug, and then her eyes fell down to the table top for a moment, before snapping up to Aya's.

Right into Aya's.

"But I'm going to book you a room. You're going to want to avoid the hotel lobby at all costs. The owner's notorious for flirting with customers and holding up the line for hours on end. Not to mention he's... umm... well, if he asks you if you're form Shinra, for the love of god say no! I'll come back here in about and hour with your key... well, actually, I guess you could go for a bit of a walk. I could find you! But for now, you really should eat... alright...?"

She jumped up from her chair then, and walked around to her charge's, bending down until her lips were near level with his brow. But she didn't kiss him. "Anything else you need?"

Ran sat slouched in his dainty, lace-doily looking cast iron chair, arms draped across the table edge and eyes downcast, even when Savil came so close to him.

"Iie," he muttered, drooping like an forgotten bit of ivy.

She rocked back on her feet, and smiled at him. Looked as if she would pat him on the head for being so agreeable, as if he were a little boy.

Which, of course, he was in her eyes.

"Well, all right then. I'll just go and see to your arrangements." Savil whirled about with a little wave. "I'll be back!"

Ran tipped his head up and watched her flit across the room until the shadows engulfed her. Then he leaned back in his seat, and listlessly wiped his hand across his face.

What did he want? A bath, and a bed, and Ken's arms around him, but not any food. His lingering illness seemed to have done much for ruining his appetite.

Still...If he didn't bother eating...

A flash of pure, solid black waved at him from the corner of his eye, and Ran turned towards it to find a particularly gorgeous creature in a French maid's uniform coming towards him, teetering on spindly, black patent leather stilettos.

"Hello, sir. My name is Inoue, and I will be your server this evening. What may I get for you tonight?"

Slowly, Ran lifted his eyes from the waitress's sleek, shapely thighs to her face -- and found himself gazing into the obsidian eyes of a boy. Not a girl.

Kami-sama...

"Uh..." His eyes wandered away to some point beyond them both, as Ran tried to regain control of his thoughts.

"Do you serve Oyako-donburi?"

He beamed, and nodded, sending his thick, black hair swishing over his shoulders. "We can serve any sort of dish you'd like."

"Uh...Aa."

"Would you like anything to drink, sir?"

"Tea."

"Mm hmmm. And what kind?"

"Anou...Surprise me," he replied, pinching his eyes shut, and raking his hand though his hair.

"Yes, sir."

Another alluring smile spread across his face, and with that, the boy bustled away, heels clacking merrily. Ran cracked his eyes open to look, as if he couldn't believe what he'd just saw.

And watched him until he'd disappeared through the swinging double doors that led to the kitchen. After all, he was stunning.

And Ran couldn't help but wonder how Ken would look dressed up so.

He tilted his head back, fingers in his hair, and stared up at the Renoir-like cloud formation on the ceiling directly above him.

Shimatta...

A quick trip to the storeroom for additional boxes, and Youji was back in his lair, rummaging through his closet, alternately searching for the appropriate outfit AND packing his wardrobe in his two suitcases.

In the end, he decided upon a pair of leather pants (So it's summer. So what?), and a thigh-length, black silk shirt which flowed around him like water. He brushed out his blonde hair until it shone, then tossed the silver brush and its matching comb into a duffel bag. His compact discs followed suit.

He wasn't going to leave anything behind.

His silk sheets were hastily folded and packed in one of the suitcases; the comforter, and the pillows, and all the cushions stuck in zippered plastic bags and tossed towards the door. He taped up the box containing his yaoi manga, and upended the contents of his dresser into the spare suitcase and shut it up.

And then...He took his wooden memory box down from its hiding place, and put it in the last free cardboard box, and carried it down to Aya's room.

It seemed so odd, being able to freely enter the sanctuary of the sulky one, and, even though Youji knew he was gone, he still had the feeling that Aya would stalk in at any moment, glaring and snarling. More than once, he caught himself glancing back at the door as he went about his business.

His business there didn't take too long to conclude, not that Youji was much surprised. Aya didn't have much in the way of clothing, or possessions for that matter.

But what did surprise him was what he did find.

Aya, it seemed, was as much of a sentimentalist as he was.

The picture album he found buried beneath a folded pile of pajamas -- all of them clearly unworn. Youji pulled it out with an air of reverence, opened it with the same, and then gave pause.

He'd heard a bit of what had happened to Aya's family, but he'd never seen any pictures of them, had never heard the man talk about them, and so could never picture Aya even HAVING a family, really.

He couldn't even picture Aya as a child, for that matter.

But now, he had the proof of all of that, right there in his hands. Picture after picture of a typical Japanese family. The mother, a housewife, surely. The father, an overworked executive. Nothing really interesting there, and they only received a minute portion of his regard. The rest he saved for Aya...And the smiling girl who was at his side in nearly every picture.

He'd always thought Aya was coldly elegant, but never beautiful. Aya could never be beautiful in his opinion. Looking at the pictures before him, though, he realized he was wrong. He was -- or rather, the real him was. The boy who lived beneath the iron mask.

Sweet, and shy, and a touch melancholic.

As he shut the book, Youji rued the idea that he might never catch a glimpse of that person.

He fervently hoped that Ken would.

Youji lay the album in the box with his own mementoes. Added a few odd items he'd found in Aya's desk, and a few books he'd noticed Aya reading in the past, and taped it up.

A last look, and Youji left, with the box in hand...

And the sheathed katana under his arm.

"Omi-ai? How's it going?"

No, actually, Omi wasn't ready at all. After tucking away the last of his own possessions -- and what had that required? Fifteen minutes? How whole life packed in boxes to be stowed away on a moving van, and it only took five minutes?

That mattered not. Presently, he sat alone in the middle of the wreckage of Ken's room, which happened to be bed. No, it didn't seem like anyone had lived here -- spilled socks or not.

Didn't smell right. All this time no one had closed the windows. And the smell of life had washed out, fled and gone to waste on the evening air. But this felt like a bed no one had ever slept in, so he tossed himself back on it, and stared at the ceiling.

I wonder if Ken ever did this?

He wondered; just what was it like to be Ken? So this was his ceiling, and his gundams. His socks that would have to be picked up. His claws.

He'd picked them up, pulled the glove on, and given the trigger a good squeeze. Shck! They felt so ill-balanced. Heavy in all the wrong places. Shck! And they folded away, couldn't be seen at all. But he could STILL FEEL THEM... Like a brace, or an old wound.

And with all of this, Omi giggled, because he wasn't Ken, and well, shouldn't Ken be happy now he didn't have to carry around such a silly thing?

Speaking of silly, he glanced to the doorway and there found Youji, standing, watching him.

He was just about to try and explain when someone knocked at the door.

Of all the things to see, Omi lying on Ken's bed, and playing with his bagh-nakh gloves as if they were mere toys was one of the oddest sights Youji'd ever seen. He had been about to tell him as much, when the knock came at their back door.

And, of course, he knew who it was without even checking their security TV first.

Beckoning for Omi to follow him with a toss of his head at the backdoor, Youji sauntered off, carefully depositing the box of their mingled memories and Aya's katana onto the kitchen table as he passed it.

A quick finger comb and a sweep of his hands down his shirt and he opened the door. His usual smile lit up his face.

"Ah, Manx! Come in, come in!" he cried, bowing like a maitre'd as he pulled the door open wider to let her pass. "Looking lovely as usual!"

And, of course, she did. Dressed in a silk, emerald green suit and black leather knee-high boots, she looked as if she were headed for a date than back to the office.

And, of course, she was.

He made a grab for her hand, intending to kiss it, but she neatly dodged his questing fingers, smirking as she did so.

"Balinese." This said coolly, and with a slight nod, to which Youji grinned brightly.

"Oh! So formal! It wounds me, it does, Manx, that you can't be more...friendly towards me," he purred as he closed and latched the back door. Habits were hard to break.

"I've wounded you? Apparently not -- or at least, not nearly enough for my liking, Balinese."

She shot him a bemused look over her shoulder, then swept into the kitchen at his silent direction. Manx noticed Omi then, and her hard- edged smirk softened in a genuine smile.

"Konbanwa, Bombay."

And then she saw the katana resting on the chair which Aya normally occupied, and, frowning slightly, glanced from one to the other. "But where is Abyssinian?"

"And for that matter, where is Siberian?"

Omi was all smiles, even watching his boyfriend shamelessly flirt with their boss's secretary. Oh no! Not one bit of jealousy for him! Not over this!

After all, the most amusing part of the whole ritual was knowing that for once, she had no idea what was going on. That this WAS his boyfriend.

Part of him wished he had the courage and the savoir faire to play so with the lovely lady. They were almost like two courtly lovers in a comedy by Shakespeare.

But then his own carefully places toast crumbs crunched under his feet, and spoke to him, and she asked... the magick question.

"Kombanwa, Manx-san." He gave her a little bit of a bow then... and did everything he could to banish his smile. Well, he'd been asked, so he would answer.

"We don't know." A long, morbid nod, then he glanced up. I at least should look her in the eyes when I tell her. "They left this morning. We have no idea where they went, but they didn't seem to be intending to come back."

He reached into his pocket then, and pulled out the neatly folded leaves of Pochacco stationary. "Ken left these." And offered them to her, like flowers for someone's funeral.

"No, Farfie! These are MY Cheez-its!" Schuldich once again informed his erstwhile fellow member of Schwartz, deftly spinning on his toes and thereby rescuing his crimson bag from the filed teeth of Farfarello.

Who growled, spat, and generally tugged at the metal restraints which were keeping him affixed to his wheelchair. "But God will suffer if you give me some! Yes, my arteries will become clogged with the viscous goo of cholesterol! Pain! There will be pain!"

Schuldich rolled his eyes at this schpeel of anti-logic and popped another handful of crackers into his mouth. "But these are reduced fat Cheez-its."

"Oh..." If Farfarello would have had any composure, his moves would have indicated his desire to regain it, but being as he was, and would always be, quite mad, composure just wasn't the word. Besides, he promptly piped up, "Can I have one anyway?"

"Mmmnnn... no."

And so he hung his head and allowed his present guardian to wheel him a little further down the arcade. He was not too pleased with having to go about in such an undignified manner...

Which I absolutely don't understand considering he has no dignity!

... but then again, Terra was not too pleased with having him present, period, nor was Schuldich a great fan of "walking the dog".

Even though dogs are seldom so vicious as to require being handcuffed to a wheelchair in order to appear in public. And right about then, he probably could have used a muzzle too... the way he kept snapping at that cracker bag! The telepath seriously considered jumping into his head and making him stop all this wriggling and clicking nonsense. But then again, it was late, he was tired, he didn't feel like dealing with the Dali-esque sour-orbitz cola landscape of Farie's head.

He'd just take him for a walk, as the doctors invariable ordered. Well, would order until he convinced them otherwise. What a terrific bore this job was! The only fun part was getting ready to go out.

And since he abided now in the land of gay men ruled by women, he made sure to live it up. This evening found him clad in acid-washed jeans and a baby-doll T-shirt which read "Hot stuff" in blue, glittery letters. He didn't get to wear it at home for many reason and so rather than allow it to become crispy with age in his closet...

Just then, he and his "companion" came around a rather thick copse of trees. At least until Schuldich spied something in the far hall and jumped back behind them, peering out with a sinister little to smirk it.

"Now what!?" Farfarello demanded, readying a string of epithets if his "walk" was not resumed presently.

Schuldich munched for a moment. "Well, would you look at that Farfie?"

"Look at what? The back of your fu -- ..."

He pointed. "That sweet, little, morose redhead we used to know!"

Then they both grinned, and watched Aya as he strode slowly from the hall of restaurants, seeming to have no particular destination, and nothing he wished to see besides his feet.

"I wonder what he's doing here, don't you, old pal?" I can feel it without even trying, that boy is dripping angst! Oh, it's so good... so good! And what's this? A hint of lust?

"Don't call me that or Farfie! You lousy, bubble-assed cumbucket!"

"Sure, Farfie!" He smiled, and set the breaks on the wheelchair. "I'll be right back. You stay here like an angelic little sadomasochistic schizophrenic!"

And with that, Schuldich ambled out of the trees, walked straight up to Aya and did what he assumed would annoy him most of all.

"Hullo there! Fancy meeting you here." Just as if he was speaking to an old friend.

Which, needless to say, he wasn't.

At the sound of that purring German voice, Ran's head jerked up, and his still unfocussed eyes narrowed to violent, furious slits.

The last person he ever expected to see there was standing before him, framed by a bower of lilacs and climbing white roses, and there he was, without his katana, trapped on a planet where fighting was prohibited.

Not his idea of a good time.

Ran took a small, wary step backward, hands in nervous fists at his sides.

"What the FUCK are you doing here?"

It was all Schuldich could do to swallow his baleful bubbles of giggles. In his very best bemusedly affronted mode, he rather dully remarked, "Well, I live here."

He sighed and took a moment to flick a few strands of his henna-red hair behind his shoulder. "I mean, where did you think I -- we -- were holding up all this time?" At this he turned over his shoulder and waved at Farfarello, whose subsequent curses were well drowned by the crowd. "Not safe to live on Antiterra right now, what with the underworld in chaos, Takatori's minions running around mindlessly by my fault and yours I suppose."

He paused, had some more Cheez-its.

"Hey, I'm sorry Ken ditched you, but what do you want me to do about it? Can't I be glad to see you? Oh, and to answer the next question you may or may not have been planing on asking, no, I'm not interested in chopping you into little pieces. I don't do that anymore."

Ran stared at Schuldich, blinking his widened eyes hard in disbelief.

Cheez-its?!

"HOT STUFF"?

What in the hell...?!

"So you don't kill anymore, hm? How very convenient for you, considering you're now living on a planet where violence is forbidden. What did you do, Schuldich? Kidnap some herald's puppy and threaten its life, if she didn't grant you access."

His lip curled in a sneer then. "And no, Ken didn't 'ditch me', and no, you BASTARD, you can't be glad to see me. Now why don't you get the hell back to your psycho, knife-licking boyfriend, and stay clear of me. AND KEN."

That last was undoubtedly a threat, softly hissed.

And then he laughed so hard, it was most fortunate that he had no crackers in his mouth, or he surely would have extruded them through his nose. Oh, sure, Aya was a card to anyone within earshot, but contrast between his words and his flummoxed thoughts was... hysterical.

When he finally managed to get a hold of himself, he realized a few of the delightful orange squares had been spilt in the process, and Farfarello was whining virulently about it. No matter. Speaking of him, "Farfie? My Boyfriend? That mental case!? Aya-kun! Haven't we known each other long enough for you to understand I have better taste than THAT? Speaking of which..." he dabbed some water from his eyes... or maybe eyelashes only. "MY lover brought me here legitimately before I was even a member of Schwartz of Estet! Just like yours did. So stop acting like we have nothing in common already."

And this he had to say he did just to irritate Farfarello.

"Cheez-it?"

If Ran had been cold before, then he was positively arctic now.

"No, I don't want a damn cheez-it! I want you to leave me -- us -- alone."

He started to stalk away, but Schuldich's next few remarks caused him to stop in mid-departure and turn back around to face him. Made him come straight back.

"Your...Your lover brought you here?"

"Lover..." His scalding gaze slowly raked over the German, whipping up to meet his bemused own without warning. "You don't mean..."

"You don't mean HE'S here too?"

Shuldich gave a long, heavy shrug. "Here, there, everywhere. Terra, Antiterra. Heaven and hell. Why are any of us here? They say here is just an illusion. What a vague question, but thankfully, I know what you really asked, and the answer to that is 'yes'. Brad's here, and we're fucking. Been fucking for a long time. It's real nice. But suit yourself with the Cheez-its." Another shrug, and he munched on a few more crackers.

"Why do you find that more shocking than me being here at all I..."

The thing was he stopped in mid sentence before any particular variation came to the grand hall of Terra on the Planet, as the Japanese Annex was known. No lights appeared, no third moon, not even a cry in the crowd.

At first. But he got that look to his face, as if he'd heard something. Something no one else could.

Then Aya heard it too. Another familiar voice, one that brought no worries in remembrance, but rather context, and what it cried.

"Schu-baby!" And beyond all dread and wonder, his little herald shortly appeared and came prancing up to Schuldich, looking up at him with a light and airy sort of fondness as she wiggled her shoulders back and forth.

The thing was, he returned the gesture almost exactly. "Saffie, what are you doing here?"

"I was looking for Aya, Ni-chan."

"Ni-chan?!"

Ran's eyes moved from the beaming little girl to the equally smirking German (ex?) assassin and back again, full of shock.

"No..."

I'm going to be sick...

He settled his gaze back onto the still delightedly grinning Schuldich, who now had his arm slung around the little girl. "YOU have a sister. You who..."

Aya...

"You BASTARD..."

He dizzily backed away again, casting his horrified eyes upon Savil and staring at her almost fearfully for a few seconds, chest heaving.

Then he turned and wordlessly sprinted away.

::I didn't think you'd tell him.::

::He didn't ask.::

::No one ever does, liebechen.:: Of the few people who passed them as they stood just before the bower of lilacs... the one's whose fragrance could not be made out beneath the all consuming violets... none of them witnesses anything besides the two of them, standing with uninterested eyes wandering across the floor, as Schuldich ran his long fingers through Saffie's hair. ::Why do you feel bad for him, hmm?::

::Because I can. I like Ran. You do too.::

::Yeah, I do. And not just because he's so delish inside, you know.::

::Oh, I do know. Now. And he doesn't hate me, he just hates you.::

They both knew why. After awhile, Herald Savil pushed her brother's hand away, and started to step across the grass in s slow, dreamy way. Like a maiden in a movie does while her friend takes too long to speak. Still, no words. Words probably wouldn't have done justice to anything they ever said to each other.

::That's my rant.::

::And I know it inside and out.::

Smiles. He handed her 10,000 yen and she crammed it in her pocket. She handed him a little brass key, and he twirled it on his fingers. They had another joke not meant for ears and parted without making more noise than their footsteps. Saffie headed towards an alcove of shops. Schuldich followed Aya, and found him by the warm, sticky liquor of his pain alone.

Found him standing along, under one of the older oaks.

"You can't go on hating every person on the face of the earth who has a healthy little sister, Ran. Aya. My dear boy. And anyway, it's not what you think. You're not like us. You can't begin to understand... what I feel for her. Ouka, or no Ouka. As if she didn't know... bah."

This said, he dropped two things to Aya. The key to his room and a few choice memories of his own. Mental snapshots of his sister. Just to make it sting, just to make it feel that much more real. Undeniable, and in some ways perhaps, sibylline and weird. Saffie in Paris on her eigth birthday. Saffie the day she'd decided to go poking around in everything he knew about sex. Saffie on the plane from Munich to Tokyo, poking Nagi because she could.

Saffie the first time her father beat her senseless. Oh, and Schuldich knew the one peculiar thing about that recollection.

He wasn't there. It was no mere copy of someone else. Just clear and obviously Saffie, from Saffie, somewhere in his own mind.

Let the little Weiss boy chew on that for awhile. He knew he had.

"Oh, and your room's on the third floor, left hall."

Then he walked off to find Farfie before some unfortunate soul did.

Savil, presently off duty and so now Saffie, sighed. She was very tired, had known it. Now her brother knew, and he had told her she could go home. At last. After two little things. She stopped on the way back to buy a bottle of current wine that was older than she was from the little Korean fellow who somehow managed to import Antiterran wines without being caught. He asked after her. She asked after his boyfriend of twenty-two years, even though she had already heard he wasn't well.

Paper bag swinging back and forth in her left hand at last, she approached a haunt of her own fancy, change in hand.

"Hey Savil!" The boy, not too much older than her, who happened to be tending the counter, called. "Heard you made full herald today."

"Sure did!"

"And you come here to celebrate?"

"Well, they don't exactly sell this stuff in Japan. I'll have regular."

A cloud of steam and cozy hisses rose up from behind the glass case where she stood, on her tiptoes, anxiously awaiting her candy. After all, one of the most fun things about snow amber was grabbing the plate and racing out the door to find a place to eat it before it became ruined and watery.

Saffie, just before she was handed her serving, cast all of her spare coins on the counter and ran out into the arcade, where she sat down, clunked the bottle of current wine against an urn, nearly knocked them both over and began to sort though the shaved ice on her plate after the good stuff.

No one knew exactly what that stuff was -- but it had to be forced into being on a bed of snow, and then done away with before said snow melted into it. It being little sweet jewels, hot of all things, that tasted like... amber really. And looked like it too. Although recently, the shop had been expanded to offer more adventurous flavors, like red, and green and blue.

Amber would always been Saffie's favorite. Once she found herself with only a puddle of slightly discolored slush, she tossed out the water and the plastic which had been used to serve her treat, and started home in earnest.

Now that her brother and his business associates, at least, the sane ones, had no pressing business back on Antiterra, they had taken the liberty of moving into a grand suit on the bottom floor of the Kalm Inn, and had been there ever since the fall of... well, more or less every breathing Takatori. She herself had lived most of her life in one hotel room or another, on one kingdom of Terra or another, but had to admit, her present accommodations were especially pleasing. After all, the owner of the poorly named but still virtuously opulent hotel was too lost in his own delusions to forbid any of their eccentric requests.

Starting with the piano. Which she could already make out somewhat, having only just entered the dim corridor where room 24 began. That and the cool rapture of the player.

Saffie didn't bother to knock. After all, beyond was a man lost in his music, and yet, she didn't bother to be particularly quiet. As if she could startle him, the only person who had known her anything close to as long as Schuldich had... why, he'd probably known she'd be coming in now last week!

The pictures Schuldich tossed at his mind remained in his subconscious. He didn't want to look at them, didn't want to know. Didn't want to have anything to do with that German bastard.

Ran was much too distraught to do anything but scream.

"AND YOU CAN'T BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND HOW I FEEL ABOUT AYA!"

"YOU TOOK HER FROM ME, AND YOU'RE NOT SORRY, SO WHY THE HELL SHOULD I CARE ABOUT YOU AND YOUR SISTER?!"

"I HATE YOU!"

With a drunken lurch of Ran's shivering body, the key went sailing across the grove, to bounce off a tree and hopelessly disappear in a thicket at the far end.

"I. HATE. YOU!"

Panting, he fell against the tree nearest him, and slid to his knees. Stared blankly at the ground, while tears fell unchecked from his eyes.

What have I done? I shouldn't have come here. He's just going to make it hell for me, and that...that girl! A tiny sob escaped his lips, before he bit them shut.

I almost started to like her. And she's of his blood and I'm...in her 'care'.

A tear choked little laugh of irony.

I'll probably end up even more screwed up than I am now...If I live, that is.

He forlornly laid his head against the rough, scratchy tree trunk at his side.

Aya...Aya, I'm so sorry I left you.

Fiona promptly did was she was very, very best at.

She stamped her foot impatiently, chewed her nails and pretended.

Oh let's see, where would I rather be right now...?

Mage Ysanne's screechy voice one again penetrated the door between them.

I'd rather... be having a root canal.

Two young men in the only part of the grand hall she could see, got in a groping fight, bulged in their pants and giggled absurdly as they ran off.

I'd rather be a nurse in the hopeless case ward in Watership Down.

The fourteenth person that night asked her the time, and she told them the wrong one just because she could.

I'd rather be a whore on Antiterra!

Though speaking of the time, wasn't her guard dog shift about to end? Ugh, if having been sent to The Planet. On a Tuesday. On a business class flight from Chicago wasn't bad enough. If having to endure constant phone calls from her mistress every hour from the minute she arrived wasn't bad enough. If having to calm down SAVIL of all people the night before hadn't sucked royally.

The person coming to relieve her of her duties was... late.

When Shavri finally DID appear, she also happened to have apparently not noticed her faux pas. Obviously. The woman had no sense of time.

"Gee, they still in there?" The elder Herald asked, taking a moment to flick some hair out of her mouth.

"Sure are, you know Ysanne... she's gone down in pitch about an octave though. Think she's tired."

"You look beat."

"Oh, I'm not just beat. I have blisters on both feet and a migraine." Before her companion had a chance to replied, she added, stepping away form the door. "Not that you care. Enjoy yourself now. I'm going to bed."

Not that I'll get to be alone for any sensible duration but anyway...

And so Fiona, having pulled off her shoes at last and introduced her soar feet to the less demanding state of socks only, began to creep down the grand hall. Or rather, stumble. Ah, to think sleep was just a quarter mile away. And her beloved soaking tub for her poor little toes. And little hotel refrigerators with liqueurs! She smiled almost insanely.

"AND YOU CAN'T BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND HOW I FEEL ABOUT AYA! YOU TOOK HER FROM ME, AND YOU'RE NOT SORRY, SO WHY THE HELL SHOULD I CARE ABOUT YOU AND YOUR SISTER?! I HATE YOU! I. HATE. YOU!"

Jesus Hubert CHRIST!

She winced. She growled. She decided that reasonable or not! This once at least, she would evoke her privileges as a disciplinarian. True the, "No yelling in the hall" rule probably hadn't been enforced since there had BEEN a hall. Oh was this guy going to pay! PAY!

Gooey, worn feet or not she stormed with all the hurried grace of an authoritarian into the grove, blue eyes aflame with power and primal rage brought on by lack of sleep.

She wilted almost at once.

That's... Savil's new boy.

And he's crying...

True, the only true philosophy, at least written, for Heralds, was the syntax of keeping one's charges straight, though, since many of them had no family of any kind, and no other women existed to take the place, it was true -- shamefully true -- that many of them, vivacious and wild or not, tended to get a little motherly.

Fiona ruefully realized she was one of them. Alright... so I love before I judge. Just like they always said. I'm a wuss. Wuss of not, she reached into her purse and pulled out a handkerchief which she dangled in front of Aya's face.

"Hey, you OK?"

Ran hadn't expected anyone to respond to his angry screams -- at least, not in the way that Fiona had. So when he had become aware of her presence -- so brought to his attention by the fluttering scrap of embroidered linen, he jerked away from her, very much startled.

And rather embarrassed too, over having had been caught on his knees and crying.

He silently rejected her offer of a handkerchief, electing instead to dry his streaming eyes with his sweater cuffs.

"No, I am not all right," Ran muttered as he got to his feet, ducking back into the night-struck shelter of the trees in an effort to better conceal himself.

And then uselessness of such an endeavor struck him, and Ran began to laugh loudly and uncontrollably over his own stupidity.

Great. The one day out of the year I actually bother to help someone, he turns out to be a loon!

That doesn't mean I shouldn't try. Still.

If anything, I should try more.

"Hey, hey! Sorry, alright. Dumb question." With that, Fiona slunk slowly after him. Her pale aqua eyes stood out as he they gleamed of their own accord when the shade hit her too, and she seemed to realize this, and so squinted a bit so the effect wouldn't be quite as utterly bothersome as it usually was.

"No hard feelings now. Sorry I jacked your koi and all, but it's kinda my job. You may not believe it, but I'm actually the little brat's pen pal -- Savil that is. So, hmm...?" At this she tapped her cheek rhetorically. "I guess that mean's I'm part yours, and I must be here to help you. Come on now, I know good little Japanese boys aren't supposed to sob in public. You got a room or something? If not, you can come hide in mine for awhile."

"I mean I know you need SOMETHING."

At the mention of Savil's name, Ran's dewy eyes lit up with fervent ire. Narrowed as such. He took another step back, and heard the snap-snap of dozens of tiny scrub branches behind him.

"I don't want anything from anyone who knows her. And I don't want to have anything more to do with her, at all! Her or her brother!"

"Well then!" Fiona began, trying her best to look offended when in fact all she happened to be was in searing pain. She'd stepped on something hard and her toes were not pleased. "I don't suppose you'll be getting any help from anyone then, because this is Terra and unfortunately for you, people actually know each other here."

This said, she spun around on her heels, which were the only part of her feet willing to be spun on. "You wanna sit out here and mope like a crazy person? You do that."

But this was NOT announced walking off. In fact, she lingered for what seemed like an eternity, peering over her shoulder.

"That bastard Schuldich practically kills my sister, but I'm crazy, hm? Figures."

Ran stared hard at Fiona, shooting daggers. Hands jammed down in his pockets.

"If you don't want to help me, Herald, that's fine. I didn't ask for it. Not from you, or anyone -- including Savil. I'm sure she and her precious brother had a jolly little laugh over me already."

"But no more."

He stepped towards her and then around her then, and, with one last frowning glare, headed out towards the mouth of the grove.

Well... so much for that.

"Oh just damn you! Whoever you are!" Fiona stamped her foot at this. Her headache had actually up and vanished somewhere in the fray. But her feet... oh, her poor, poor feet.

I wasn't cut out for this job. Ysanne knew that too.

Bitch.

I hate Savil when she's right.

I hate a lot of things.

And with that, she sat down herself, more or less unable to continue until her blisters had been fanned.

I can't really say I hate that guy though... poor thing. His bad luck to run into me I guess. Maybe someone else will find him.

And then she found something herself. Specifically, a little something glinting in the shrubs.

A key.

A hotel room key.

Why did she hate it as well? Why did it make her angry?

Because one thing that fulfilled both those criteria happened to be... foolish people. And only a foolish person.

"HEY YOU!" she cried, thereby breaking the very rule she had been intending to enforce. Once she had caught up with him at least. "I've got the key to your room here! You wanna sleep under the stars or something. Look, I'm sorry! I suck with people, but so do you, and bad day or not, you deserve a bed, alright. You want one or not? I know right where this place is. HEY!"

The glint of amusement on Manx's lovely face dimmed away to nothing as she took the notes, and not even the sight of Pochacco and his soccer ball could bring it back.

After all, her Ken was gone.

Oh, he wasn't hers in the sense of a lover -- she already had that position in her life filled and wonderfully -- but...She'd always had a soft spot for him above all the others.

Her hopeful, gangling, mischievous Ken.

And not one note from him, but it was as it should be.

One by one she opened them, and one by one she refolded them and laid them on the table.

On the somewhat sticky, dish-crowded table. She pursued her lips a little in a frown as she glanced around the kitchen.

How can you guys live like this? Ugh.

"So Persia has lost two of his little kittens, hm? He won't be happy about this."

I'm not...

She folded her arms across her chest and drummed her red-tipped fingers along her sleeves, looking from the notes to Omi, and then to Youji.

"So...There only two of you in the shop now. Momoe-san won't be too happy about the sudden lack of help, I'm sure."

"Well..." Omi began. And for this he absolutely had to drop his eyes to the floor. The floor that was no longer his, for reasons he was about to... frankly, lie his soar little butt off about.

"That's the other thing, Manx-san. We were having breakfast this morning, and we were a bit late about it, so Momoe-san came into check on us. And it seems on the way, she got a really good look at the rest of the house, which isn't in very good shape either I'm afraid. So she umm... was in here, asking us nicely to please clean up when she went for the teapot and then..."

It was play this part up or die laughing. "Oh Manx-san! There was a mouse! It scared her half to death and she kinda fell and broke her hip. She's very, very angry about it, and she has every right to be."

"Not to mention, evict us. And fire us. Which she did. On the way to the ambulance."

Youji tossed him a thumbs up sign.

Manx's madly tapping fingers came to a halt, and dug in to her sleeves instead at that bit of news.

"She's evicted you?"

A sigh, and a shake of the head.

"I'm surprised she held out as long as she did, what with him," her thumb jerking at Youji, "living in the house."

With a gasp of mock horror, Youji came up alongside her, hands over his heart. "Why, Manx! I'm crushed! I've tried to be..."

"I can just imagine what you've tried to be, Balinese."

A lingering look passed between the two of them, and then Youji backed away with a theatrical bow.

"Touche, Manx."

He shot her a faint smile as he straightened up, a sort of sad one, really, and threw his hands up in the air. "And there you have it. The reason why I called you."

She nodded, her gaze once more falling upon the little pile of notes. "I see. When do you have to be out of here?"

"Momoe-san wants us out by the time she gets out of the hospital."

"Surgery, no doubt?"

"Aa." Youji shrugged. "Or so the paramedics said."

Again she nodded.

"Well, I'll get on it. I see no reason why I can't have you in a new place before the week is out, so don't worry. I can put you up in a hotel now, if you want."

Youji glanced over at Omi, who nodded, smiling.

"All right, then, since he wants to leave now, I say yes."

She looked from Youji to Omi in a speculative way, as if she'd noticed something...different between the two of them, and then headed off to the phone in the hall. "Go and get your things, boys," she called. "You'll be leaving shortly."

Omi let out a sigh of relief so utterly terrific, he wondered why his lungs hadn't gone into spasms waiting for it.

Of course, at Youji's naughty little look, he'd already began to feel the pangs of desire for a certain other kind of...

Oh not again. Now's not a good time. Now's really not a good time.

Alone in a hotel room with my Youji until the end of the week. With nothing to do... NOTHING! Wai! Wai!

He could feel his cheeks burning at the mere thought.

But for now, it was all he could do to offer his hush-hush lover a nice pat on the bum as they headed up the hallway after their belongings. "You think she noticed? Not the living room. The other thing?"

Youji, taken aback it seemed, sniggered silently and held his fingers to his lips.

"Well... either way..."

Back in his own room, he shoveled his clothes into his suitcase and duffelbag... not that many fit in said duffel bag, owing to the myriad of computer disks. An empty space actually appeared in the suitcase though, and he determined its purpose like the meaning of a cloud.

Ken's bagh-nakh fit perfectly. Admittedly, it was a pretty bizarre place for them, but oh well.

Onto bigger and better things. Would this be their last time in the Koneko? No, there'd be one more trip for the boxes.

The computer.

What else? Nothing probably.

Out of distant consideration, he checked Ken's room for anything else he would have done well to take. Found nothing, but the window. Still open.

He left it that way too.

And went into the hall to wait for Manx to finish her call and whatever else was bound to happen that night.

The box full of bed covers and pillows came rolling down the stairs (sent down with a firm kick), and Youji followed close behind it, dragging his two suitcase and carrying his sagging yellow duffle. He set the cases down next to the upside down box, and, without so much as a look in Manx's direction, walked over to Omi and kissed him. Properly kissed him that is -- none of that quick, embarrassed pecking for his boy.

Mmm...My boy, who I'll have all to myself for a week. For longer than that!

A ruffle of his hair, and Youji strode off again, this time to the bathroom to gather up a few more of his essentials for their trip -- including his Freesia shampoo.

When he came out again mere minutes later, the bag bulging at his hip, Manx had finished her call.

"So?"

"So...I've got you a room," she replied, as if irked that he'd even asked. "It's not the Hilton, but it'll be comfortable enough." She handed Omi a slip of paper, upon which she'd written the name and address of their temporary residence.

"It's an inn, just a few miles outside of Tokyo. Quiet and peaceful. Even has an hot spring on the premises."

The duffle landed on the floor by the cases, and Youji peered over Omi's shoulder, draping his arm over his shoulder and leaving it there. "Sounds kind of fancy, Manx. I mean, I expected us to end up in a dive."

She shrugged lightly, fixing them with that same knowing look as before. "Maybe I think you two deserve a vacation. And besides, you've done enough for Kritiker. Consider this a long overdue perk."

He snorted in amusement. "I never thought an assassin would be entitled to perks."

Another shrug and a smile. "I've booked you until Friday, but I'll have you an apartment by then. A new day job too, of course."

"Of course."

A lift of a brow, and she turned to Omi. "Keep him out of trouble, won't you?"

"Oi! Shouldn't you be asking that of me about Omi? I'm the adult after all."

"Are you? I have to wonder..." She laughed merrily at his disgruntled expression, and, with a glance at her watch, turned to leave. "I'm off. It's nearly 6, and I'm expected for dinner in a half an hour."

Youji hugged Omi's neck, then moved off in Manx's wake. A man should always see a woman to the door, after all. "And who's the lucky guy this evening?"

She turned on the threshold, looking him up and down, an impish grin slowly spreading across her face.

"The same one its been for the last three months, Balinese."

"It's Birman."

With that, she was gone, her laughter ringing away behind her.

Omi didn't say anything. Even if his jaw had been willing to function in any sensible manner, what was he supposed to say to that. Manx's laughter lingered on the air like faerie dust, just as his blank stare lingered on his own visage for many, many, many moments of swirly but utter...

Surprise.

"I wonder if Persia was alive today... what he would think of all this. If he knew of course but..."

If he knew?

IF HE KNEW?

Kami-sama, what if he did know and this was all some twisted experiment on his part!

No, Omi, that's not very nice.

"But... but... but... when did she... I... I..."

And taking his beautiful boyfriend in his arms. "I'm so happy for her!"

Youji, too, was utterly flabbergasted -- for about five minutes. Then he too smiled at the closed back door from whence their lovely rescuer had made her exit.

No, he hadn't seen that coming either, but then...He was rather pleased it had. Manx was too, too gorgeous and smart to not have someone.

"I'm happy for her too," he murmured, a touch wistfully, bending down to give Omi a kiss on the forehead.

"But...You know something?"

He leaned down close, his lips just touching Omi's ear. "I'm even happier for us."

Omi giggled, and leaned up on his toes to return the earlier, ravaging kiss he had been offered in secret. "I almost feel bad lying like that too her, like maybe she would have understood... even if secrets are an awful lot of fun!"

All too suddenly, he wriggled away and cavorted over to their bags, snatching his own up and grinning wildly. "Can you be happy for us in the hotel room then? For a long, long time maybe?"

Those winks had to be unmistakable. "I don't know about you, but the mention of hot springs, oh! It makes me think of so many etchi things!"

Then casting the door open once again, with a romantic flourish as if they had been curtains to the stage of all Tokyo. "Last on to the car drops the soap in the shower!"

"Oi! I've got more bags to haul than you do!" Youji called, but Omi was already gone. Had gone and he, Kudou Youji, had lost.

Not that he really minded.

Unhurriedly, Youji made his way to the kitchen to collect the katana and the box he'd put Aya's things in, then came back to the hall to get the rest of his things.

Which was harder to do than it was to think about, but, with much struggle and many curses, Youji managed to carry them outside. He laboriously set his two boxes down, and locked up the door without feeling one shred of remorse. No longing, save for Aya and Ken.

Otherwise, he was happy. He stood there for a moment, toying with the shop's keys and marveling over his current state. Never had he felt so at ease in years. Not since...

He rubbed his left shoulder, smiling sadly, then shook off his daydreaming stupor and shoved his keys in his pocket.

Youji picked up one of the boxes and started down the stairs, making a nasty face at Omi as he approached the car.

"Your day is coming, Omi-ai."

"And you'd better believe I can't wait!" A long, frothy bad-boy laugh as he lover climbed into the car. It hadn't even been this time yesterday, had it? When he'd been enjoying his candy in the silence of benign conversation. Fussing about not being home...

Now they didn't even have a home, and in retrospect, the conversation was anything but normal.

It was like foreplay.

He didn't bother watching out the window as the pulled away. What was there to see? Same streetlights, same sidewalk. Same window he'd left open. They'd be back for a bit, then he could say goodbye.

If he wanted to. No, for now, he just watched Youji. The same old Youji?

Well, besides that he WASN'T in any way old... no. He'd never be the same. Even if he too vanished in the next few minutes.

So they left their old street, Ken's bike looking over them forlornly as they pulled away.

Into the oceans of lost souls and lights.

"It's just like yesterday, only it doesn't hurt."

Ran'd heard her, all right, but despite Fiona's hails, he ignored her; had every intention of ignoring her until she tired of chasing him.

If she tired of chasing him. That she bothered to follow him at all showed remarkable courage.

And ignoring Fiona was about as easy as ignoring a pissed off wasp.

Ran came to an abrupt halt.

Damn.

Damndamndamn.

I hate my luck.

Why the hell can't you just leave me alone?

She came thundering up behind him, and when she came to a stop, Ran turned around to face her. Stared at the key in the huffing woman's outstretched hand as if it were a dead rat, then snatched it away. Clenched it hard in his fist and shook it at her.

"All right! I've got the damn key! You've won, Herald! You've beaten the crazy person. Are you happy now?"

He jammed his fist, key included, back into his pocket, scowling ferociously at Fiona for a few uneasy seconds.

And then he sighed in frustration, and looked away, growling, "All right! Which way to the hotel, Herald?"

Under normal circumstances, Fiona had a perfectly lovely (not to mention puerile and reprehensible) victory dance.

But even if her feet hadn't hurt, even if she hadn't been awake for... fifty hours now? It felt like a million. Well, even if it was the last chance she had to dance in the whole history of the universe.

She couldn't have danced in front of Aya.

No, I'm not happy in the least, thank you very much. I feel worse than when I first came over to harass you.

Why me?

I bet you're asking the same thing right now.

Shit.

"Well, the FRONT door to the hotel is thataway, but I'm going to assume that you're in no mood to deal with disco music and a guy who walks around with a cardboard and foil buster sword. That's why I'm taking you through the back door, which is... the other way."

With that, she rather cautiously waved him along and spent the first few minutes of their walk playing side-to-side tag with him. He would walk faster, then she would, unwittingly too. All in an effort to NOT been seen with her she supposed. They bounced back and forth next to each other just like that.

Modulating her voice to fit was actually harder than keeping up with him vs. not getting ahead.

"I said I was sorry, and I realize you don't believe me but at least let me introduce myself without the hankie this time. I'm Fiona. I don't have any name besides that. No last name. No herald name. I'm just Fiona."

She offered he hand on the off chance he didn't feel like biting it.

"And I'll call you whatever you want, but I don't think that happens to be Ken no koi."

Ran came to a halt again, sparing her hand the briefest of glances. Stared at her in bewilderment. Why was she persisting so? She'd gotten what she wanted, his hurt and humiliation. So why didn't she just go away?

He had to admit to himself (very grudgingly) that he was intrigued -- and he hoped she couldn't divine his feelings as readily as...everyone else seemed to be able to do.

"Just Fiona? Hardly. You're a too much of a pushy, bad-tempered nuisance to be 'just' anything."

Another searching sort of look, and he glanced down at her hand again, frowning, then took one step back and bowed politely.

"I'm..."

"I'm Ran."

"Why thank you, Ran. That's the nicest compliment I've gotten in years. Incidentally, it's nice to meet you too." Fiona returned the bow in a decidedly awkward fashion. Not that her Japanese didn't already reek of an american accent.

And almost at once, perhaps mutually fearing one another's nerves, they nodded and began to walk down the hall again, this time in a more harmonious fashion. They had come to what appeared to be a service hall by now, though somehow, the grass which ringed the beginning of the hall seemed to speak of being oft trodden upon. The "back entrance" admittedly was more of a pain than a secret.

Mostly because it involved the service stairs -- a tower of tinny industrial tread. Fiona heaved a sigh and started up.

Ow... ow... ow...

And that pain reminded her of another. Partially to keep her mind off her feet, and partially to keep anyone's conscience off of Ran, she started talking. Whether he was listening or not she decided not to guess.

"Look, I might as well tell you straight out. I'm not officially a Herald, so you shouldn't call me that. I'm allowed to wear the uniform and I have all the rights but none of the responsibilities. It's a convenience thing. I'm Mage Ysanne's kept girl, and yeah, I'm only fifteen. You'll see a lot of that here -- keeping. It's a noble old Terran tradition. I might not have told her yet, but I did put in for a transfer, so at least in my case, it's not forever. You can still come to me, if you want. For some reason."

A winding, curved staircase. It reminded Ran of the apartment house where he'd lived before he joined Weiss, and he hoped fervently that the room he was headed towards would be much nicer than that past room had been. Dripping faucets and closets full of scuttling cockroaches held little charm.

"Well, calling you 'herald' sounded better than calling you 'girl'. I've never called any female 'girl', even when the person in question was one. It's not...proper."

Nor was, in his opinion, the idea of 'keeping'. Of course, he didn't quite know what she meant by it, but he had a feeling it wasn't anything truly good. Not for the one who was kept especially.

Ran peeked at her out of the corner of his eye, intending to ask her about that particular Terran custom, his expression suddenly twisting in a scowl when he saw her. It seemed to him that she was limping, albeit very slightly.

Grimacing too, from what he saw, again very slightly. As if she were trying very hard NOT to do it.

He caught gently Fiona by the arm, and drew her to a halt, instantly letting go of her the moment she stopped.

"You're limping, and you keep making odd faces," he snapped. "Did you somehow injure yourself?"

Fiona was very nearly insulted by this eventuality. Not just in the accusatory nuances of Ran's voice, but in the mere fact he had taken it upon himself to worry after her when HE was the one plainly in need of help... or worry... or something!

But it seemed a bit endearing still. Endearing things often injure someone's pride. To bad it happened to be hers. Freed of his hands, she continued her ascent, though with a bit less haste.

"Of course I'm limping, my feet are all blisters. I'm either running errands for that woman or doing her! And for the past two days, it's been errands, errands, errands!" This said, she found herself falling into a distinctly mocking nasal voice... which in other circumstances would have been a nicely comical imitation of the mage in question. " 'Fiiiooonaaa, get me another bottle of sake!' 'Fiiiooonaaa, go tell them I'll be late!' 'Fiiiooonaa, powder my nose so I WILL be late!' 'Fiiiooonaaa, flick my tits in public because I find it funny!' Why did you THINK I put in for a transfer?"

A pause on one of the landings to catch her breath with the hopes it would smother her anger... not at Ran. Well, mostly not at Ran. "I'm not saying everyone's got it that bad, but I do. Calling me 'girl's pretty much right. That's how it is."

Ran leaned against the rail, watching her quietly and waiting for the rhythm of Fiona's breathing to level out.

'Flick my tits,' eh? Yare, yare.

And I thought I had problems.

From the sound of it, Savil was right. Ysanne is a bitch.

And so went the spin of Ran's thoughts as he stood on that first landing with his not-so-magical companion. His overworked, underappreciated, teenaged companion.

And that she was so young, and clearly so badly treated, Ran felt compelled to act.

"Maybe everyone else calls you 'girl', but I won't."

He pushed away from the rail then, and came to stand directly in front of her. Peered down his nose at her for a heartbeat.

And then he stooped and scooped her off her abused feet, draping her over his shoulder as if she weighed so very little.

"Hey! Put me down!" Fiona screeched almost at once. From the pitch, any unfortunate soul within earshot could have told it was an empty, oft-used cry that popped out by accident. Especially Ran, it could be assumed, since she didn't bother fidgeting at all.

Just went tense and generally unmanageable. He said nothing in response to her, and so she capitulated more to herself. "What's the big idea now? You're what, a year older than me? Man, you got nerve, you really do."

Nerve's not so bad.

But it sure doesn't look good on him, what with those great, big baby violet eyes. Totally, totally wrong.

I guess being carried isn't so bad either.

"Oh! Alright. So long as you don't start pitying me next. Your door's on the next landing, not that I can point that out otherwise from this position. I've walked on worse."

And something tells me you did too. Once.

You're one messed up guy, Ran.

You're just as bad as I am...

...

Nah, worse.

"So you've walked on worse, have you?" Ran asked, pointedly ignoring her commands for release. "Well, then, I guess it won't matter if you don't subject your poor battered feet to yet more abuse."

Ran reached the next landing, and, cradling his burden carefully with a flattened hand on the small of Fiona's back, opened the door and entered the blue plush carpeted hallway of floor 3. Dodged a waiter with a cart, who swung to one side and stared at him with shocked black eyes, but let him pass unchallenged nevertheless.

"No, Fiona-chan, I am not a year older than you. I am five years older. And yes, I do have nerve."

But then, I am a murderer after all.

...Or...I was.

"And pity was the last thing on my mind."

At last, he found his hotel room door, and, after a moment of struggling to extricate his key from his pocket, he opened it, and swept inside, Fiona and all.

Fiona who he carried over to the nearest of the two overstuffed, white armchairs and dropped her onto it. Lifted her feet a little and shoved the leather ottoman under them.

"For as long as Ken is Ysanne's guest, you will be mine...Fiona-chan."

By the grand graces of space time and its many kinks, Fiona somehow managed to avoid her initial response, "You're cute and all, but no thanks; I don't go for boys," by biting her tongue. Literally.

But chancing another long look into those of so haunted purple depths, she realized, quite astutely, that hot, body thumping sex, such as one generally would have expected to engage in following a remark of those ilks, did not exactly count as something on her rescuer's mind.

Rescuer my ass!

No, my feet.

As it was, she said nothing for a record amount of time. Ten seconds.

And then she grinned ironically, shaking her head. "You can't keep me here, you know. Not that I wouldn't stay on my own, whether you had asked me or not. When Ysanne leaves, so do I. It's just the way things are. So, you wanna torment yourself with me anyway? Be my guest."

She yawned.

"Frankly, I'm too tired to argue."

She was just glad her crash course in Japanese had included name suffixes.

Coming into suite 24 was akin to leaving one world in favor of another. The occupants, who more or less had been given permission to decorate the space as they pleased, had done the living room in the style of the French 18th century. The walls were covered in heavy, silver silk. The curved, dark wood chairs and sofas were covered in the same. Tables, small and large, were scattered about the long, rectangular room. The floor was all dark wood and lacquered and covered with an enormous Chinese rug, which was stained here and there with beeswax from the chandelier's blazing candles. But no paintings, as the occupants disliked them; the silk was enough of a decoration.

And to one side, near the fern guarded, French doors that lead to the balcony, stood the piano, replete with a three prong, silver candalabra and sheet music strewn over its glossy surface. The man who sat at it, fingers coaxing the most heavenly sounds from it, was none other than Brad Crawford himself, although from the back, no one who'd met the man would have known it.

He was dressed in a white, poet's shirt, lacing hanging open at his neck, and a pair of black velvet trousers. Barefoot, because he preferred to be. And his hair now brushed his shoulders, spilled over into his eyes at intervals as he moved.

The final bars of "Liebestraum" swooned to an end, and Brad reached for the remains of his cigarette, not even glancing around at his visitor. He didn't have to, anyway.

"Hello, Savil darling," he murmured, flicking the ash from the end of his cigarette, and taking another, final drag. "Won't you have some tea?"

As if on cue, a china cup and saucer, white with red and gold roses around their respective rims, sailed across the room from one shadowy corner and hovered before her, just within hand's reach.

A soft, slightly effeminate, Japanese accented voice wafted from that same corner. "It's Darjeeling, of course. Two lumps of sugar. Is that acceptable, Savil?"

"More than acceptable, Nagi-chan! It's wonderful." Savil beamed, and ceased her applause for Bradley's rendition in order to pluck the cup and saucer from the air, which she did in a manner suggesting they were but trifles appearing on a perfectly ordinary table. "Domo arigatou." And she had a sip. Nagi really did make fantastic tea -- pungent but not bitter. Sweet, but not too sweet.

Kinda like his thoughts, but Oh! She simply wasn't in the mood to go rooting around in those.

Rather, she took a moment to pat her brother's boyfriend's back after having toed out of her slippers and slunk into the shadows herself, carrying her tea in a more mundane fashion. The chair besides the telekinetic -- the especially squashy burgundy one she always favored, even though everyone else more or less did -proved specially emptied.

So speaking of Nagi, she gave him a huge smile, and took a few lazy moments to enjoy her tea, perched on the edge of that oh-so cuddly chair, so it would not consume her just yet. She watched Nagi watching her drink with his long, lazy green eyes. Her shields still up, she did her best to guess -- just what was the morose little fellow thinking? Why would he watch her? Ah, to prove that the tea was acceptable. No matter how much she flattered him over it, he'd never believe it unless she drained the whole cup smiling. And even then...

But that was Nagi and he was worth watching just to see the way he moved in his little silk shirt. The tea was gone. Back to Bradley.

"But you know what I've got in the bag, don't you? Have you overdone the tea yourselves, or can I fix you a little of this, hmm?"

It was polite to ask, even if she knew the answer.

"I overdo everything, so if you want to make more tea...but otherwise, not tonight." Crawford's gaze settled expectantly upon Nagi, who didn't even bother to glance his way.

"No, Savil, you don't have to do it." A half-filled cup drifted up from the table then, and soared into the boy's thin, pale hands without a quiver. "This is enough."

An airy shrug and Brad rose from the piano bench, and made his way over to the room's sole oddity: The burgundy velvet chair in the otherwise pristine sea of silver. Schuldich's contribution, which Crawford overlooked even though it didn't fit in with his theme. He bent and pressed a kiss atop the little girl's head, then helped himself to some tea. Raked his long, black bangs back and took a seat on the sofa opposite.

"Of course, I know what's in your bag. Nagi, however, would not." A smirk from Crawford at this, one which was met by a hard, hollow-eyed stare from Nagi.

Very faintly, the teaset on the tray began to rattle, but Brad only laughed. He dreamily swirled his spoon through the amber tea, then gently tapped it on the cup's fragile rim. Then he set the cup and saucer on the tiny table at his elbow, and slipped another brown- wrapped stick of clove between his lips and lit it.

"Why don't you enlighten, Nagi, darling?" he murmured, blowing a perfect ring. "Show him what's in the bag."

Savil held her hand away from her giggling lips (Nagi had such a cute temper!) and reached for the little treasure her brother had asked her to pick up. The bottle shone like a scepter of pinkish amethyst in the swaying light of the candles. "Current Wine. British, Vintage 1983. My brother's apology for being late. I got to bring it since it was my fault he had to go walk the dog and all."

No sigh was necessary. Walking the dog happened to be the one task they all rued, except for her. And why?

For many reasons, few of which she fully understood herself. Even telepathic little girls liked pets, didn't they? Even rather peculiar pets? How normal.

Well, had to make up for living in a pretend palace in a pretend world somehow.

But oh, pretending was so very fun!

"I was going to fix us all some, but here you'd already made me my favorite... mmm." She closed her eyes and smiled, craning her head back against the highest arch of her chair. She could hear her hair grating against it, smell the fresh, clove smoke. Delight in that she could throw down her barriers and feel nothing if she wanted too. Nothing but the weird, all-consuming recklessness of home. Her eyes flickered onto Brad then. "You don't mind if my brother and I tell Nagi about today then, do you?"

The tea tray rattled again.

Those bemused, spectacle shaded blue eyes drifted onto Nagi and lingered as another wavering ring of blue smoke spun out of Crawford's mouth.

"Mind the teaset, Nagi. Farfarello will be so pissed if it gets even the slightest chip." He smirked evilly. "And none of us want that, do we?"

The teatray quickly ceased its rattling; however, the spoon which lay on Nagi's saucer leapt up and careened across the room to crash against the metal frame of one glass balcony door. Hit the floor with a ringing clatter, which was followed by a long pause.

"Do you want me to ground you?"

"Try it, Crawford."

There was a moment of tense silence, and then the air was calm again. Nagi tended to his tea (albeit whilst warily watching Crawford) and Brad settled back in his chair, contemplating the glowing, pink-topaz wine.

"Late is he? Why am I NOT surprised? But it can't be helped, I know." He stubbed the cigarette out in the crystal ashtray he held on his lap, and set it down on the end table, stretching his arms over his head as he sat back in his seat again. Ah! But it was so pleasant to be able to relax...Really relax!

"Hmm...Yes, Savil, you and Schuldich may break the news to Nagi."

"Why thank you." Savil replied, scooting back in her chair and letting it squish up around her like the softest whipped cream. She always felt like she could vanish into the cushions if she wished. She found one more sip in her teacup and did away with it. "But you're never surprised."

None of them were. Even Nagi. And Nagi had no vested powers which would have enabled him to avoid it.

The wine ended up perched on one of the many available end tables, and there its highlights took to them the vague sheen of silver. As if the bottle had always been intended to be part of the room.

It was times like these she always wished fervently for an ottoman. No matter. And besides which, there were shortly more things to worry about besides an ottoman.

As if summoned by some combination of the silence and the drifting, spectral smoke, Schuldich appeared at the door, and like his sister, made no effort to hide it. Just rolled his dozing companion into a corner of the room.

"Farfie's back where he belongs. I'm back too. Funny how these things go."

Savil cocked an eyebrow at him and his baby doll tee. How it clashed with the d‚cor and Bradley's overall spell of contentment and concinnity. And then the two of them smiled, since it was so very, very obviously too late. He kicked off his shoes rather noisily and shortly slung himself over the back of the couch where his lover also happened to be seated, and getting an especially long gaze with nothing particularly chaste in it.

"You'll never guess what just happened."

A general silence.

He pouted. "You're supposed to say, 'Oh, whatever happened?' or something generally to that effect." Plainly, he was kidding and enjoying himself doing it.

"Oh, just tell me, Schuldich," moaned an extremely cross Nagi, who had resorted to setting all the sugar cubes to dancing a minuet above the coffee table for his own amusement.

Because I can think of much better things for you to do with your mouth than talking...'Hot Stuff'

Of course, that last came from Crawford.

Brad took another sip of tea, and then a gulp of it, and watched the sparkling, sweet squares kiss and part and twirl, all the while keeping time with his fingers on his knee to the imaginary music.

Like...

And he thought a particular image at him, without a care for what Savil might pick up en route. There was no reason to hide, in his opinion.

He drained the cup and set it back in its saucer on the table. Threw a careless sort of smile at Nagi, then looked over at his lover.

"You might not want to make Nagi wait. He's been in a mood all day."

As a matter of abject fact, Savil DID intercept the image Crawford intended for her brother, and she did not care one bit. Old news. Nagi's dancing sugar cubes were much more entertaining, and so she actually pried herself somewhat out of her cushions in order to better observe them and the peculiar quirks of their species of animated objects.

Schuldich wondered when Nagi was NOT in a mood, and took Bradley's saucy little suggestion to heart. Or at least planned to. Later.

"As we all know," Schuldich began. "By some delightful quirk of fate, Saffie is now the herald in charge of one Ken Hidaka. Oh, cruel world that has such luck in it." He laughed, loud and long.

Saffie glanced down at her stockinged feet at this. Not for any shame, or regret, or that the sugar cubes had stopped their revelry, which they hadn't. Not for much of anything except the one childish thing she still had crammed inside of her. The fact she could still amuse and puzzle herself, just by wondering. At the moment... she actually stunned herself when she took a closer peek at her feelings for Ken and Aya. She did like them quite a lot, but how? How a herald is supposed to feel for a charge? How one feels about friends?

She found she'd miss them awfully if she never got to see them again.

::Pity. But hey, they don't want to be around you, that's there own stupid fault. Don't go all sentimental on me now. Doesn't suit you.::

::I'm not. I'm just thinking.::

::I know, just warning you now.::

::You're the sentimentalist.::

::Shhhh! ^_^::

"Well," And she took to speaking at this. "he actually decided to come back. Today. Which is why I'm late."

"And me too!" Schuldich took a moment to crack his knuckles. "None of this is awfully surprising, and nothing could make it surprising," Least of all in this room. "except perhaps, that he didn't come along. He's brought yummy little Aya with him."

The sugar cubes spiraled down into the dainty, double-handled bowl, and seemingly arranged themselves into a neat pile, the lid floating down after them to land with a tiny click. Nagi noisily yawned, and swung his denim clad legs off the sofa.

"Is that all?" he complained, smoothing his aqua colored silk shirt as he stood up. "I thought it would be something interesting."

"Oh, but it is, Nagi. It is!" piped Crawford, who currently had a hand rifling through Schuldig's wild red mane. "And it's going to become even more interesting as the days roll by."

One slim shoulder swooped upward in indifference. "Whatever." Nagi sidestepped past the table and past Savil, pointedly ignoring 'the dog' as he passed him.

"I'm out of here."

"Where are you going?"

Nagi looked up from the door where he now sat, hurriedly tugging on his combat boots but not bothering to lace them up.

"You're the fucking psychic, Crawford. You should already know."

"And you should watch your tongue."

Nagi tugged his jean legs down, and got to his feet, meeting the other's eyes unflinchingly.

"Was that a threat, Crawford? How original."

The door opened and slammed before anyone could utter any sort of reply.

With a sigh, Crawford rolled his eyes, and glanced back at Schuldich. "Teenagers. Aren't they precious." He patted his lap, hoping to entice his boyfriend to lay down. "Anyway. I found it most intriguing, that whole little scene. But then you know that."

"Ah, it will be so nice to be reunited with dear, little Aya."

"But I wasn't done!" Schuldich wined. "I had the wittiest little speech about the two of them prepared, and Saffie was going to give half of it."

Speaking of Saffie, she sat pouting at the now inanimate and therefor uninteresting sugar cubes.

He couldn't resist a mental poke. ::So maybe you feel about them how I do?::

::I can't. I don't like people that way.::

::You could if you wanted too.::

::I don't want to.:: And with that, she sat up and faced her elder two companions. Farfarello was lying pleasantly sedated in the corner, hence no one having otherwise paid attention to him.

"Utterly charming all around, mon petit lapin." Schildich finally answered. "Aren't you glad Saffie won't ever be one?"

She certainly seemed so, as she took to rather languorously watching the two of them.

::Aren't we more amusing than Nagi, liebechen?::

::Sometimes.::

That thought, the elder telepath made a great show of pondering his earlier invitation, finally deciding that yes, he would indeed love to cast himself over those velvet wrapped thighs, and did so with the grace of a streetwise cat. To be more specific, he arranged himself so as to be sitting like an Edwardian diva on Bradley's lap, arms draped loosely around him.

"You know, the really neat thing about all this is Aya's got no idea what to think about Ken and what's wrong with him."

"Not that Ken knows himself," Saffie offered, "because he doesn't."

"Really?"

"You never bothered to look, Schu-baby?"

"Ken always seemed too sane to bother with. At least on the surface I suppose. Aren't I silly?"

The little girl shook her head and proceeded to prove, at least to her like-gifted companion, just how wrong he was. "Silly as a goose." And to anyone with even the slightest touch of telepathic gift, the room became a drowning drizzle of remembered emotions which belonged to none of the residents. She even sent a little special for Brad.

::What about Aya? What have you felt from him. I know you were waiting to try him again...::

The reply? The moment of heartbreak when Ken started to shudder. Perhaps not as clear, not as succulent as the original, but oh, so fantastically indescribably luscious.

Dubious origins and all. No thanks audibly appeared, but they blotted out the memories in the end.

"Oh, so it's even more intriguing than we thought." His fingers came up and twirled around the dark locks of his lover. "I'm so glad you grew it long, you know. But you knew I would be, I suppose."

Savil just grinned. Such interjections in her house were just as common, if not more so, than "n'est pas" in French philosophical debates.

Crawford took Schuldich's concession to his unvocalized request with a throaty chuckle, his arms immediately snaking around his waist to hold him there.

"Of course I did. But then, you probably know that one of the reasons why I decided to grow it out was to encourage you to do exactly what you're doing now."

I love it when you're agreeable, Schuldich. I will have to reward you...later.

But first...

"Ah, that was remarkable, Savil darling, all those swirling, frantic emotions. And all that UST! My, my. I almost wish I could read thoughts, for theirs' will be quite delicious, I'm sure."

He laid a hand on Schuldich's thigh and began to pet it. "You two will have to tell me everything you hear."

"Taste," Saffie corrected with a bit of a grin. "And of course I'll let you in on it. How could I disappoint your good, well, taste? Hmm? I don't know about my brother though..."

"You're the herald," Schuldich retorted amiably with a little smirk as he rubbed his thigh against his boyfriend's.

"What difference does that make?" This asked with a bit of a squeak on her part as she levered herself from her chair, and stretched like a ballerina doll once she was out of it. "Even Bradley knows how I feel about that. How we both do, Schu-baby. I should probably tell Aya."

"Should, but where will it get us? For being a Terran now, he's still holding up with that holier-than-thou white hunter routine." ::And I'm aware of the fact I sound like I enjoy it.::

::You should have seen him in the back of the Rolls then.::

"Between the two of us, we DID," speaking, she had rather ambled over towards the couch, and so stood now, as if waiting to show the two of them something. No malice in her eyes, for anyone. No mischief.

No, reading minds to this girl was about as comfy and homey as things could be. "...We DID convince Bradley to let me have a puppy. Thank you, Bradley. I still think it was awfully sweet of you."

"Where are you going again?" a suddenly chuckling Schuldich asked rather out of the blue.

"I'm going to play hide and seek with Nagi. The tea woke me up." A wink to Crawford. "Don't tell me where he is now. It'll be more fun if I have to find him myself."

She had bent down very close, as if meaning to kiss one of the two of them. Perhaps both. As it was, she did not. Once again. But rather spun away with a giggle and floated out the door after having taken a moment to pet her "puppy" behind the ears.

::I can't believe you still call it that (Referring to her intended "game"). Even if you weren't a telepath, you're too old for it.::

::I'm not sitting on your lap though? Am I ^_^?::

::Touch‚!::

The door finally latched. Schuldich grinned and turned to face his lover, taking a moment to cup his cheek with his hand. "Agreeable am I? You KNOW where thinking like that will get you."

The last words whispered onto the cigarette that dangled form Brad's mouth, sending the smoke up in feathery swirls that blinked out like hazy stars. But he behaved as his sister, merely hovering, sensing the sensual little ire at his sudden switch of persona. Formless as the smoke itself. One of his hands crept down into Bradley's pocket, stroked him along the hip for a moment, even as it reached for the silver case within. Half-lidded jade eyes still locked with searing blue, he continued, his hand snaking down along the ivory neck before him.

"Absolutely nowhere."

And just like that, as if by the graces of an overly-artistic scene cut, he was standing on the rug, twirling a pilfered cigarette in his left hand. He swayed about the room with it to some tuneless song of his own derision, taking a moment to light it on one of the candles that still burned atop the piano.

And then he slunk off to the deck, leaving a trail for Crawford to follow. His socks, his belt. His headband, his glasses. His shirt.

He stood, framed in the light of the two moons with a brightness near akin to that of fading or rising day -- save that he was cast all over in cyan, seeming to shift to transparent and back again with the will of the aurora overhead. The night remained warm with a breeze like breath all over his half-bare form. His hair fell in his eyes. He just stood though, enjoying his cigarette, enjoying being admired as he rolled the thing back and forth in his lips: kissed it, caressed it with his tongue. Tasted it.

Did his best to make Brad jealous.

Youji chuckled softly at that, glancing back at the Koneko in the rear view as they roared off.

"Maybe just a little around the edges."

One hand stole away from the steering wheel to come to rest on the supple curve of Omi's cheek. Gently grazed it from bone to jaw.

"But I suspect that'll wear away."

In time.

The sky was all purple and teal with twilight, and the crescent moon hovered just at the edge of the rooftop border. Rather dim it was, in comparison with the city's lights. It would look so much different away from the smoggy, neon-frosted sky of Tokyo.

Why, they'd even get to see the stars.

Him and Omi, lying on some grassy knoll, far from prying eyes, with the whole of the heavens above them.

Youji never thought he'd find himself relishing such a fantasy as that.

Without so much as a sidelong peek, he reached over and took Omi's hand in his own, and pressed the tender palm against his lips.

His many insistences regarding his age fled, and Omi, like a very small child, dreamily wiggled his fingers until they had slipped into Youji's soft mouth. Kissed him, where their lips were otherwise kept apart by the ever-changing processional of traffic.

"I didn't mean that, Youji-kun. I mean... I don't feel like I did yesterday. I don't feel all lonely and sad. That's what I meant by hurt."

A giggle.

"Defiantly not that. It's better, actually." And tracing his wet finger tips over the cheeks of his lover, he traced out a little tear, for no reason. No special one at least. "And maybe lonely and sad doesn't work either... I don't feel... well, I dunno actually, since it's gone."

"I feel alright... no, not just OK. I feel ALL RIGHT."

"Like I don't have to worry. Don't let me worry. Youji-kun..."

Finally, a red light, and he leaned over, pressing his cheek into the silk-wrapped shoulder. As if trying to make the sensation of the caress linger.

Ah, would that there were red lights at every other corner. Such pauses in the midst of the clamor of traffic and pedestrians were bliss, in Youji's opinion -- especially when he had a lovely someone by his side.

Of course, he had more than just a lovely someone: He had the person he loved curled up next to him, the warmth from Omi's body seeping gradually into his own.

Thawing him out, then making him shiver all over again.

You're so vulnerable, as if all I have to do is simply look at you and your heart will break.

But I don't ever want to break your heart.

"You don't have to worry, Omi. Not about me. Not about yourself."

He nuzzled the top of his head. "Cause I won't ever let anything happen to you."

And of that, Omi, you can be sure.

Only one thing remained for Omi to say, and he said it soft and proudly on the highway out of Tokyo. "I love you."

And then his eyes seemed to be dimming with his own deep, deep gold well of emotion, at least for a time until he found the spaces between buildings beginning to open up, their garishness melting as all of the city ran slowly away like thick fruit juice melting on one's tongue. More rice fields, less discos. More ordinary people in their ordinary lives, twirling and revolving in the suburbs not so far from the Saint Vitus Dance of their neighbors the Tokyoites. No, that world withered her and did so like a dying faerie in a Russian ballet -- with peace and beauty.

So as the lights began to die upon the ground, save for the fireflies now and again which could not be called creatures of the earth, his eyes fell upwards, onto the black heavens that faded to blue, lined with the reflection of where they had been.

Growing dimmer and dimmer and dimmer and...

"I see one, Youji-kun! I can see the stars!"

Youji glanced up then, and then again, eyes coasting from the road to the sky and back again like strobing emeralds. And then, when it was just their car moving across the asphalt, he looked up and let the twin lights linger on the void.

And he saw it. First one, then two, then a hundred, like a crowd of tiny, silver flames.

He hadn't laid eyes on the stars in a long, long time.

A glance over his shoulder, and Youji shifted lanes, and rolled off onto the shoulder. Let the car coast to a halt.

"All the stars," he said dreamily, as he laid his hands on the thick metal hooks above the windshield. "Universes, and comets, and black holes..."

The hooks gave way with a reluctant POP! Youji flexed his aching hands a few times, then pressed a button on the dash. A soft whir, and the leather top rose away from the frame, and swooned into its resting place above the trunk.

And all above them, the distant suns and planets winked and wavered.

Youji wonderingly admired the stunning view above him, then lovingly admired the glorious sight beside him, one hand coming to rest on Omi's cheek.

"And I love you too."

Omi sighed, genuinely at first, and then with a certain sort of tremble to his lips. "I don't remember the last time... I saw them. I wonder if I ever did."

And his eyes fell heavenward again, tracing out the rabbit on the nearly full moon, the spells of nothing betwixt the puddles of liquid light that shimmered so.

"It doesn't look so empty up there, does it? It seems like space is just filled with stars and you could walk between them if you wanted to. And all that empty space is crossed with roads we can't see... and there's nothing to slip on, nothing to make you loose your way, not that it would matter."

Sometimes I wonder if we're right about the stars -- if they are so far apart and just like us.

Silly me.

I'd rather wonder about myself though, since it wouldn't hurt anyone... if the stars were different. No one would mind.

No one would ever wish for all that darkness.

"But form here on earth, it's not so bad, is it?"

"No, it isn't."

Youji's left arm fell across the top of Omi's seat with a soft smack, fingers cupped around its headrest. Slunk down a little in his own and gazed up at the heavens. He felt like a rock star playing a ballad to a packed house -- or would have, if it were a little noisier. As it was, the only sound around them was the trill of crickets.

He groped for his fresh pack of cigs and his lighter in the door's catchall, and managed to get one tightly wrapped cylinder in his mouth and aflame onehanded. Smoke drifted out of his mouth in lazy ribbons, grey-white against the darkness.

"It's marvelous."

He slipped the back of his neck a gentle squeeze as he drew his hand away. The car leapt to life again in the next instant, and Youji smiled around the hastily replaced smoke as he prodded the car forward, and back onto the road.

"My little philosopher."

Omi said not, wished not, thought not. Only admired the blue-black glass of the nighttime world, and the brassy specter which now and again caught the headlights beside them. When there were headlights. And those had begun to dwindle... The hills came, and lines across the road began to fade until they had gone all together and the moon begun to sink. The clock on the dash told him midnight had long passed, and yet not even the slightest ache of sleep took him.

He first beheld the hotel as a dim glint caught above the hills in a nest of sakura, and stone as white as spirits. It looked like a painting or a fancy toy. Entirely too idyllic, and yet... here and there behind it rose drifts of steams into the cool evening air... no, morning air by now.

As they pulled into the parking lot which hovered in the eye of one lamp still lit in the lobby, one pinkish stretch of glowing fingers, he asked the last question that remained to trouble him...

"Youji-kun... are we... gonna look for them? If we can...? I know it seems kinda selfish to say that now but I..."

He sighed.

"...I can't help it."

"You can't help it...because you miss them?" Youji shot him a glance as he wheeled the car towards an empty space. "And because you're worried about them?"

And, I'm guessing you're wondering if they will end up slashing each other to ribbons even though they don't have their weapons.

The car purred to a halt, and the engine died with a whisper. The keys disappeared into his pocket with a jingle, but he made no move to get out. Instead, he half turned in his seat towards Omi, his arm across the back. Just like the few crucial moments after taking a date home. Would he or wouldn't he invite him in?

"Yeah, Omi, we'll look for them -- after we've gotten settled in our new home. Okay?"

He reached out with his fingers only to graze the dark gold strands of Omi's hair. "And don't worry too much about them. I don't think Aya'd let anything happen to Ken, and vice versa. No matter how much they've argued in the past."

Because you haven't seen what I've seen...

"Let's just enjoy our vacation, hm? Might be the last one we get for awhile."

"Ah, alright..." Omi began rather cautiously, feeling his fingers start to knot in his shirt with embarrassment. "I just... had to ask. I shouldn't have brought it up. I'm sorry but I... but... err..." And his shamed abashment became rather that of naughtiness, once again.

"...I'm game for sleeping in the car, although there IS what looks like a very nice hotel right over there. That and I don't think you want your seats to get all... cummy."

A long moment where even the crickets seemed to have some second thoughts about making any serious remarks.

"I did sleep till noon. I'm not exactly tired."

No grin at that, just a long, smoldering look wrapped in a haze of cigarette smoke. Youji tossed the still burning stick away and moved a little closer to Omi, locking eyes, one hand wandering up his arm.

"No, I don't want the seats to get all...cummy."

He tapped his fingers lightly over the curve of his bicep.

"Just the floor..."

Slid them under the thick strap of his tank to stroke the tender skin beneath it.

"And the bed..."

Pulled it down and kissed him there, swiping his tongue over his skin.

"Mmm...Especially the bed."

He leaned in close, threatening a kiss, and then with a sultry smile he was gone. The leather roof was raised and locked, and Youji climbed out of the car, dragging his duffel bag out of the back seat.

"Come on, Omi-ai. There's a bedroom I want you to see."

Into the lobby they swept, Youji trailing along behind his young lover. Of course, he made no move towards him, did nothing to give anyone the impression that they were -- Omi'd had heard enough whispering and cruel remarks for one day, and Youji didn't want to have an unhappy boy on his hands.

Just laughter and petting and drawn out kisses under the steamy, starry night sky.

The lobby was all pale green and cream and tan, in keeping with the bamboo plants that lounged before every window. "Moonlight Sonata" rose in the background from hidden speakers. Ceiling fans spun here and there. A sweating, full champagne glass of something deep rose and probably alcoholic rested on a water-logged napkin on the low coffee table in one cluster of chairs, but its owner was nowhere to be seen.

In his mind though, it was a woman of indiscriminate age with long, tanned hands and gold-painted nails -- rings of pink topaz and aquamarines dripping from every finger. So vivid was she, that he could just make out the slight upturn of her kohl rimmed eyes.

Then the piped music changed to Handel and he forgot all about her.

They'd gotten a curious look from the woman at the front desk when they approached, but she passed them their keys with an enigmatic smile and summoned a porter with the same.

A trip up the elevator, where Youji ravaged Omi with his eyes behind the man's back, and they were there. Youji pressed a few yen notes in his hand, telling him they would handle their baggage from there, and then, when the doors had closed and they were alone, he whipped the key in the lock and flung the door open. Hit the lights, set their cases inside, and then hefted the duffel over his shoulder and Omi into his arms.

"Just practicing. You understand," he purred as he carried him into the room.

There wasn't any furniture save for the king-sized bed, a TV and a long, low dresser. The illumination was provided by a series of soft, recessed lights, and by day, the curtained windows. And everything was in shades of blue, dark and light and occasionally tinged with green or violet. Cool and calm, as if they'd descended into a mermaid's cavern.

But then, perhaps he had.

A sweeping leer and a kiss on the side of the neck, and Youji set Omi down near the bed, dropping his bag on the floor at his feet.

"Mmm...I think I'm going to like this, Omi-ai."

"Me too..." a faintly awestruck Omi replied, his blue eyes dancing about the equally blue room, taking in both the beauty...

... and the spots that looked most inviting to various desires.

This is all but a love hotel, isn't it?

Manx... what were you suggesting by sending us both here?

There's one bed... one bed.

Yay! I don't have to push two together!

Almost as if suspicious of the validity of this aquamarine existence, this all-embracing puddle of peace they had tumbled into, he flopped down on the bed, intending to test the springs.

Only to be knocked backwards by his own force, mirrored by the liquid beneath him.

Youji laughed rather good-naturedly as he hung there, legs pointing straight up, waiting for the ripples beneath him to give up.

He himself, grinned immensely, finally managing to rock back to his feet. The two emerald eyes gleaming from the blueness never fell from him as he rubbed the spot on his shoulder where his last kiss had fallen, then rather candidly shuffled around, pretending to inspect the dresser. He bent over, and the eyes swam to his bottom.

I would have expected no less.

Allowing the distraction to take a hold of his companion's mind, he waited.

Then he whipped around, pouncing on Youji and knocking him flat into the bed, which gurgled and rocked in response to the weight that had so suddenly infringed upon its personal space. There, lying atop his lover, he whispered, "I thought of a game we could play. Interested?"

All Nagi had wanted was the dark and a bit of peace.

What he got instead was a room whose ceiling was strewn with blinking, multicolored lights and silver stars, and whose smoky air reverberated with the electronic throb of a drum machine. The crush of lovers dancing, drinking, mingling.

Laughing.

And in secret, velvet curtained corners, moaning.

Everyone was with someone -- everyone except for the slight, girlish, Japanese teen. Nagi was the only male on Terra (save for 'the dog') who wasn't part of a pair. And while he'd liked living the solitary life on Anti-Terra, on Terra...

...Everything had changed. He had changed. He was no longer quite so afraid of his companions. He felt slightly more in control of himself, as much as a 15 year old boy could be in control.

Oh, yes, he rather liked his new self.

He'd wandered around until an empty table finally came into view, and the boy hastened over to it, taking one of the seats next to the wall, and turning it so he could face the dance floor, which was covered with a mass of people undulating in sync with the music.

And as Nagi watched, he felt himself get swept away by it all, felt his burgeoning desire uncoil in his groin, and flow through him. He latched on to a couple who were more having sex than dancing. Hips thrusting and rocking, lips joined in kiss after kiss, eager hands roaming over (barely) clothed flesh. He knew he shouldn't watch, that he should look away, be embarrassed, but...

...He couldn't help but picture himself like that: Being held so tightly in someone's arms, pressed up against a wall and kissed and stripped and...

...And...

He closed his eyes, the picture swimming through his mind over and over, and fought the urge to touch himself.

The sound of something heavy and distinctly glasslike landing on the table fell upon his ears then, followed by a low voice.

"Your usual, sir."

Nagi's eyes sprang open and he found himself in the company of a dish full of two, very hot fudge drenched scoops of peppermint ice cream, and one very attractive, very familiar boy -- one he'd met his first night on Terra. One who spoke Japanese without a trace of his native French accent.

"Kombanwa, Nagi."

"Kombanwa, Olivier."

The boy, a seventeen year old with dark brown hair and catlike, gray eyes, broke into a grin. "I was wondering when you'd drop the honorific."

Nagi shrugged, and sat up in his seat, taking up the long spoon which lay on a cloth napkin beside the parfait glass. "Are you working tonight, or is this merely a social visit?"

"Both, actually."

"Hm?"

"I was going to come see you, but since you're here..." Richard sidled between the chairs of the two tables, so as to whisper in Nagi's ear.

"I get off in five minutes. Why don't we go...do something?"

The way Olivier had said those last two words, all husky and sweet and low, made Nagi want to kiss him.

Instead he locked eyes with him and slowly licked the spoon clean.

It seemed that he wouldn't have to take care of matters all by himself after all.

"I'll be waiting."

Just what I figured.

A thin smile stole over Ran's face just for a millisecond, and then it was back to partly cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms.

"It seems to me that you're too tired to do a lot of things, Fiona-chan."

He settled himself in the wingback's twin, and proceeded to remove his boots, tossing them in the general direction of the door. Then he sat back, and let his bones sink down. Nearly sighed.

I'm exhausted.

Damn this fever. Won't go away.

His bangs went back with a flip of his hand, and he closed his eyes and laid his head back.

"First of all, I don't consider it a torment for you to be around me. Second -- If you get a summons from your mistress, then by all means, leave. I wouldn't want her to beat you or starve you on account of me."

"Beat me? Starve me? I may be kept but I'm not a slave! She works me to death, and she makes me lick her in places you have not vested interest in. That's all. I thought I made that clear." And then her belligerence died a quiet little death. Mostly.

Well, he wants to be a crazy boy and baby a woman who anyone else would call their mother, so be it!

Girl, Fiona, Girl. You're just a girl. And a kept girl at that!

"OK, so maybe I should make that clear." That decided, input from Ran or not, she yawned, stretched and adjusted the angle of her bum to her seat. "There are a LOT of kept people on Terra, and I mean... probably like twenty percent of the population, counting the heralds, the mages, the MAIDSERVENTS, keeps or is kept. It's just what they do, since most people here have something nasty against marriage. Not that they couldn't get married here, the boys. Think it's a stupid straight thing though."

She listlessly rolled her head so her eyes were fixed straight on her companion's, closed or not. "And if anyone gets beat up around here, the person who did it usually ends up in a gutter somewhere on Antiterra."

A pause.

"My, aren't I cheerful. Not that you're doing any better. Trust me, you'll get used to the violets after awhile."

Hands folded loosely in his lap, Ran sat with his eyes closed and sifted through all Fiona had just told him.

She makes you lick her? That was a little bit too much information, kid.

Sounds like you don't really care for doing it, but yet you aren't a slave.

I think you are, Fiona-chan, but you're just too blind to see it.

He opened his eyes then, but stubbornly kept them trained on his linked hands, even though he sensed Fiona was watching him.

I always thought I'd get married too, someday, but...was that because I really wanted to...Or was it because my parents expected me to do it?

How would my life have gone if they never had died? If Aya had never been hurt?

He swept his eartails back, and folded his arms across his chest, and continued to brood.

I'm not so sure about anything now, really. Not that I ever really was before, back in Japan. Or Anti-Terra, or whatever.

All of what Fiona just told me -- it all smacks of...

...Of Ken.

He told me he was kept...

Ran's gaze lit at last upon Fiona.

"Tell me -- What happens to a kept person when his or her keeper dies?"

Fiona bit her lip inside in mock contemplation, or rather to keep herself from smirking in the latest of her small conquests of Ran and his attention.

And yet, she was all too willing to hand over the information as it were. Since otherwise, he's going to have to learn the hard way from god knows who else and... that would suck.

All blunt honesty intact, she went on. "Well, more or less the same thing that would happen if the keeper and the keepee in question were just 'regular' lovers. Not a lot of people here have kids, but then again, besides having no vested interest in them... well, let's not dwell on the obvious there."

She closed her eyes and stretched. "I any Terra dies, their current lover gets all their stuff. With kept people, the lines are just a little better defined, since things do get... sticky sometimes. Especially with threesomes and recent breakups. We just had a nasty one back in Valdemar, besides this one..."

A pause, she found the hanging question on her own with no further prompting. "Oh, and the kept one 'goes free' I guess you could say. Not to mention in Ken's case, Kaze hadn't been keeping anyone else since they broke up or whatever, which is why the villa's his."

Speaking of hanging questions, she rather gulped... Next up, "Hey! How the hell do you know about Kaze!?"

"Well, it's nice to know that personal privacy is held sacrosanct on Terra," he replied, dripping sarcasm. "Savil apparently doesn't know how to keep quiet."

With a disgusted huff, Ran tore his eyes away from Fiona, and looked up at the ceiling instead. The ceiling with its terracotta molding and Green Men in the corners.

You know so much about Ken. Just what do you know about me?

And if he's 'free' now, does that mean someone else can claim him?

Would I even want to do that? Make him my slave?

He closed his eyes with a weary, drawn-out sigh. "Well, then, Fiona-chan, since you'll probably tell at least one person (and here he thought of Savil) all about the crazy boy whom Ken brought back with him, then I think its only fair you tell me all you know about Ken and Kaze."

"And I have a feeling you know quite a bit."

Fiona blinked hard. Several times.

"Savil? You think... Savil told me this?" A loud dismissive huff. "If you want, I'll go back to my room and show you the letter where she said something along the lines of 'Not to go over the details of La Scandale again, but I find myself the herald of one Hidaka-dono...'."

For some reason, the end of that sentence refused to come to her, and rather she observed Ran's white throat as he craned his head back.

"Well, I know more about it than the ceiling does. Most people in Terra or The Planet would. We haven't exactly got any magazines floating around, but that doesn't mean we don't have GOSSIP. Why do you think I made a point of explaining who I was? So you wouldn't embarrass yourself in public with me."

Herself adequately put down for the time being, she folded her hands just below her ribs. "The story goes, I believe, that... well, three years ago by now, Ken and Kaze were both Terrans and they played for the J-league. Seems Kaze got into some huge gambling ring back on Antiterra and ended up drugging Ken to make the whole mess look like it was his fault, then leaving him for dead and blame. Something about a torched warehouse in there... Of course, no one knew this was the case until more recently. Oh no! We all pegged Kaze as the victim here as well! Serves us right I guess. Well, Kaze ended up sub boss of some assassin group working for Ivan the Good Enough, and Ivan the Terrible found out about it and had him killed."

"Now, you have to understand here, that Ken was horribly disgraced on Terra as well as Antiterra. Ending up on the bad side of the public eyes like that. They kicked him out. And now, months of red tape later, that's been retracted and he's the sole inheritor of what Kaze amassed back here while they were apart. Frankly I think they owe him a public apology too."

Ran fairly frowned -- no, more scowled at her. Huffed in irritation.

Why the hell would you care if I made a spectacle of myself around you?

Cause I doubt there's much that embarrasses you.

He twisted in his seat and swung his long legs over one of the arms, and mulled over all she'd told him. His scowl muting into a glare at the cold, electric fireplace which lay within the wall between their two chairs, but his bad mood hadn't been brought on solely by Fiona.

We'll be living in Kaze's house...

Where Ken lived. Where he...

Shi-mat-ta. I don't see an end to this...

I just wanted you to be happy, Ken, and to be happy with me. But now...

He folded his arms loosely across his chest.

"So now he's his own master. He's free. No one can claim ownership of him anymore?" He shot her a look out of the corner of his eye, but didn't bother to leave a space for her answer. She'd give that soon enough, of that he was certain.

"And just where is this villa anyway?"

Surfing on the rolling waves of the waterbed, Youji took the opportunity to rock his hips against Omi's, smirking slyly. His fingers creeping along the hem of Omi's tank top.

"A game?"

He wiggled his fingers up under it, to clutch at Omi's hips. Stroked his cotton-spandex covered rear, and his face smirk split into a proper grin.

"I am very, very interested indeed."

Youji slid his hands upwards under the tank until he met warm skin.

"What did you have in mind?"

"Well," Omi began, arching against those pesky, inviting fingers. "You always seem to know just where to touch me."

A chuckle, and fingers fell along the curves of his neck instead.

"Yes, just like that, Youji-kun. But I don't know just what you like." With a false, absent look, he cast his eyes away, and rose somewhat above his companion. Hovered there, just barely parted from him. "Where you like." One of his own hands chanced the belt buckle under his own. "So..."

The belt clattered into a corner.

"I propose you take off all your clothes and let me find out."

The buttons of that silk shirt suddenly seemed to be compelled to creep from their holes.

"It'll be more fun than you just telling me."

"You are a hentai."

Youji chuckled throatily then, and brought his hands back down to Omi's slim hips, squeezing him. "I rather like that in you."

With that he rolled over, taking Omi with him, swaying precariously on his hands and knees above him as the water sloshed within its hard rubber prison. Let his eyes rake over the sprawled body beneath his.

"You were doing a good job of undressing me, but..."

Youji backed off the mattress, and straightened up, catching Omi's eyes and holding them.

"If you want me to strip for you, Omi-ai..."

He slid his fingers down the open edges of his shirt front until they snagged on the first of the last two buttons left done up.

"I will."

Everything was done painfully slow, just to tease. The buttons left their holes between gingerly groping fingers, the black silk nudged off his shoulders with his thumbs to inch down his arms. The garment pooled around his bent elbows when he reached for the top button of his trousers.

The metallic squeak of a zipper, and Youji hooked his thumbs into his waistband and hitched them clear of his hips, little by little, to let them fall around his bare feet. The shirt soon followed.

He caressed himself through the black satin of his skimpy boxers, stroked his hips, then wriggled free of that last garment as well. Did a little turn, complete with ass twitch, and then walked back over to the bed, his half-erect sex bobbing gracefully in invitation as he moved.

Youji stretched out alongside Omi, silently relishing the hungry look on his lover's face.

"I'm all yours, Omi-ai."

Omi had to pry his hands from his own hips where they had been resting, fumbling of their own accord in the general direction of his crotch.

You have the sheer nerve to call me a hentai!!!!!!

His lips had parted, his eyes fallen half-lidded. His cheeks blushed... and they weren't exactly the only thing. Obviously.

"I would be..." he began, the rampant lust in his voice surprising him at first. "A fool among fools to decline this gift."

And then, as he reached over, cupping Youji's cheek with his palm before he kissed it.

"Ugh, excuse me. I'm still on that philosophical bit."

And then he laughed as he yanked off his tank with one hand and cracked his knuckles.

"Let's play. Let's see... where is my itoshi most sensitive? I wonder if it's... well, probably not his throat. It would be quite the coincidence if we both liked it there." He tried licking it anyway. "And some men have very sensitive underarms." Some especially wanton tickling there. "And he does like having his nipples rubbed, but I wonder, are they the sweetest part of him?"

Saying that, he leaned down and fastened his mouth over one.

It was all Youji could do not to thread his fingers through Omi's hair and hold him in that position, for having his chest, especially his nipples, pinched and fondled and toyed with was the one thing that drove him crazy.

His hands fisted the bedding, and a kittenish whimper broke from his lips as Omi kissed and licked him in that oh-so-sensitive spot.

"I..." he gasped, swallowing to regain a bit of composure, and more or less failing. "I think you've won the first round, Omi-ai..."

"Congratulations..."

"And on my third try!"

Hentai... if I didn't already think I was one, and wasn't thoroughly enjoying it, I think I'd be getting to it by now.

"So... you like that? Hmm..." Tweak, tweak.

That's really quite unusual... I mean, you were straight for so long, and woman are always expecting to have their nipples fondled and... well, no point in getting into how silly straight sex is now.

"Well... some night, I'll see if I can make you come just rubbing them. But for now, how about rough two?"

In rapid, giggling succession, Omi tickled the soles of Youji's feet, pinched his thighs and dipped his tongue in his belly button.

The tickling of his feet produced a yelping laugh. The pinching of his thighs made him chuckle. But having Omi's tongue in his navel made Youji gasp and twitch.

This time he did put his hand on the back of Omi's head to lovingly sift through his hair.

"You are an evil boy, positively wicked."

He ruffled his hair, and tucked his hand under his own head, propping it up a little for a better view.

"That's two you've won," he murmured, smiling like a contented cat. "Shall we go for three?"

"Oh yes! In fact..." Omi sat up at this, and quite delicately managed to remove his pants without leaving the bed. He ensconced himself in one corner, and fielded Youji's most puzzled expression with a wry grin and a drumming of his fingers on his own flushed thight.

"How about... we go... winner take all? Because I think I know one thing that always turns you on..."

A brief pause for a fit of giggles.

"Play with yourself and let me watch!"

Following Nagi through the ever people-drenched hallway on Terra, would have been, for the average person, rather like trying to fumble though satin after a piece of silk.

Not so for Sapphire Anne-Marie Marlow, who owing to familiarity rather than distinctness, found she could follow the little telekinetic just about anywhere -- that if his will had been a kite, she could have tied a string to it, and it would have hoisted her up, up and away to wherever the little fellow went.

And the kite! It wheeled higher and higher and higher!

With an emotion that, thanks to her brother and his various eclectic romantic romps over the years, she knew. Really, really well.

She could have cast up her shields at this, and gone for the thrill of ordinary sneaking. Only one place he could be going with a heart so full of creamy chocolate-peppermint...

...LUST.

But Nagi's lust happened to be quite yummy. Like ice cream. Funny how Naoe-san always ended up tasting like things he liked, or things he hated. One of the two. Peppermint for surprise, chocolate for the sauce of both kinds.

The Kira Kira Club was PACKED for it being an off night, so needless to say, no one particularly noticed her, and if they had, she happened to be worth little more than a murmur regarding how cute she was. And little.

Heralds got in everywhere, regardless of age. Once actually inside, she obliged herself to focus specifically on Nagi, even though certainly some other taste considerations bounced around. Looking for them in such a frightful crowd though... not very fun at all.

With no poke, no kick, no words, no explanation whatsoever, Savil flopped down in the chair across from her playmate.

"Found you."

The moment he became aware of Savil's presence, Nagi threw his shields up, and gave her the mildest of looks. As usual.

"So you have, even though I clearly didn't WANT to be found. My, aren't you clever?"

He dabbed at the corners of his mouth with the napkin, then dropped it back into his lap, spoon once more in hand, spirits somewhat low. So much for doing what he wanted behind Crawford's back.

"So Schuldich let his little watch imp escape from the demon's den, and you chose tonight of all nights to follow me." He took a frozen, fudge oozing bite of his dessert, and dabbed at his lips again. "I'm honored, but I suspect you'll find me quite the bore this evening, so...you'd be better off looking for your entertainment elsewhere."

"Annou, Anata kawaii na baka desu yo!" Savil purred, more than aware of her childish use of the language. "I think you're lots and lots of fun, Nagi-chan. You can't bore me. Don't be silly!"

::And that shield's up trick may work on my brother but not me. Sorry and all.::

Lines thought and uttered, she leaned forward on the table, a soft-focus grin stealing about her lips, even as with the same moments, her crystalline blue eyes seemed to be shifting out of childhood, being hers, and not being hers. Over and over...

"Besides, I can't exactly go back to the house now! Who knows what my brother and your guardian are doing! It isn't the least bit suitable for audiences under 17 I'm sure!"

Not a hint of sarcasm in the words, but they couldn't exactly be taking for anything but in the Kira Kira club with its lights so blotted out now and again with the shadows of those who chose to love... in public. "And I thought of a game we could play too! I do KNOW what you want Olivier to do... I know I'm a dreadful pain mostly, so how about I make it up to you... and... convince him a bit. He looks like a lot more fun than the dog!"

And swirling her finger in a puddle of pinkish condensation left by the ice cream. "Kinky too."

The spoon chimed like a bell in the ice cream smeared glass, and Nagi pushed it to one side. Daintily cleaned his sticky fingers on the napkin and tossed it onto the table next to it.

And he had noted her sly remark about his shield, but still it stayed in the upright and locked position, and defiantly so.

"I expect that sort of intrusion into my thoughts from your brother, Savil. However, he isn't a herald, and, for that matter, you aren't mine, and I don't believe I gave you permission to delve into my mind." This said simply because he resented the fact she could read and he could not; because she had caught up to him before he could even do anything truly interesting.

He leaned forward on his elbows, still as mild of mien, still as soft-spoken as usual. "Now why would you want to help me in my quest with Olivier? Running out of interesting things to gossip about with your ni-chan? Or do you simply like to watch, Savil?"

"Nagi-chan," She intoned once more. The syllables always seemed to pop on her tongue like super cold cherry soda. She loved them, every one. "If I stay out of your thoughts, they'll die with you someday." These words hung for sometime in mid air before the chiming of the synthetic treble cracked them and they hit the floor.

"But what fun is that to think about? Especially here. We're lived together awfully long ourselves though... you could almost be a brother to me too! And you should certainly know me well enough by now, that you would understand sometimes I do stuff because I feel like it. Maybe I just want to help you because I'm bored, or maybe I'm actually doing something nice." Then with a little stamp of her foot that nearly missed his own. "An' I do NOT gossip!"

Once more rather serene and contemplating summoning a waiter to bring her a glass of Perrier, she took a moment to look over the undulating crowd with a fondness that yes, had a definitely inkling of imphood. Being a herald was better than she ever could have hoped for... just the sense that she could pet any one of those boys she wanted. More or less.

Said with her eyes still far away. "But if you want me to go, I'll go."

Nagi studied Savil: Her shining, fluttering ribbons; her softly gleaming uniform; the absent look in her eye. Traced the line of her vision to the throbbing, grinding mass.

And then he shrugged.

"Stay or leave, Savil, I don't really care. You'll do what you want. You usually do."

He propped his chin on the heel of his hand, and glanced around the room. Saw Olivier say a word to another waiter. His amiable, would-be lover looked over at him then, and gave him a smile. The apron came off and he disappeared through the swinging doors leading to the kitchen.

Five minutes had come and gone, and now...

Nagi bit his lip, and looked over at Savil, murmuring, "What sort of encouragement were you wanting to give to Olivier anyway?"

"Oh, that special kind you can only get from the most talented interrogation masters... or your average telepath."

This offered casually as a comment on the weather, she finally faced her bemused companion, only to find that HE had looked away from her.

"We never get you any presents, Nagi-chan. I think it's high time you had one."

The pulse of the song began to waver and ripple into another, and for possibly the first time in years, a woman could be heard moaning, albeit a superficial digitized one.

In your embrace
Mercury and solace
Reach out for me
Reach out...

If they hadn't started it in the middle, I'd almost consider staying, but given the circumstances...

Without another word, she swung herself up from her seat, and bent down besides her companion, whispering into his ear. "How about we try it a little bit first, and you let me know if you can tell the difference..."

Then with great gaiety as she waved and vanished into the crowd.

"Ja! Nagi-chan."

Just like that, Olivier appeared at the kitchen door once again, not a trace of drug mind touches on him, not a waver to his step or smile.

Savil watched him cross the dance floor from a spot just hidden behind the door.

We'll see, dear, if you do any better than Tot.

::Ni-chan, doishita no?::

::Tot. She's dead.::

::I know.::

::You're too fast for your own good.::

::I did it.::

Crawford watched the shifting, blue-green patterns of the Terran aurora nocturnalis as if fell across his lover, giving him the appearance of an undine -- a decidedly moon-kissed sprite at that. Watched, with even more pleasure, the undulations of those lush lips around that oh-so-lucky cigarette.

He'd never been so envious of an inanimate object as he was at that moment.

Crawford refilled his teacup and removed his glasses and placed them back in their clamshell case. He wouldn't need them for what he planned to do, anyway.

Disobedient, and brash, and teasing. Now that's the Schuldich I'm used to.

I would ask, "Do you know what you're doing to me?" But I suspect you already know...

He picked up the cup and padded almost silently across the room, following the path of Schuldich's strewn clothing to the balcony.

And that wasn't exactly what I meant when I said I could think of better things for you to do with that mouth.

"You're very naughty, Schuldich, disobeying me."

A warm breeze danced across the balcony, tangling Schuldich's wild mane, and ruffling his own hair and tugging at his poet's garb as if it considered them an affront. As if he were. The thought made him smile.

He casually strolled over to where Schuldich was lounging, and came up to stand behind him. Lightly traced the curves of his shoulder with his little finger.

"I might have to punish you."

He drew his hand away, only to bring it up to Schuldich's neck, lifting the thick, shaggy veil away from his nape. Admired the long, milky swoop of his nape as he sipped at his still steaming liquid.

"But that doesn't surprise me in the least."

The cup wound up on the edge of the wide balcony rail, and Crawford's tea-warmed mouth wound up on the back of Schuldich's neck.

Schuldich left his eyes fall closed and his breath be taken quick and sexy from his lips. His free hand came up and caught the one buried in his hair, which he held for awhile, thoughtfully stroking. Though he chuckled with his mouth full of smoke in the end. "I know exactly what I'm doing to you, inside and out. Bradley, mon petit lapin."

Another lazy drag and the phantom lights above them flashes suddenly like aqua lighting in the heavens. "Don't act like that name annoys you now. There's a part of you that likes it. As for punishing me..."

He swayed then, with his whole form, and his jeans began to creep down his hips of their own accord. He made no effort to snatch after them. "I'm not in the mood. What can I do instead, hmm?"

This uttered, he took the hand he held, uncurling it's white ivory fingers, and sliding one of them into his mouth in place of the cigarette, which tumbled from his grasp leaving only a thread of thin fog in the air where it passed.

Brad didn't know where to look: At Schuldich's full, teal-stained lips sucking on his finger, or at the shadowy, partially exposed delineations of his groin -- or at any spot inbetween those two points, for that matter. Every inch of Schuldich was alluring.

But then his tongue slithered up and then down his finger, and all thoughts of voyeurism were forgotten. His eyes fell shut as the most pleasurable little twinges passed from his fingertip through him, straight to the center of his body.

The unexpected image of that talented tongue sweeping up and down his quickly hardening member popped into his head, and Crawford had to bite his lip to keep from moaning. Eyes closed languidly.

And from somewhere in his mind, he heard Schuldich's silent laugh.

He opened his eyes, and found himself staring at the spinning, twin pearls which the Terrans called their moons. Burning with desire, so close to the edge of losing the control he so cherished.

But then, Schuldich always had that effect on him.

Their eyes met, Crawford's glowing amber with lust, and he pulled his finger free, trailing it over Schuldich's jaw and down his throat.

"Seducer."

His finger rested there in the dip of his collarbone, and then in a blink, he had him. That hand back in his hair, the other tucked down in his sagging jeans to curve around one tantalizing cheek, Crawford claimed Schuldich with a searing, ravaging kiss.

::I seem to remember calling you that at least once... say... Chicago, five years ago?::

Thought, rather than said for the pure pleasure of meeting achy, bruising kiss, which he did with his own hands coming up to seize the open collar of his lover's shirt and tug him ever, ever closer. Somewhere into the swirling refracted heat of his ministrations. Nipping none to gentle on the lips below his own...

::I saw that.::

Giving Bradley a shove in the ribs to keep such a toothsome assault from his own mouth.

::I saw everything. I know what you want.::

A step away from the balcony and he pushed their hips together, almost nuzzling with his own.

::You're loosing it, Crawford.::

Speaking of loosing things, the lace of the poet's shirt found itself twined around the banister, one tip resting carelessly on the edge of the teacup. As for the shirt itself, that had the misfortune to tumble to the juniper bellow.

"Forget it. I want you. Screw the bed."

Ah, power struggles. There was nothing Crawford liked more.

And he liked the ones he had with his lover the best. Relished them in fact.

Usually he'd hold out, be stubborn, until he'd win, but...This time, he didn't feel like digging in his heels -- unless it was for leverage, of course.

All the better to thrust with, my dear.

Bare chest to sleek bare chest, Brad gingerly laved his savaged lip with the tip of his tongue.

I love it when you play rough.

Hooked both hands around the waistband of his jeans, pushing them completely clear of his hips.

Yes, Schuldich. I'm losing it. And it's all your fault...

Palmed his ass and rocked against him, involuntarily gasping from the maddening pressure on his aching groin.

...Demon...

"Forget the bed, and screw me instead."

Schuldich balanced against his lover for a moment, one of his legs curled around him, rocking back and forth to see if he could replicate that delicious little whimper he had just heard. He did, at least, he became fairly sure he did. Bradley's libido always had a curious bubbling effect on his nerves, like soft needles in his veins, if he let it in far enough... something he seldom managed to resist.

And he more or less ended up whimpering himself. How unbecoming... but he does better if I let him keep a little of that ego.

He does so much better, and all things considered.

He spoke between quick, cruel kisses. "It's funny... we're both so dominant... that ever time... we try to do this... we play to each other so much... we both end up begging to be submissive... but you know what...?"

No answer, just those two crystal bits of blue set on him like shards of an ancient dream from some myth of the Roman bards. If the roman's had demons or not, he smiled like one, not caring one way or the other.

"...no deal, Crawford."

Reaching down, he unhooked something from the twirls of the railing. Something that clanked rather loudly, and shortly snapped across his lover's wrists. Oh, not just handcuffs. Padlocked manacles which rolled to their edges in such a way that none of the pretty white skin beneath them met sharp edges.

And then he went to one of the hooks beside the balcony doors that were otherwise intended to be used for the All Saint's Day decorations, and hung him there, back to the cold stucco wall, with his arms looped above his head like a wreath of pearly satin.

To think you actually followed me out here knowing this was coming.

"Don't look so surprised."

Now this was different.

Usually, when he would play the sub, his hands and feet would still be unfettered. He could leave at anytime, in theory. No velvet ropes or padded cuffs for him; such things were reserved for Schuldich.

But now...

He tested the chain, and found he could only slide it an inch or two from side to side. Couldn't raise it over the hook either. As it was, he was nearly on tiptoe, as tall as he was.

No, he was trapped. Helpless. Out of control. He had no choice but to submit to Schuldich.

Never had he gotten so hard, so fast in his whole life. His skin broke out in goose bumps, and his nipples pebbled, all because of the cold at his back...

Because of the heat of Schuldich's gaze.

Brad tilted his head back against the rough, chilly wall, and regarded his lover. And you know that on occasion, I don't see the whole truth. Just flashes of it.

And with that, he threw up his shields, effectively blocking the German ought of his mind. And he smiled, briefly and evilly.

The chain grated against the hook as Crawford attempted to wriggle it over the hook. Tried and failed.

"Let me go, Schuldich. Now."

Schuldich pouted in consternation at so very suddenly being shut out of his lover's consciousness. But that pout proved about as long lived as Crawford's smile, if it did not perish the very moment it was born. He took a moment to crack the bones in his arms, performing the otherwise benign gesture as provocatively as he could, swishing has hair all around before smoothing it back from his puckish grin.

"Alright. I'll let you go. I won't touch you at all." A deep, crass little shrug and his eyes felt their way down the bare torso of one Bradley Crawford, eventually fingering their way onto his crotch. "I see. You might have shut me out of your head but... oh, I think a friend of yours has betrayed you."

He sidled most casually over to wall where he had hung his companion and took a moment to tweak only the very tip of his stiffness with one hand, while rubbing himself thoroughly with the other.

"What a shame to let such a nice cock go to waste... I don't think that's what you want, but, I can't exactly be sure."

He shamed a few agonizingly long moments of pondering.

Then ripped off Brad's pants and threw them to the same fate as his shirt, before reaching around and pushing just the very tip of his finger inside his lover.

"Let me back in your head or this is all you get."

Crawford arched and gasped at the minor intrusion -- a rather muted puff yes, but a gasp nonetheless. The finger made him burn inside, made him desperate, and he involuntarily thrust back on it, but found no relief.

Nor did he find any relief when he opened his eyes to look at his lover again -- his lover who was still stroking his rampant sex, with that savage look in his eyes.

And that lean, sinuous body...

Crawford's breath hitched in a pant in his chest.

Oh, no, he knew right then he wouldn't be able to hold out.

He caught Schuldig's eyes, and thought something, then squelched it, and reluctantly lowered his shields.

"They're down," he rasped, lowering his gaze to Schuldig's teasing hand, and then raking it slowly over his upper muscular body. He arched against him, brushing the tip of his penis across his lover's, the chain squeaking as he moved.

"Come inside, Schuldich."

::You don't need to ask twice...:: this drowned in a swell of mental laughs that rang even in his own ears like chimes of infinite metallic sugar. Not a sound passed his lips, nor movement took his body save a quick skittering away into the shade during which he seemed once more to be blinking, fading back to whatever ethereal creature he might have been, long, long ago...

Even though he made a very corporeal racket dragging the metal gardening stool over with his instep. This he placed before his bound lover, and climbed atop it himself as if it was a pedestal. And then he merely stood, watching Bradley pant defeatedly. Listened to him plead with nothing but the wrenching desire bleeding from his soul.

::I wonder how normal queers spend their evenings...?::

And then he did go inside. Twice. First he dove into Crawford's desire and swathed himself all over in the tickling feel of it, pushed their psyches together.

Fucked with his head, for want of a more coherent term. Watching him surrender shred by shred to that... he could have just stood there, watching him inside, and it would have been enough.

But a conquered kingdom is no fun unless claimed and ravaged in both spirit and body.

His hands crept down to his lover's thighs, scooping them up and clenching them to either side of his hips, holding their two members pressed close for one more moment before he lifted Bradley's ass away from the wall, tweaked it one more time and buried himself in it with one long, careless shove.

But between his body and his mind, it was Schuldich who began to moan and had to lean against his companion or loose himself completely.

"Got-cha."

A person with a lesser will would have been destroyed by such an assault, but for Crawford, it was a positively erotic experience.

His vision had dimmed, and he forgot how to speak, but it didn't matter. He had abandoned himself fully to his lover, had laid every corner of his mind open to him for the ultimate lay.

And no one did it better than Schuldich.

He had been filled thoroughly by him, inside and out, and oh, the pain was exquisite. Crawford let his head drop back against the cream-colored stone, and moaned. Thrashed a little in his bonds, panting, his hands lying at ineffective angles in the wide cuffs around his wrists.

Yes, you've got me...You always have had me...

Mein teufel...

He wriggled a little, thrusting his ass back in encouragement. He felt the warm trickle of what he guessed to be blood, but he didn't care about it. Just the pleasure/pain.

At last, he recovered his voice.

"Fuck me, Schuldich," he begged, wriggling again. "Touch me."

(ooc: I couldn't resist having him speak a little German to Schuldich. According to an online G-E/E-G dictionary I found-teufel means demon or devil. :shrugs:)

Schuldich said nothing in response, barely bothered to open his eyes. Rather, he jerked himself into his lover as hard as he could and set his grinning lips to his neck, outright biting the most tender stretches of his skin, then washing them with the rough heat of his tongue as he hitched their hips closer and closer together, smoothing the undersides with the tips of his fingers.

Tracing out arcane signs of possession and lust he could almost feel his digits melting into.

He could feel himself in Crawford, and the ghosts of his presence in the other body playing out in his own. Fading in and out of another like this... taking the head and the body.

Better than screwing himself, he'd always thought.

::That's the only reason I let you have me.::

This uttered in his mind, he nuzzled their nipples together, almost sweetly, but for merely a moment.

::But don't think I don't crave it.::

::That I don't go mad.::

And then he felt Bradley rip inside and groaned himself in the echoes of the ache.

::Oh I'm quite mad, even for a demon.:: More laughter, almost good natured. Kidding like a child. Of all things.

A gentle twist of his presence in Crawford's minds and both their eyes were open, gazing listlessly at one another's forms as they shook against each other. He dropped one thigh and ran his hand over the tight, wet spot where they found their forms joined, pulling away after a few empty sighs on behalf of his partner. His fingers came back shining with a dark, thin wetness.

"Oh Bradley, you're bleeding."

So he smeared the blood on his own lips and kissed him with his own pains.

Crawford lapped eagerly at Schuldich's sanguine mouth, tasting salt and metal. Licked him clean of his own fluids and plunged his tongue into his mouth, desperate to snatch a taste of his lover before Schuldich pulled back.

And he did, cruelly, only to thrust hard into him again, the passage much easier now, and paved with blood and semen. Groaning, Crawford met his savage attack with a hard thrust back, forcing him in a little further.

Make me bleed. Make me scream. Make me remember...

"Vampyr."

I know you crave it.

But I know there are more reasons than just that one why you keep coming back.

You're mine, Schuldich.

"Mine," he echoed fervently with hard-bitten, bloodstained lips. His eyes drifted shut, and he arched, rubbing the tip of his throbbing, rosy sex on Schuldich's stomach until his arms couldn't take the strain anymore.

Schuldich never heard that final 'mine'. He couldn't hear anything in the place he had plunged into. Hearing wasn't the word. No, this was the hollow of the deepest, darkest licorice candy, the bloody anise on lips and body as he started to loose it.

::You're mine, Schuldich.::

Not as words, not as taste, not as any human concept. Rather the rending, splitting, crawling image of concept. Everything and nothing. Everything they had ever known together crushed into one heartbeat. Flowing between two bodies, two minds.

Leaking between the worlds of sanity and pure delusion.

::And you love it don't you? All of THIS!::

In one almost vicious instant he dropped Crawford's legs and swallowed his tongue, his arms half-woven by then with those that were chained. Still pounding into him. The chain started to clank loudly and he gave it no heed. His ankles started to go out. His heart throbbed, as much as he hated to admit it.

With one final upwards crush, he climaxed and had to seize his lover to keep from falling over.

"I think I need another cigarette."

Crawford wanted to sob -- not from the pain, or the blood, or from any surge of useless emotion, but because he still had not cum. He tingled, fairly ached there. So close. So close.

But Crawford never cried.

Instead, he just sagged in his bonds as much as the chain would allow, panting and drained and blissed out from having his mind violated by his Schuldich.

And damn if he didn't love it.

He thought that very thing back at his sleekly glowing lover, as he watched him extract another clove stick from his silver case and light it. For one brief second, he could smell the spicy-sweetness of the cigarette over the violets; then the breeze picked up and it was gone.

But it was the only thing that was.

Crawford tugged on the chain, making it rattle angrily as he unsuccessfully tried to remove it from the hook.

"I gave you what you wanted, Schuldich."

Now give me what I want.

"My, aren't we spoiled." Schuldich yawned melodramatically, taking another liberally long drag from his cigarette... followed by his lover's thoughts.

::You're gonna make me hard again if you keep dwelling on it like that. Oh well, I'll just have to do you again, I suppose. And chances are, you won't get off then either, so I'll have another cigarette, and you'll dwell and... well, you get the idea. This could go on ALL NIGHT.::

If the flash of complete and utter mortification he caught had been a candy, he would have saved it for later just to think of tasting it.

"But then again..." they both jumped a bit at his sudden switch to auditory language, which he inflected, just to be annoying, with a thick, impenetrable Gaelic lilt. He took another puff and held it, slinking back to his bound lover and offering him a little flash of his own fancy. That one saucy image from over tea.

And then he kneeled, clasping his hands together in a blasphemous little joke between them as he blew the smoke over the weeping member before him.

::I'm not as ungrateful as you'd think.::

So he too a few moments to lick the blood from the battered thighs before him, tracing ever nearer, summoning even more moans before he finally swallowed Bradley whole.

Crawford stretched sensuously (as best as he could) at the feel of his lover's mouth on him.

Oh...Yes...

You are sinfully good at this...

But then you know that, I'm sure.

Crawford permitted himself a thrust or two into that delectible mouth, moaning with abandon as Schuldich's tongue caressed him.

"I...Ah!"

Ah...I'm about to...

So talented...in so many ways.

Will you swallow like a wicked little demon?

He bucked his hips, plunging forward wildly, the chain grinding against the hook as he soared upwards into the first ring of his orgasm.

::Flatterer.::

But just the same, he held the Bradley's penis and its seeped juices between his lips for many moments after everything had finished, thoughtfully kneading it with his lips. At last, he sat back on his heels, and made a big production of swallowing as noisily as he could, though a trickle of gleaming white still traced his smirk.

"Ah, but wouldn't it have been more wicked if I'd spit your own cum back into your mouth?"

No waiting for a reply. He climbed down off the stool and pushed it into a corner, sitting down cross-legged on the floor of the balcony where he took a moment to... enjoy the view as it was. Crawford outright gleamed with his own sweat and blood, was casting him probably the only gaze capable of expressing both rapture and sardonism.

Oh, his cigarette. By some graces of the fates, the thing was still lit. He plucked it up again and had a drag.

"You know, you look absolutely stunning there. If All Saint's Day wasn't so far off, I'd consider leaving you. But you might wilt. Oh well, we'll just have to do this again closer to the holidays."

What a fine, heady rush of ire to finish off the evening.

::I KNOW I'm gonna pay for this later. I'm just living it up now... how's THAT for precognition?:: Thought with a certain quick akin to raspberry sauce that almost seemed to add, "I look forward to the day."

Oh, yes, you will pay. And I'll enjoy mulling over the details of your...comeuppance in the meantime.

As usual...

Crawford looked him up and down, marveling over the tantalizing sight Schuldich made in the moonlight.

"Take me down, now, Demon. I want a smoke and shower and bed -- with you in it, of course."

"What, no fourth wish? I thought you overdo everything?" Schuldich dryly remarked as he forced one last puff from his cigarette. And then he leaned back as lewdly as he could, taking forever to sample the vapors, then get to his feet where he stretched once again. "I was thinking of making you ask nicely..."

He, at this, bent down at such an angle that a normal man would have gone screaming mad to see him there, unguarded but unreachable. Crawford just fumed. "...but then you'd be out here until Christmas." The key be retrieved from a small crack in the corner of the balcony, and rather than unhooking his lover first, he undid the padlocks at once, causing Bradley to fall to the ground with a clank and a thump.

He, himself, yawned conspicuously. "Well, I'm beat."

A few exchanged raised eyebrows, grumbles and inappropriate flashes of tongue as they stepped back inside, still quite naked.

Only to find Saffie standing in the middle of the rug in a half halo of light from the halfway burned out chandelier, holding... Crawford's pants. Upon seeing them, she performed a stage swoon. "Oh, forshame!" She cried only to go scuttling in the general direction of her room, having cast the garments over one of the arm chairs. And laughed. Her door had just slammed, when she ducked out of it once more, "Farfie! C'mere boy!"

Whereupon Farfarello rose from his rest, bounded over to her door, walked around in circles exactly five times, and curled up outside the painted panels after a few gleeful yaps.

"Dear sweet..." Crawford grumbled as he coolly walked over the armchair where his ripped, earth-and-leaf-stained garments lay draped. "Just what I wanted -- for my privates to be on display to a child."

And stop that infernal laughing, Schuldich.

He held up his trousers to the dim light, contemplating donning them again, then, shrugging, slung them and his shirt over his shoulder. Why bother now?

"At least she got Farfarello out of the living room," he added, shooting an exasperated look at the wheelchair from whence their knife-licking madman had sprung. "But still..."

"And speaking of incorrigible children, where do you suppose Nagi is?"

Crawford glanced back at the door then, then looked over at his lover. "I had no precognition regarding his latest little tantrum, so I dare not even guess. Can you...taste anything?"

Schuldich, back to his usual intractable self, did not oblige until his latest spat of physical giggles had subsided on its own, which too... well, quite frankly, forever. Especially judging from his lover's perturbed pout.

He only managed to get out one thought in the mean time, ::Yes'm, infernal. That's me all over, isn't it?::

Once more in control of his voice, he traversed the small hallway at the end of which stood his sister's door, leaned with the utmost care over Farfarello, (who growled) and rapped upon it just above the knob. "Saffie," Another fit of snickers wracked his form, "please be a dear and apologize to Bradley."

The answer happened to be preceded by the clank of a bottle or two hitting the mirrored surface of Savil's dresser, as she had, while listening to her brother's vain attempts to regain himself, sat down and begun to prepare herself for bed. "But YOU'RE the one's running around au naturelle! If anything, you should apologize to me! You're disgraceful!"

A pause as Schuldich contemplated a proper verbal rebuttal while still mentally aware she expected none, no apology and no guarantee this sort of thing wouldn't happen again. After all, this was at least the... he stopped to count, fifteenth time?

Still, and unasked for reply sailed from her quarters. "Nagi has gone clubbing, by the way. Isn't he just tooooo Japanese?"

Niigata, twelve years ago, January

Ken fell on his way home form school. This wasn't particularly unusual for a scrawny eight year old carrying a backpack full of grammar books and kanji boards, but he picked himself up out of the salty slush of the sidewalk without crying or uttering so much as a childish curse.

It had frosted over night and the sky at present had vanished beneath a mute, grey cloak -- smooth as colorless honey, heavy with the scent of drifting ice. Would it snow? He hoped so! In his little ways without much care for the drowsy traffic cops or his mother's sleeping garden. Oh, everything was sleepy this time of year! Except for him. He just wanted to play with his friends, preferably have snowball fights with them. The mere thought of it made him all restless and giggly inside. Almost uneasy.

That and he was far too old to cry. Only shiver a little when he saw the trickle of blood running down the palm he had caught himself on.

"Ewe!" Naturally, the wound went straight in his mouth. One handed, he popped the gate to his yard and started hopping across the stepping stones as if they lead the way across a pirate-laden sea.

Then from the other side of the wall, "Oi! KenKen!"

"Konnichi wa! Genki desu ka? KenKen ureshii ya!" He dropped his skipping game and pattered over to the fence, placing his feet carefully between the two young and now probably dead magnolias.

Kaze the neighbor's boy stood watching him. He could hear him kicking the bricks on his side, and though not allowed such fun himself, he smiled up at him. After all, not many eleven year olds bothered with third graders such as himself. How thrilling this one was his friend! "Hai, genki-genki." The elder boy sighed, taking a moment to swing himself partially over the wall. "Whatcha do to your hand?"

He giggled a little as Kaze's scarf tickled his wrist. "I fell. I'm Ok though!"

"Really? Itai! What a tough boy you are... what about your lip?"

Ken's tongue flickered down and came across a thin graze of leftover metallic crimson. "That's just from my cut."

"Ah, so da." His companion met his gaze with a droll little smile flickering on his own golden ones. He was used to being looked at that way, to a lot of things his friend did. Like now, when he reached down and ran his fingers over his lips. What a funny boy Kaze was. Ken smiled. "They're blue."

"I'm coooooooold."

They both laughed for awhile at how obvious everything was, but broke off suddenly. "Me too. Hey, you got homework?"

"A little." And copy work for his language class too!

"Err! You can do it later. Your mom's not home. Why don't you come over to my house for a little?"

Not only a friend's house, but on a weekday! And for no good reason! He couldn't believe his luck. He nodded, a great big grin on his face, and his companion shook his head and beckoned.

Ken left his things in the heap of shoes in his own entryway, grabbed his good house slippers, and dashed over to the neighbors, almost forgetting to lock the front gate again. The Koichirou's house was basically the same as his own, except for the glittering fact he didn't live there. The shoes all seemed much cleaner, the kitchen smelled of cinnamon and garlic.

And it was so bright! They had no curtains over their back sliding door. Between that and the white, ruffled table cloth, which wouldn't have lasted a day at his house, it looked as if it had snowed in here already.

Kaze stood at the cupbaords, leaning out of his own green slippers after something in one of the cupboards. "I'm gonna make us some cocoa. You can leave your coat on one of the chairs."

Ken did so, and at once did the only respectable thing for an eight year old finding himself near such a large, unspoiled pane of chilly glass. He breathed on it and rubbed out some nonsensical messages to the imaginary space aliens.

"Aw darn! The teakettle'll take forever to heat up! It's gonna be awhile." The elder boy breathed hard into his hands and rubbed them nosily, watching the silhouette of the other child sway back and forth over his work. "Let's sit down so we don't freeze our fingers off."

Ken shrugged and lopped down at one of the seats, yanking that filmy white coverlet he so envied over his lap.

His companion shook his head. "No silly! If no one's home, you don't do it like that! C'mere!" And hand on his own, pulling him underneath the table skirt to a tiny bubble world of toasty colorless steam wrapped around a tiny, gleaming space heater. The two of them were still just small enough to sit in their tiny house without bumping their heads. Wow! No grownup could do that!

"It's like a warm igloo."

"Yeah, I hide down here a lot on days like this."

"You sound old."

"Do I now. Maybe I am."

Ken stuck out his tongue and lunged for the best spot over the heater to warm his little finger tips. He wiggled his hands around as if washing them almost, but no matter how many dollops of imaginary soap he rinsed away, they always got cold again when he started to pull away, and so, he continued to hover over the most prized airspace.

"Don't have an mittens, huh?"

"I don't like gloves, they make my hands feel funny."

Kaze sighed and shook his head and propped one of his arms on his leg like a brash little hero boy. "I know something we can do that'll warm our hands up real fast."

"Sit on 'em? I don't like that either!"

"Even better."

He found this awfully hard to believe and made his dubious feelings quite known on his face.

"In fact it'll make you feel better all over, if you let me do it to you."

What a dumb thing to say! He made it sound as if he'd have to learn to do something... they were just hands, not division problems. But he'd show Kaze! He wasn't a silly little boy who'd turn down dares, probably what this was. "Ok. What?"

"Gimme your hand."

A moment of hesitation where he considered providing his right, but since that one happened to be hurt, he offered his left instead, still scowling playfully. He held it out as if offering something on his own part.

Something Kaze took too, along with his wrist as he tugged him over by it so they were sitting a bit closer than before. Close enough to smell the warm wool of each other's sweaters. He squeezed Ken's hand and rather gingerly cupped it over his own crotch, holding his own palm over it, not so tightly as to prevent escape, but tight enough to make him feel everything beneath his uniform.

Ken's big blue eyes grew even bigger.

"Go on, rub me a little. It feels really nice. I'll do it to you next, OK?"

Juvenile skepticism still in place, Ken did. Somewhat. More trying to reason out just why his friend was acting so odd, and how such an unimportant, if not utterly shameful place, could not be so to someone else. Ken still found himself the center of his little world, though this stood as his last day as ruler of all things he experienced. Though the only thing running through his mind as he ran his fingers up and down between Kaze's legs was that... this all had to be one of those grownup things! The one's they never told you about that were always so neat, or the ones you weren't allowed to have, even though they did no visible damage. And here he was, lucky enough to have a big kid who knew all about it.

But then Kaze started to make a really funny face, and he wrenched his hands away, giggling. "I didn't mean to hurt you!" But that expression, it was just too silly -- eyes squinted shut while his pouty girl lips wheezing.

"You didn't." Gasped and spoken with his eyes half open.

"But I made you get... umm... all... err..."

"Hard?"

Nodding. "Yeah, doesn't that HURT?"

"At first, but you gotta keep at it."

"..."

"Yeah REALLY!" A rather long pause. "You don't believe me, huh?"

"Nope."

"Fine then," Kaze sighed and rocked back onto his knees. "I'll show you." And one of his hands reached for Ken, brushing over his thighs.

He didn't know just why, but his cheeks suddenly burned and his knees clapped shut of their own accord. If this didn't get him a laugh, nothing would.

But his friend didn't laugh one bit. He just said, very softly... and close too. They were almost nose to nose. (His cheeks felt even hotter.) "You shy?"

No answer at first. He just glanced away, hoping he didn't start to fidget like he usually did when he was uncomfortable, but nodded a little.

"Why?"

"I dunno..."

"You don't do this to yourself?"

Geez Kaze! I was only eight!

"Umm..." Just when he figured he couldn't blush any harder, a reassuring arm draped over his shoulders... and he twitched a little under it, finally looking up to meet the all too weirdly kind gaze of his companion. "N-no..."

"Then I'll do it for you KenKen. Won't that be nice? I mean, c'mon? Aren't we friends? It's not like I'm gonna tell anyone." No waiting for an answer, he felt Kaze's hands go for the snap of his fly and though it made his jerk a little at the sudden contact, he didn't exactly start pulling away. Instead, he bit his lips inside and turned to look down at what the elder boy was doing, which proved to be more or less very slowly revealing his doremon underpants.

And then making his skin tingle all over as he reached inside and started to fumble with him.

I can't look back on that and say I was an innocent, that I didn't know what you were doing to me. Or that I didn't like it.

His own stiffness bloomed then, sudden and sharp. But no, he had to admit defeat.

"Kaze..." his voice seemed weak, and so did his legs.

"KenKen?"

"You were right..." And he laughed then, really loudly, bucking against the intrusive fingers with jejune abandon.

I can't even look back and say I regret that day, dreaming under the table with you...

"Hey, I'm just glad you're enjoying yourself. You had me worried for a minute there."

"How come and why... why..." Why is my mouth so wet all of a sudden? Why is my tummy all butterflies? Why do I feel like I'm going to scream? As it was, he moaned and started to shiver a little. And that only made him moan more.

The problem is... I have baggage! And a lot of it... and just because I used to love someone who wasn't you.

"You like it?"

"Umhm!"

"You really like it?"

"I..."

And I can't make myself be unhappy with him.

"Now it feels funny again... feels tight..."

The fingers against him came up and clasped him, giving him a good yank that made him cry out.

But then I can't make myself be happy with you.

"Hush up KenKen. Shh..." Spoken with no ridicule or anger, only a bit of a purr, as Kaze leaned forward, and brushed his lips to the little neighbor boy's.

Ken's eyes flew open and a million inherent questions poured from his mouth.

Before he found his companion's tongue in it.

Because I've never known anything else.

"I love you, KenKen."

As if the magic word had been uttered, somewhere between shock and pleasure, he of the two neighbor boys who had gone so smitten with each other, the one that was destined to someday kill the other, rocked into his first climax and started to cry.

After all, no one had ever said that to him before in his life.

He never really expected anyone else would.

And the more I try to make you understand, the more you keep pulling away from me.

"Oh Ran..."

His porter cleared her throat rather loudly and tapped him on the shoulder, seeming to wipe his thoughts clear now, send him back to himself.

On Terra.

Standing on the walkway around the glass ceiling, under the moons he had been whispering too for... how many minutes.

"Sorry..." He said. She shrugged, and gave the cart with the trunk of his old clothes on another tug as they resumed their journey to the hotel. He tipped her at the door and took his things up himself.

Watching his feet the whole time.

"So now he's his own master. He's free. No one can claim ownership of him anymore? And just where is this villa anyway?"

No I'm not.

But just the same, he stuffed his folder of documents under his arm and opened the door to his room, beaming at his lover and his lover's apparent guest.

Fiona cocked an eyebrow at him, but he didn't notice. "I'm... back."

"Uh...Aa. Okaeri..."

Ran promptly swung his legs off the chair's arm, and straightened up in his seat, sitting as stiffly as if he were in the presence of someone to whom he wished to make a good impression. Which he was, and he felt his insides twist and writhe accordingly.

Ken's glowing smile only made his nervousness worse.

"I ran into Fiona," Ran said, brows shivering in irritation as soon as he'd uttered the words; he had stated the obvious again. "She...showed me to the room."

Ran glanced down at his tightly laced hands, scowling at his awkwardness. "Obviously..."

He looked up at Ken again, fumbling for something to say, something neutral since he couldn't freely speak his mind.

His eyes lit upon the folder under his arm then, and he nodded towards it. "I...I take it everything went well?"

For once...

Ken felt his knees begin to finally set themselves still after so many minutes of nervous waiting... before his revelry of the past. The wondering, it ended.

And even if it was terrible, knowing, he still did.

Ran wasn't happy.

And nothing he could do remained to him.

But just as brightly, "Everything went awful but the good news is I'm done. I hate paperwork."

"And let me guess, Ysanne didn't shut up?"

"Ah..." Wait a second! That's... that's that awful woman's kept girl! What on earth... err... Terra... wait, that sounds funny. Anyway... I missed something here... "Something like that." He waved his hand dismissivly, stepping over to a glass and steel end table in the corner of the room, to drop off his papers before wheeling his trunk inside. "Thank you, Fiona for showing Ran around."

"No trouble." Honest and yet somehow sardonic at the same time. With a long stretch which she performed as if unused to any sort of space to enjoy such movement, Fiona rose from her chair. "Guess I better be off."

"Umm... you can stay in our herald quarters if you want."

Kept girl or not, mystery or not, he did NOT have the heart to send her back to her mage.

"Wow, thanks. Uriru... ja for now and all." This yawned, she seized her shoes and hobbled to an inconspicuous door on the other side of the room which she vanished behind without one second waiting for a reply.

"Oyasumi." Ken said anyway. So she's hurt... oh Ran, you hopeless noble...

And speaking of his hopeless noble, they held each other's eyes for a second before he turned away and popped the catches to his old steamer trunk of oily black leather and brass rivets. The one thing in it he truly wanted he'd already laid on top above the ocean of wrinkled dry cleaner's bags.

He stood up then, and still glancing shyly away, asked in a voice so low the fireplace almost swallowed it. "Umm... am I still allowed to brush your hair?"

Ah, don't be afraid of me. I...I just don't know what to do, Ken...

How to act...

I'm afraid to even touch you.

So...What if I let you...?

"Aa," Ran whispered, forcing himself to look away from Ken. He'd had to do it, so compelling was he. So dazzling to his eyes.

He shifted in his seat, casting about for the best way to position himself so that Ken could easily get at him without having to touch him very much. If he didn't want to.

At last, Ran slunk out of his chair and settled himself on the floor next to it, facing the fireplace. Still as nervous as before.

"Okay..."

Ken found himself oddly touched by the sheer innocence of the gesture, the unwitting selflessness.

Well, at least from where he stood in the world.

With a warm smile fading in across his lips, he crept over to the chair intended to be his, and sat down slowly, as if Ran was a cat he was trying not to frighten.

Even though he could tell by the tense tilt of his form that... he was. Nervous beyond belief. All the more reason to be gentle. At first he ran just the very tips of his fingers through the scarlet fluff, smoothing the worst of the strays, even though his right hand did creep down a bit, and caress Ran's temple as he curled his eartail back.

And then he finally reached for his silver-handled brush. One with bristles so fine and soft they felt as if they would do little good.

But they wouldn't scratch either. They couldn't. His first stroke with them ran down along one of the tails as he held it in his palm, watching it shimmer with an carnelian luster in the light of the fire. He snagged. Clumsy Ken! That had to pull. So the following motion he performed so very slowly, he could hardly even hear the faint scrape of the bristles. He held it for awhile, banishing the few little knots with the utmost care, gradually moving the brush closer to himself, onto the shorter silk that danced across the back of Ran's neck where it probably should have been trimmed a bit.

Even though it was all so wrong, for the first time in hours, he started to feel just a little bit right.

Ran, meanwhile, was on the verge of purring like the cat he more or less was. Little by little his muscles began to loosen from the knots his worrying had tied them in, and he drifted a little with every sweep of the brush. Drifted so much it was all he could do to hold himself away from Ken. It was hard not to lose himself in his companion's ministrations and collapse in the well between his legs.

Very hard, in fact; more than once he'd caught himself before he could collapse in the well between Ken's legs.

And it was hard not to moan a little in response, ever so softly. Innocently.

"It feels good, Ken, having you do this. No one's ever..."

The rhythm of the brush faltered then, just a little, and Ran broke off then, regretting that he'd even spoken in the first place, and hoping desperately that Ken wouldn't abandon him.

Ken only hung back for a moment... as if holding his hands, hovering away form his beloved would somehow quell the lump in his throat.

But then his hands fell back to work, just as sweetly as before, and he ran his unoccupied fingers over Ran's cheek and down onto his neck in apology.

"I'm glad," he choked out at last, swallowing deeply. And then in a much more relaxed voice. "I can do this for hours... I hope... well, I was hoping you wouldn't mind. You can tell me to stop if you want it's just..."

He leaned up from his seat, curled over, and kissed Ran on the forehead.

"I've wanted to do this for years..." I'd get jealous of the wind for getting to play in your hair when I couldn't. I'd be jealous of your mother, even though now I see... poor Ran. Even my mom... "...and I..."

Another upside down kiss. This one much longer, and he asked once he had finished, in a very low, unaccusatory tone. "You're forehead's really hot. Are you feeling alright?"

You kissed me.

Maybe then...Will you let me just...

Do this?

Ran leaned back then, carefully, so as not to startle Ken, still striving to keep his hands away from him. And then he felt like an utter fool when Ken kissed and departed a second time.

"It's nothing, really. It'll go away..."

"I guess I was a little sicker than I thought I was. But I'll live..."

Ran stared into the fire, silently wishing for him to resume his attentions. Wishing and pleading.

Please don't ask me any more questions about what happened today. I don't want this night to be spoiled.

"O-Okay. If you're sure..." Ken leaned back in his chair... well, not so far as to disturb Ran, or cause him to feel unwanted. Just far enough to steady his shoulders as he went back to brushing his hair, just as delicately as before, though he did let his hands steal over the unnaturally warm forehead now and again...

As if he'd get better so fast...

If course now but... I dunno, it just makes me wanna kick myself. That I didn't stay with you, knowing you weren't well.

"I'll stay." Unless you tell me to go... I don't know what else to do. I don't know the magic word. I can't help you right now... just this... even though I wish...

"I'm sorry, Ran." This offered with his fingers creeping down against his cheek once more. "I heard... some people got a little sick when they first came here but I... I'd never seen it myself. I should have said something. It's the violets..."

And then, with his hands still lost in his beloved's hair. "You're not... in any pain, are you?"

"No, I'm not in pain."

Well, maybe just here, in this gaping hole where what's left of my heart lies, but it's an old wound.

One that won't heal.

I wonder sometimes if it ever will.

I thought...But I guess that was all a fantasy.

At least...At least I have this. You, at my back and touching me so gently.

This is more than I ever thought I'd get, Ken.

"All the times I've worked with violets, I never thought the smell of them would make me sick," he murmured drowsily. What with the fever and Ken's hands in his hair and (every once in awhile) on his skin, it was getting harder for him to stay alert. "It's odd."

He tilted his head back a little, luxuriating in Ken's touch, and tentatively curled a hand around one of his companion's ankles.

So much for resolve.

"Gomen, Ken," he whispered.

"Ay -- ... Ran? You don't... ever have to say your sorry to me." Ken breathed with an eerily steady voice, sort of starting to rub the curious hand back with his bones, as utterly weird as that sounded and felt. The brush wound its way though his hair once more, than clacked on the table between the two armchairs as he set it down.

The two violet eyes look up to him, beseeching wordlessly, he tipped his head to one side as he gazed at them. They hung together, just like that, for a long while. The fire popped, something fell over in Fiona's room.

His hands finally side down Ran's back, coaxing him to stand with him. Both to their feet now, another moment of just gazing, followed by his palm on his beloved's forearm.

"Time for bed," he offered rather shyly. But just the same, lead him like a sleepy child to the room beyond that with the fireplace. The one with the satin-drenched clamshell bed that shimmered faintly like white wine in the simple light of the two moons that chased their ways down through the picture window. He turned on the single cream-crystal lamp and the sheets grew dim as the marble vanities that stood staring at each other. The mirror in the corner, a silver thing with doors like a magician's portal watched him as he sat Ran on the bed and rooted something out of one of the drawers.

Something he'd sent a note to be set up special.

A pair of red silk shortie pajamas he offered to his lover. "I'll be right back, alright?"

A little pat and he slipped into the bathroom where the sink started to run.

It was all snow and ice, pale as the moon -- the dwelling place of a sorceress more like, than just a simple hotel room.

The firelight tinted the door and its frame red-orange, and its warmth pervaded the vast space just enough for comfort. Not that Ran was entirely comfortable. He was, after all, sitting on a sinful-looking bed with his would-be, longed-for lover just around the corner.

Wondered if he would touch him at last. The idea of it made him feel queasy and excited all at once.

He turned the pajamas over and over in his hands, stroking them while he listened to the water flow and splash and drain in the bathroom beyond. As crimson as his hair they were, to perfection. It seemed a shame to refuse them, to tell Ken he never wore pajamas to bed. Someone had obviously gone to a great deal of trouble to get them.

Correction, Ran. Ken had gone through the trouble. Not 'someone'.

I mean, do you really think Savil cares what you sleep in?

He nearly laughed at that. Savil, care about him?

Around the corner, the water ceased to run, pulling Ran out of his fever bright musings. He glanced dumbly at the garments on his lap, then laid them aside, and began to cast off his own clothes. Folded them up and laid them on a chair, and hurriedly donned his gift.

And then he started to shiver. Vigorously rubbed his arms and wished for a fire as he flipped back the blankets and sheets and crawled under them, trying not to glance nervously towards the door as he awaited Ken's return.

"Damn Terran water systems! The water's always hot, the hotel rooms are freezing!" Ken whispered to himself as he batted his hands through the water, waiting for what seemed like forever for it to cool off. Naturally, it went frigid all of a sudden and he was obliged to pull his hand back.

Eventually, he managed to set it to cool and finish gathering up what he needed.

Rather haphazardly, he hung his jacket over one of the brass hooks for the towels and so went back into the bedroom, his upper half hidden only behind his rather thin blue tunic. Well, not to mention what he was somehow managing to carry without dropping.

Ran lay curled up under the sheets -- a streak of careless crimson against the golden beige. A bit of snow and two glassy purple eyes. The shadow of his one exposed hand.

"Aw," Ken chuckled. "I wanted to tuck you in." And then he finally realized if he didn't set his burden down, he was going to put it down inadvertently. A porcelain basin of water, two plush, milky soft washclothes, a saucer of pills and a little, full clear glass mug with clouds frosted on the sides.

"I brought you some aspirin for your fever if you want it... and some sleeping pills. I ah... can't sleep the first night in hotels. I didn't know if you felt that way too."

That pointed out, he took a seat on the edge of the bed, bare inches from the bundle beneath the sheets that happened to his be his lover, and dipped one of the and soaked one of the washcloths, only to grumble at himself for overdoing it. He then rang it out, shook it out.

And started tracing it over Ran's warm brow.

"Tuck me in, indeed," Ran groused, blushing slightly and giving him a look meant to be forbidding, but one which only came across as sleepy.

He couldn't help but tremble a little at the feel of the cold cloth when it touched his forehead, but the quivering passed over as quickly as it had begun. The chagrin -- and the guilty pleasure -- he felt over being cared for so would linger for much longer.

He wanted to give in and lose consciousness in sleep, but he just couldn't, not yet -- not while Ken was so close to him. Not while there was one thing he just had to know.

His one exposed hand crept across the satin snowdrift to weakly catch at the hem of his tunic.

"Will you stay with me?" he croaked, puzzling over why his tongue suddenly felt like it was made of rubber.

Ken, who had just pulled away for a moment to re-dip his washcloth, started a little at the simple request, the sensation of someone tugging on his shirt.

Or maybe just holding it.

He took forever to ring out the washcloth again, and did so with his eyes alighted on Ran's, his lips set firm and rather stiffly, in spite of the fact he knew inside... how deep and empty he must have looked right then. His head fell to one of his shoulders again, and he reached over, this time mopping at his beloved's cheeks. A few stray beads of water caught along his nose and ran down across his lips like tears.

It's not... very fair to you. If I do.

It's not fair to you if I go away.

The fingers remained twined in his tunic. Begging.

I can't just make myself better, but how can I leave you now, Ran? How can I desert you?

How can I do this to you?

He wiped her free hand on his jeans and placed it atop Ran's.

"Yeah... sure I will." And he pushed himself free, taking moment to soak the previously unused towel and drape it over the feverish brow. He stood. And smiled. Maybe shook his head just a little bit. It was hard to tell in the dim light. "Just let me put my PJ's on."

Back to the closet where he caught something filmy and blueberry colored before heading back to the bathroom.

Ran lay as Ken had left him: As limp as a doll amid the cream satin sea, and smiling slightly, for he felt as if he'd made a tiny bit of headway.

He knew he'd left him, and that he was just behind the next door, but that didn't stop him from going ahead and talking; it seemed the rise in temperature he was currently experiencing had loosened his tongue considerably, and along with it, lowered his defenses.

And he acted accordingly.

"I know you loved someone else. I...can accept it."

"I mean, you're a grown man. You would have a romantic past..."

Ran chuckled miserably at that, knowing that he couldn't boast of the same, and very much ashamed suddenly because of his lack in that area.

"But can't you love me, too? Can't you try...?"

"Because I...I love you, Ken. I know I told you that before, but I don't think you believe me. And I know it sounds stupid, and implausible perhaps, since I've been so tied up with Takatori and Aya..."

He frowned, and swiped at his damp bangs, knocking the cloth on his forehead slightly askew.

"But that's all my life has ever been...Honor and Duty. Always what needed to be done, what should be done..."

Ran licked his lips like a child, blinking blearily at the ceiling.

"I would wait...Ken...For you..."

When Ken first heard the little, drowsy voice on the other side of the door, his first reaction, which came, unfortunately, as he was trying to down a pair of indigo sleeping pills, happened to be, Oh no! He's delirious.

After all, Aya would never be so brashly understanding. So sweetly patronizing.

So fucking honest.

The mug in his hand started to quiver and lost some of its contents.

This isn't... Aya. I have to remember. It's Ran. And Ran... I could really hurt him, if I wasn't always careful with him, like he was made of glass, stupid as that sounds.

He found himself so profoundly touched at that moment, that his own reflection lost itself in recalled moments. Years. Hours.

Aya.

Whether because he didn't feel he had the right to see him so, or because he no longer had the strength to support the walking haze of tenuous and wild emotions he had become, he sank down to the ground with his back to the door, one of his hands combing though his hair and cradling his brow.

I think I already have...

Somehow, it was just easier to talk now. Somewhere between the door, the pills. Terra. He blamed them all.

"I never doubted you, Ran. Not about this. I didn't mean to make you..."

He could feel himself starting to curl up again, and let it come. Slumped against his own knees. Jeez, just like Ran did the night before.

"...I didn't mean to get so cold on you."

I couldn't help it. I couldn't... so even if it's silly, please believe me now. Please. I don't want to leave you. I don't want to hurt you I... I don't want to be alone anymore.

"I-I... it's that I... I don't know what's wrong with me. And I didn't want you to have to deal with that. It doesn't seem fair to me that you'd have to since... I really did want to help you. I mean, screw what happened to me. That was my fault. Mine. You didn't ask for anything like your life..."

"I did. I remember... doing it too."

A voice...Ken's voice...

Ran dragged his eyelids open and looked over at the bare space beside him, then at the closed bathroom door.

Still in there?

He lay there quietly after ascertaining Ken's whereabouts, but found himself no less enlightened than he had been before his impromptu speech. Still...he was lucid enough to realize that another tiny bit of progress had been made.

And lucid enough to get the tiniest bit angry -- just enough to make him climb out of bed and pad, hugging himself and shivering, over to the bathroom door to kneel before it.

"You can try to help me, but I can't try to help you? That's not the way it works, Ken..." he muttered.

Ran lay his head against the smooth, white-painted door.

"Maybe I want to deal with it...If you're going willing to take me on with all my hang-ups..."

"But maybe I'm wrong...What do I know about love, anyway?" He chuckled at that, self-mockingly.

He rocked back on his heels, and stared foggily at the closed door, wondering if he could get to his feet and get the door open without falling over and making a fool of himself.

And then his mind latched back onto Ken's last remark.

"What...do you remember doing, Ken?"

"Plenty, Ran. Hell, you made me feel wanted. Don't kid yourself."

A good natured little laugh and he leaned back, pressing his neck to the cold tablet of the door. Sighing. Smiling to the boy who couldn't see him.

The question still stood.

The one he hadn't answered. The one he had no intention of answering. Not all of him. At least.

The one he knew he'd falter on. And all this reminded him.

"Y'know, I read somewhere, that if you loose yourself? It doesn't go all at once. It's just little pieces of you, bits of who you are. But sooner or later, there's nothing left."

A shaking gulp. He hugged his knees close and closed his eyes to blot out the vanity lights.

"But what I'm thinking about right now? The day I signed the paper saying I was his. I was fourteen. Yeah right, like a paper was gonna make any difference. A paper's just one piece."

And I don't think it mattered one bit. Not to me.

I was already gone...

"Ok, so that's what I was thinking about. What about you? Don't be shy."

His knees lodged a protest by way of aching, and Ran turned around and huddled against the door.

"But you haven't lost everything, Ken, or I wouldn't have...I wouldn't love you as much as I do. There wouldn't have been anything left for me, or anyone to love."

"Do you hear me? I love you, Ken. You're the first person I've ever loved, and...it's hopeless isn't it?"

His eyes stung at that, and he closed them until the bitter emotion passed -- one which was quickly replaced by another from the simmering cauldron within him.

"So that's what I'm thinking about Ken. You."

The room swam before his eyes, and Ran, blinking furiously, sat back and watched it waver and spin as his frustration grew.

"You must think I'm pathetic. You must, or you wouldn't have brought me here. I wonder now if you even intended to have me stay after you 'saved' me." This last said with a nasty sneer.

"I know you still love Kaze, and that you...You belong to him." He twisted around to stare at the door, as if he could compel Ken to open the barrier with the intensity of his eyes alone. "But what does that mean exactly? Were you kept like Fiona-chan is?"

"W-were you his slave, Ken?"

Ran twisted around then, and slammed his trembling fist into the door. "Come out here and talk to me face to face!"

"I don't know what I was, Ran. I just know that I... I didn't want to... I wanted you to be happy for once. That's all. I hadn't thought that far ahead..."

I hadn't ever expected you to... to... want me back so much. It kinda... unnerved me. Kinda...

"I'm really scared, ok."

"And not of you..."

"I don't know about that either."

"I just... am."

A pause, another sip of water, though his voice didn't exactly come back to him. He wondered if anyone had heard his words besides him. If he had even said them at all.

"But I'm not coming out if you're gonna yell at me." Said with his face smashed into his legs as he hugged himself and heard the seems of his pajamas start to creek.

What the hell are you doing?

Didn't you hear him say he was scared?

And after what happened when you touched him...

Ran sighed resignedly, and flattened his hand against the door. Rested his head against it as well.

"I'm sorry, Ken. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"I won't yell at you. I wasn't really yelling at you then. I just..."

I love you, and you're hurting, and I want to help you.

I want you to be happy too.

"I'm scared too," he whispered. "So scared."

"Please, Ken...Come out and talk to me. I...I won't hurt you."

Ken shivered all over as he pulled himself out of his self-embrace. Rubbed his face as if the light bothered his skin. Rolled over so he was kneeling at the door as if it stood as his master. How ironic.

What of past it? If he opened the door? What would he see? An empty hotel room since he in truth had fallen ill and this was all a dream? The hallway with Youji's room across it and filled with the perfume of a lady who had never been there before and never would be again?

No, all those fears were but pale banishments of the one true one.

He couldn't shake the feeling if he opened the door, he would find Kaze, sitting on the bed, patting his bare lap, and waiting for him. Like nothing had changed.

But the offer of a voice, of someone who might be compelled to hear him. Someone... anyone...

Dream or not, he reached up and tilted the handle to the door until it would tilt no more, though still he tugged upon it. That was it? Just pull and he would know the truth?

He did. The hinges squeaked as he peered out, eyes downcast, lips trembling. Just like a bad little boy.

He was so glad to see Ran, he blushed all over and sighed with a long and stilted sadness. Beyond all hope, there he was. Leaning against the door, just has he had been.

Ken gave no more particular thought to it. Said nothing as he slowly parted the last of the barrier. Just stayed in place, looking ashamed. And quiet.

Feeling Ran's eyes trickle over him with some abashed and melancholic wonderment.

"I guess..." he finally offered, wringing his hands and smiling pathetically. "We can just be scared together then..."

Stillness passed over them once again. His hands ached and he didn't know why at first. He started to shiver then. The room was freezing, inside and out. He cursed himself for ordering such thin garb sent up for the two of them.

He cursed himself for everything he though he might have been.

Still shuddering though, Ken reached over with the utmost hesitation and pulled Ran into a loose embrace. Shaking all over and whimpering though he was.

"Ken. Oh, Ken."

Ran had returned the embrace at once, coaxing him closer and closer still until Ken was more or less in his lap. One hand petting the silky brown mop at his cheek, the other twirling circles over his back.

"Be scared with me, but...I hope you won't always be scared of me."

"I don't want to hurt you. I never have wanted that."

"Never..." he breathed against his temple as he bent his head to kiss him there.

"Please believe me."

"If you'll believe that it's not you I'm afraid of..." With wide, wet eyes, Ken gazed up at Ran who still, after his kiss, hovered just above his head.

His whole quaking body.

"What a pair we are... even if we weren't already the talk of the town..."

Ran did not seem to be particularly amused by this dark little jest, and in penance, he reached up, and caressed one of his flushed cheeks -- the roses sprung up on his ivory.

"Ai shite'ru."

But he started to pick himself up then. And Ran, carried them both to their feet. "Which is why I think you need to go back to bed. Just for awhile. I don't want you any sicker... and besides."

He stopped and rubbed his eyes after flopping down, hand in hand with Ran upon the covers.

"It's a lot warmer in bed."

So he pulled back the cover's and patted the stretch of satin beside him.

"I'll stay with you all night. I promise."

"It's warmer in bed now," Ran replied, pulling the blankets up to his neck with a feverish shudder, "since you're going to stay with me."

He rolled onto his side to gaze at him solemnly, holding Ken's hand to his chest.

"Tonight and every night if you want, Ken."

He cupped his cheek then, and, achingly slow, leaned over to tenderly kiss Ken. Pulled back just enough to whisper against his mouth, "Oyasumi."

"Aishite'ru."

Part 4   |   Story Index   |   Fanfiction