Part 12- Gardenias
[Version 2.0]

Three days had passed at the Hanano. 

Beneath his oversized sweats and T-shirts, Yuuji's skin was more faint blue-
yellow-green in hue than blood-purple now. He was moving around with far more 
ease than before, as well, which was a very good thing as they had entered the 
shop in time to find Ms. Higurashi in the process of taping the morning's first 
order to the edge of Omi's table, knowing they wouldn't miss it there. As it turned 
out, it was a very large order. Two hundred vases of white flowers, of which one 
Ms. Yagano didn't care what kind--only that the mix included gardenias. Yuuji 
had been set in a panic at that, and had wondered aloud if they indeed had enough 
of that said flower. The unflappable Ms. Higurashi assured them that they indeed 
had, before leaving for the city proper, and a day of shopping and dining with a 
friend. Yuuji watched the black-suited woman drift away with a wave, and 
wondered just why it was that she had agreed to take up the role of house- mother 
to a pair of assassins? Was that the only future for the women of Kritiker, should 
they survive that long? 

Try as he might, he just couldn't picture Queen in such a position. Couldn't see 
Manx or Birman doing it either. 

/Ah, well.../ 

He eased himself down on his stool, second cup of coffee in hand, and admired 
the dye job the sun had given the street past their window. Admired Omi in the 
sweet glow when he wound up near said window to fuss over the orchids, the 
Hanano's latest display. The boy looked far healthier, and far, far more happier 
than he had just a few days ago, and he knew it had less to do with the illusion of 
sunlight and more to do with the fact that Kudou was out of his life. 

And...maybe all the affection he had heaped on him ever since he'd brought him 
home had helped. Yuuji hoped so. 

As if he had someone divined the drift of his thoughts, Omi turned around and 
caught his eye. Gave him a bright, genuine smile, and made him smile in return. 

Made him get to his feet with a yawn and a bit of a stretch, the 
first he'd been able to stand since his last mission. He walked over to Omi and 
pulled him close with his good arm. 

And then he kissed him deeply and sweetly, right there in the 
Hanano's front window, in view of any and all passers-by, all without giving one 
damn about what anyone thought.

***

Omi squealing in frustration, smiling in spite of himself as he reached over and 
pulled the blinds shut with a little yank.

But once they were down and stuttering about their rough treatment, he cupped 
Yuuji's soft cheeks in his fingers and held him still as he kissed him, traced the 
inside of all of his mouth with little wavering ripples of his own.

When he got a confused little pout, he assumed it was about the shades.

"Hey! You be careful now holding me! You're still all scratched up."

The embrace only deepened, and he could not say then that he minded.  "Can't say 
I mind though."

"When you hold me I mean..."

And then this mumbled into Yuuji's chest.

"Or that Higurashi-san actually has a life, unlike Momoe-san."  A few arched 
eyebrows on both of their parts.  Yuuji chuckled.  He himself got catty and 
pinched his bottom before scuttling away to the fridge.  "You know, next week 
when she goes out, and when I'm all better, we'll have to take an early lunch."

With a wink then, he got to his toes, leaning into the case in such a way his jeans 
pulled especially tight over his ass, verifying for the curious that he had on no 
undergarments to speak of.  Not to mention that he winced.  "Ita-... damnit!"  But 
rather than rubbing the corduroy over his stitches, he popped his finger in his 
mouth and sucked it noisily for a moment.  "Now just what on earth could have... 
I've got a paper cut! That can't be! There's no..."

But then he saw, lying on the floor amid a shattered pool of swiftly surrendering 
ice crystals, a note, on some very fine parchment which had fallen to the ground 
when he jerked his hand away.

"Now this is ODD! Ken's never been here but..."

He was too excited to worry over the annoying particulars of physics and time, 
but with a giggle, he stooped- albeit slower than he would have liked too -and 
plucked the note up, shaking it clean so that the ink wouldn't run anymore than it 
had.

*** 

Yuuji scampered forward and snatched the note away from his unsuspecting 
lover's hand, leaving him only with one torn corner of parchment. "What's this?" 
he asked, waving the stiff paper over his head. "A love letter from a secret 
admirer?"

Omi made to grab it back, but Yuuji hooked him around the waist, and pulled him 
close. "Uh-uh-uhhh! You're still injured. No jumping." 

That got him a frown and a grumble, and Omi's hands clutching after it all over 
again. Yuuji only laughed and swooped down for a kiss, trapping his wrists in one 
hand, much to the boy's aggravation.  "Now," the blond assassin began, shaking 
out the note with a laugh, "let's just see who's been leaving notes lying about for 
Weiss' youngest member to find, hm?" 

"'Dear Omi...'" he read as his eyes sought the first line. "Ah ha! I knew it! It is for 
you! Well, well. I wonder what else she or he has to say..."

Of course, he found out just what that was and to whom, and his face reflected it, 
now all serious and sorrowed. Omi seemed to have picked up on his abrupt 
change of mood, for he stopped squirming and now stood quietly against him, 
eyes wide with concern. When Yuuji finished reading, and lowered the letter at 
last, he gazed into those eyes for what seemed an age.

Then he let him go, and reluctantly held the letter out to him. There was no point 
in hiding the truth, not from Omi. Not from anyone. 

"It is a love letter, Omi, but it's not from a stranger."

***

"It's from Ken! I knew it was from Ken!" For the few patrons who were just now 
coming to the door, or perhaps because of their presence,  Omi could not help but 
sound like a first-grader who has waited many minutes by the window for the 
appearance of a distant but beloved relative. He blushed over it, winked at the 
visiting ladies, and hoped Yuuji noted the change, the little nuances of it, even as 
his lover so very reluctantly slipped off to attended to the latest desires of those 
seeking flowers in the `burbs.

"It's from Aya, Ken just addressed it."

Omi read and Omi sighed as wistful as a summer's day. When all was Through, 
he held the paper to his chest, and wore what ink escaped it and the blossom ice 
upon it all day long, with no complaints. He brought the ladies lupines and tulips. 
They left and once more he cleaved to Yuuji.

"Why do you looks so sad? It's from our friends. We were right, 
Sapphire was right. They are lovers and they're OK too! It makes me want to go 
eat a whole rollcake I'm so happy. For them, and for us too, because we don't have 
to worry, at least not as much. I mean, sure, it makes us miss them but... it's Ok to 
miss people, you know. Even if you can't ever see them again. But that's not true 
for us. We can! This proves it, even if it is funny, even if I have no clue how it got 
here, or where exactly they are..."

A pouty little mosey of their hips together. "Love letter indeed."

And then a sigh. 

"Sorry I got all gooey on you... but hey! You tussled with me too and you've still 
got stitches!"

***

"You aren't upset about all those references to Kuudou? I thought you would 
be...Not that I mind that you aren't." Yuuji smiled down at Omi's upturned face 
then, and flicked his bangs away from his forehead, baring it for a kiss. Gave him 
a cuddle, and a
countering nudge of his hips. 

"And you do know that Ran never makes promises he can't keep, don't you? " He 
chuckled as soon as he'd made that remark, realizing just how ridiculous it 
sounded. "Yeah, I guess you do at that, having lived and worked with him for as 
long as you have.  So...It's only a matter of time before he comes back here, him 
and Ken both." 

/And I hope I'm around to see him, even if he has nothing to say to me. Even if he 
does, and it's all bad. I don't care./

/It'd be nice to see him happy for a change./

"But I'm not so stitched up and sore that I can't tussle with you. A man has to have 
some pleasures, and, since we haven't been able to indulge in the more obvious 
ones..." Here, Yuuji bent and kissed him deeply. Smirked. "Perhaps we'll have to 
see about making up a few new games to occupy us while we both heal, hm? 
After we celebrate of course!" 

He brazenly slid his hands around Omi's waist, and down to cup his ass. 
"Whaddya think? Want to go out somewhere tonight? A club, or a bar? And 
maybe afterwards, we'll go pick up a rollcake on the way back home."

"Of course," he added, "we could always buy the rollcake and eat it in bed. 
Naked."

***

Omi gasped, looking a brazenly false offended, though he did clap his hand across 
his giggling lips, and take a step backwards, as if in genuine moral shock.

"Why Honjyou Yuuji! How dare you say such a thing! Imagine, the mere idea I 
would want to do such a thing as going OUT when I could have roll cake naked in 
bed with you! Why, I'm offended you would EVER take me as so... so..."

He slid back to him then, hands behind his back after he had beckoned him to 
stoop.  One they had come close enough, he seductively tongued a single loose 
ringlet of his lover's blond hair.  "Normal, because as you may have figured out..."

The door jingled once again and a pair of nervous boyfriends preparing each for a 
one year anniversary came and asked of them for flowers pretty enough for the 
goddesses in their wallets, which turned out to be rather ordinary sisters.  Or at 
least, Omi found them ordinary.

But Omi didn't like girls.

And Omi was in too good a mood to worry over it.  They two remaining Weiss 
boys (perhaps one and a half) prepared one bouquet each, and he did well himself, 
despite glancing over and over again at his still chilly leaf of parchment.  

When they were alone, he took it up, read it once more.  "Yuuji? I'm gonna run 
upstairs a minute.  I'll be right back."

A nod, and a blown kiss and he hurried off.  First to the freezers where he tamed 
himself a red rose and a gentian- both with barely nubile stems he threaded with a 
stalk of baby's breath as he made his way to their room.

His and Yuuji's room that was.  

His shelf he had relocated here, and it was nailed more or less to the wall where 
the accidental angle of the nails didn't permit it to be quite flush with the drywall.  
Atop it lay Ken's gloves, the fingers of one Omi had moved across the blade as if 
they held it.  Ken's Leopard Special gundam- the one that rattled a little because 
Yuuji had gotten ash in one of the leg assemblies before it was glued together -
and the picture of Aya when he was so much younger remained; the single image 
he possessed of Ken's shadow sat beneath it, under the runner where it covered 
the space beneath their teacups, for it deserved to be there, and yet he did not wish 
to see it.

He put the note there on the shelf too, between the teacups.

And the flowers too.  But with no water, so they would only last the day, just like 
the ones for the past three days, whose petals he had saved.  One, two, three and 
four... how many roses would die before he could see Aya? One and two, three 
four? How many gentians would meet their ends before he could hug Ken and say 
he had missed him?

He almost added this to his list of idle musings, but that seemed a million years 
old, and not fit to be disturbed.  

With a sigh, he started out the door, only to catch a thread of red outside.  A peek 
behind the curtains revealed it was Manx, coming in the back way.

Omi left his flowers to fade and went to greet her instead.

***   

Yuuji had seen Manx pass by, pausing before the orchid display with the air of 
someone doing a bit of window shopping on her lunch hour.  Of course, she was 
looking more for assassins than fragile hothouse blooms, and, with a slight cock 
of her head and a quick glance around, she headed down the alley. Yuuji left off 
doing gardenia arrangement #12, and, after flipping over the door's the 'out-to-
lunch' sign, went to the back to meet her. 

"Ah," she said as she threw the lock on the door, "I was hoping you'd be up and 
around today, Yuuji." 

He exchanged a look with Omi. "Oh? Why's that?"

She shot a glance in the direction of the shop. "Are you two alone?"

Yuuji nodded, and she reached into her purse, and drew out a black plastic video 
case from its depths. "I have something here you two might find interesting." 

A slow grin split his face. Yuuji stepped aside, and gestured for her to go ahead. 
"After you, Manx-san." 

***

For the second time in a row, Naru managed to avoid bashing the back of his head 
on the rim of the low concrete wall he was leaning against, one that, like most 
concrete walls, happened to be a good deal less forgiving than the headboard he 
usually took to assaulting when he was frustrated. Or had done something he 
found in retrospect to be asinine in one form or another. Usually the latter. And 
always his own fault, not that of the fizzy salvation. Such was his luck.

"To only do dumb shit when I'm sober. O basta la!"

But then again, he had never awakened after a night of being 
companionable with beer cans to find himself huddled in the corner of a roof, a 
laptop precariously balanced on his thighs, not to mention protesting wildly about 
having to run four copies of a remote control program.

For the four minicams he had set up around today's target. Which had also been 
yesterday's target and was looking to hold the title tomorrow as well. Its past three 
wins made it the returning favorite.

"Ah, thanks be to god for granting unto me one internet banner with an add that 
wasn't too good to be true!"

After all, he could have been stuck on the roof wiping sweat off a pair of 
binoculars.

As it was, he happened to be stuck on the roof with a dead cell phone.

Sighing, he reached into his cooler, fanned some of the chilly air from it onto his 
face, and took out two more servings of Asahi. He held one, tucked the other in 
his corner, and waved his finger at those still in the cooler.  "The rest of you ladies 
shall have to wait until after lunch."

And with that, his fingers leaving streaks in the condensation as 
they wriggled about the cold surface, looking for a hold that wasn't quite so frigid, 
he crawled across the roof, though the shadows of bonsai trees and sweet potato 
gardens on wheels to his inadvertent companion.

"Pardon me," he began, speaking with his hands clasped together. He would have 
bowed, but they were bother already crouching to avoid popping up above rim of 
the roof and thereby blowing their cover. "I know we, on the first day of our 
mutual occupation of this space for somewhat illicit purposes, agreed to keep 
from one another's business, but I fear the battery of my accursed neologism has 
rather expired on me and..."

Mitsuki, herself attached to a pair of the binoculars such as he had avoided, 
reached into her sequined purse without so much as looking away once from 
Hanano and handed him a neon blue light up mini-phone. "Take it, you weirdie."

"A thousand thanks, Memsahib. Please accept this as a token of my 
gratitude."

The can grated across the roof to hover inches from her naked knees. Only then 
did she regard him, only to find him already 
dialing. "Sapporo's better, but this ain't bad." This said to herself, she pulled the 
tab and chugged, smacking her lips when she came up for air.

As for Naru... "Hullo... yes... of course it's... sadly so... same as yesterday 
morning... yes'm, a veritable wellspring of hard-core nothing... that too... not so 
far... yes, she was... no, I think this is getting ridiculous... no, I meant about not 
telling... I see... interesting... well, we'll go then! But I haven't got a... right. I 
wouldn't let me drive either. Ah, you really are quite that... oh, alright. Adieu, 
adieu for now, good sir." He hung up then, and smiling, returned Mitsuki's phone. 
"You don't ask me what I'm doing here, and I shall return the favor then thousand 
fold. Even though that is rather a silly idea, because ten thousand nothings is still 
nothing."

"Whatever. Hey, you SURE now that red-headed chick's not important?"

He waved his hand dismissively. "I was here the day before you, so yes, I do 
know. She is nothing but one of their distributors, albeit a snappy dresser of one."

"Egh, OK. Not what I'm waiting for anyway." A shrug, which they shared. The 
only thing besides the beer and the rooftop. 

"I still think you should have a notebook."

"I only have one thing and that's a plan that doesn't involve a notebook."

They parted without trivialities. Naru opened up his own red spiral bound, 
marveling over how non-professional his margin doodles had become, not to 
mention raunchy. Beneath "8:30- Yuuji awakens suddenly, tries not to startle Omi 
but still takes a piss with the door open just like he did that one week we all lived 
at Haruna-Jo's" and "10:10- the shop is open for business! Nymphets by the dozen 
are late for school!" he penciled in "11:37- Miss Manx, I presume? Shop closed 
momentarily. Gardenias left to the ravages of dry air." 

Mitsuki, meanwhile, tore down into the lobby of the apartment they were perched 
atop and there was unspeakably sick. 

Naru wrote that in too because he still hadn't managed to figure out who else was 
stalking Weiss.  One of his cameras flashed a quick image of a looker- well, a 
looker for Naru.  A dark-haired dramatic sort.  Since nothing was happening at 
Hanano, he had all the cameras pan after him, and having done so, laughed at 
himself for far too many reasons.

(OOC: O basta la- Is that so? [Super sarcastic]

Haruna-Jo's- Camilla girl's.  Presumably, a shop the Crashers once worked at.)

***

In the downstairs room they used for such events, the two Weiss and their Kritiker 
contact gathered around the big screen TV to glean the details of their latest 
mission. The familiar silhouette of a man long dead appeared on the screen, 
accompanied by his electronically preserved voice. 

"Weiss. We have received word of a series of disappearances in the greater Tokyo 
area. To date, fifteen people are missing, most of them are in their teens, the rest 
in their twenties. None of the disappearances are concentrated in one particular 
area, and on occasion people are reported missing on the same night, in two 
different areas of the city. Police reports say that these occurrences have been 
going on for the past two months, and, though still under investigation, they have 
yet to make any strong leads in the case." 

Persia's shadow gave way to a picture of a smiling, bespectacled high-school girl. 

"Last week, the body of a 17 year old girl, one Minamoto Mikage, was found 
floating in the harbor by some fishermen. Her parents had reported her missing 
about two weeks ago, when she didn't return home after visiting a friend's house. 
An autopsy revealed she had been beaten, and there were traces of morphine in 
her blood, suggesting heroin use. Her parents claim she never used drugs, and 
interviews conducted with her teachers and friends back up their claims. The 
authorities so far are continuing to suspect foul play." 

Once more, Persia's silhouette appeared on screen.

"The person or persons behind these kidnapings, behind this murder must be 
brought to justice! White hunters, go forth and destroy the beasts of darkness!"

Manx aimed the VCR's remote at the machine and the tape oozed 
out. "Questions?"

Yuuji slung an arm across the sofa back, and lit a cigarette. "Are there any 
suspects at all?" 

"Well..." Manx opened the black leather folder she had brought along, and pulled 
out a snapshot. This she laid on the table facing them, tapping one nail on its 
edge--a picture of a graying, middle aged man who bore a thin scar across his 
right brow. "This is Aiguma Masami, a local yakuza ring leader. Dabbles in 
everything: prostitution, drugs, smuggling, you name it. He's quite the slippery 
one--those rare times he's actually been pinned with a crime, he never ends up in 
jail. Those who plan to testify against him wind up missing." She waved a hand at 
the TV. "All that you've heard today smacks of how he operates."

"No pattern to the Kidnapings?" 

"None. From all appearances they are totally at random. A few of 
the people were last seen at certain clubs, which I have a list of." She extracted a 
sheet of paper and passed it to Omi. "It's not much, but it's a start." 

"It sounds kind of rough, but...I think we can handle this," Yuuji said, looking 
away from the photo to her. "However...From your expression, we aren't going to 
be doing this alone, are we?"

"No, you aren't. You will have a partner."

There was a moment's pause, and then both Manx and Yuuji said, "Balinese." 
Manx nodded and he groaned. "Why him?"

She arched a brow, and folded her arms across her chest. "Whatever personal 
troubles are affecting the three of you has nothing whatsoever to do with his 
abilities."

"He's a lay about and takes nothing seriously." 

"He far more competent, and cares a great deal more than you think." She cast a 
veiled glance at Omi. Yuuji started to speak again, but Manx held up one hand. 
"I'm not going to argue with you. Do you want the mission or not?" 

A pause, and then, with a defeated sigh, Yuuji shot Omi a questioning look. The 
boy nodded unhesitatingly. Yuuji took another drag, and let the smoke shape his 
answer. "...All right. We'll do it." 

"Good." She slid a handful of photos out of the folder and laid them on the table. 
"Here are the photos of the other missing kids. Start tonight. You'll both get 
150,000 yen if you crack the case." She gave them a cool smile. "I'll be in touch." 

With that, Manx left, leaving two pensive assassins behind.

***

Omi, who had remained silent and smiling through all the moments Manx had 
graced their house, did nothing with his blooming sigh until she was well down 
the street. His hand crept onto Yuuji's knee, for they were seated side by side on 
the couch- not too far and not too near. But that changed, and their bodies melted 
together now that the blue eyes were all but gone in the shadows.

Not that they might have seen too much. It was still dark. The only light 
remaining was from the VCR display and that which crept under the door. 

"It's going to seem funny going on a mission with you, Yuuji. I 
can't really picture you as someone like me... well... not like that.  You know what 
I mean!" here he plainly grinned again, verging just on laughter but not quite 
finding it. "You almost made me forget I was."

It had only taken a few minutes. He glanced to the fluorescent red numbers of the 
clock. A respectable lunch break might last for a few more moments, and he 
decided it would, and so, gathered his fellow assassin into his arms, holding him 
against one shoulder. "You feel worried."

Only the sensation of an otherwise invisible nod against his skin.

He sensed words, and put them away with his finger tips.

"Well, it's good that you do, I guess. We should worry. It should 
be our place to worry. But... if it's about me, I've been doing this for just as long 
as you have, if that's any conciliation. And if it's about Yuuji... well, Manx is 
right. And I won't mind him. He shouldn't mind you... it's not like the four of us 
DIDN'T fight. And I'm sure he'll forgive you if you think asking for that would 
help."

***

Those silencing fingers garnered a kiss, and Yuuji raised his head from Omi's 
shoulder. "Ask for his forgiveness? For what? Taking you as a lover? Striking 
him?" He shook his head. "I'm not sorry for anything. He only got what he 
deserved, and you're capable of making your own decisions. I don't see that I took 
you away from anyone. I made the offer, and you grabbed it, and why not? Why 
should you be alone, or stuck with someone who treats you badly?" 

Yuuji wrapped his arms around him and hugged him tight. "If anyone needs to do 
any apologizing, it's Kudou." 

He rested his head against Omi's. Smoothed his hair back and kissed his forehead. 
Omi tilted his head back in the crook of his elbow, and Yuuji kissed him again. A 
slender arm wound around his neck, Yuuji's hand crept over Omi's chest and 
down to fumble with the fastenings of his jeans. 

Just as he got his hand inside and on him, though, the room was 
suddenly flooded with light. They both froze, blinking at the 
unexpected brightness. 

"Well, well, isn't this cozy?"

They broke apart, and Yuuji looked over to the doorway only to find it blocked by 
a familiar black clad shape, one positioned directly behind the sofa. One who 
promptly sent his fist crashing across his jaw. The room went white, then gray, 
then cleared into a blur of washed out hues. The shape spoke. 

"Now we're even." 

Yuuji opened his eyes, and found himself lying on the floor, head 
throbbing as violently as his jaw now was. He turned in the 
direction of the voice, and saw Yuuji draped over the back of the 
couch with both arms slung over Omi's body, pinning the squirming boy to his 
seat. His hair was now jet black, a color which heightened his hospital pallor, and 
made his eyes look even brighter, the circles under them even darker. A vivid 
bruise stained one cheek.

As Yuuji struggled to a seated position, he added, "I swear, I've 
been dealt harder punches than the one you gave me." He fingered the mark, and 
gave him a nasty grin. "Compared to Aya, you hit like an sickly old man."

Yuuji growled, and made to stand up, but did so much too quickly- only ended 
back up on the floor, holding his swimming head and 
silently willing it to clear and quickly. Yuuji cackled and turned his attention to 
Omi, whose clothing was still very much in disarray. Yuuji shifted position so 
that he could hold him more-or-less still with one arm. The newly freed hand 
moved to his fly and folded the fabric back from his erection. He let his hand 
dangle there just above it. 

"Mmm," he purred in his ear, "seems like he's gotten you all ready for me, eh?"

***

"Please mind your hands, Youji-kun." Omi uttered in a slight but 
awfully even voice without any clarity of mood in it, "I know you like to tease 
me, but this is going a little too far."

His wrists still free, Omi reached up and took his former lover's 
hand with his own, working the fingers like synthesizer keys, for 
they had gone limp at his touch, and the hold around him meek as a kitten's. He 
guided them to zip him up once more, but did the snap himself as it took a bit of 
maneuvering to handle with his stiffness in the way. 

Youji's shoulder he reached behind him and pinched across the bone, not 
bothering to look to him otherwise. By mere sense of proximity, he guided him 
away enough so he was free to leave the couch. 

Which he did, for the hands that came after him met only air in the end.

It was Yuuji he knelt beside, and whose forehead he brushed as softly as he could.

"And would it be alright if you knocked from now on, like we did at the 
Koneko?"

A motherly little sigh then, amid quiet otherwise, and he tried to smile after it, but 
Yuuji groaned a little, and so he shushed him, taking him into his arms and 
settling down as if he meant to stay, huddled on the floor with him, for some time.

"But it's nice to see you again just the same."

It was only then that he gave him any gaze, one which was joyful and empty and 
ice as waters beneath the white veil of the most 
interminable northern reaches.

"Now go into the kitchen and get me a cold pack."

***

Youji was floored, absolutely floored when Omi rejected him. But the longer he 
spoke, the cooler he was to him, the more the pain he'd felt turned to anger. By 
the time Omi had ceased speaking 
altogether, he was on the verge of exploding. 

"You want to tend to that fucker, you do it yourself! I'm not taking orders from 
you, or him. As for knocking, I won't be coming to either of your doors for any 
damn reason, so your request is pointless. Perhaps, however, you both would be 
so kind as to not grope or screw each other in rooms where I do have the right to 
infiltrate, such as this one, or the laundry room, or the shop. You aren't my 
boyfriend NOW, but that doesn't mean I should have to watch you two slobber all 
over each other."

Yuuji pushed away from Omi's cradling embrace in a show of 
temper. "From what I understand, that's what you do--slobber."

"Do you want me to come over there and finish what I started?"

"Do you think you can?" 

It was green on blue for an age, and then Youji spun around and 
stalked towards the door. Flung it open to hit the wall. 

"The hell with you both."

The door slammed shut in his wake, and Youji collapsed against the wall outside, 
eyes closed and cursing softly. He had left the 
hospital before it was time to do so, having had snuck out after 
midnight the previous evening. Slept until midmorning, when Manx 
showed up at his old office out of the blue. It was then that she 
talked him into going back to the Hanano, to Weiss, and, after he 
relented, gave him a copy of the tape and the necessary information. 

He wondered now, if he was indeed up to playing assassin. If he was up to 
anything anymore. 

One hand protectively guarding his aching stomach, Youji pushed away from the 
wall with a weary grunt, and headed for his own room. 

***

Nothing. A morning shot, and all Masato had to show for it was an 
empty coffee cup, a bag full of half-eaten apple danish, and two 
empty cigarette packs and a spent lighter. He had been ecstatic when Naru 
phoned, even though his surveillance of the street behind the Hanano came up 
with nothing as well--save for a strange man, all black hair and clothes, shades. 
He'd never met Kudou Youji, but he'd seen him before. That he was approaching 
the flower shop from the back struck him as odd; made him wonder if the Weiss 
shared their suspicions. Masato had pondered getting out of the car to ask him, but 
before he could make up his mind, Youji was past the dry cleaners and down the 
straight-shot alley. 

So, Masato dumped the contents of the ashtray into the wax paper sack and 
crumpled shut the top; added the cigarette packs and lighter and threw the sack 
over his shoulder onto the back seat. Wrestled his obstinate car into gear and into 
traffic. 

The apartment building Naru had chosen for his vantage point walked the fine 
line between respectable and seedy, an opinion reinforced by the acidic smell that 
greeted Masato upon entering the lobby. He wrinkled his nose at it as he headed 
for the stairs, taking them two at a time all the way to the roof. Found Naru still 
hunched down by the wall with his computer on his lap and an Asahi in hand. To 
the tired-looking woman with the binoculars he'd gave not a glance. 

"Oi, kid," he said, crossing in front of him and gathering up the 
cooler, "pack up that fancy machine and let's go."

***

"Yes. `tis a sad truth but I doubt we'll be getting anywhere this 
day. One Manx, and Youji and some black dye... didn't recognize him at all that 
first moment."

Masato shook his head and Naru sighed once again, outwardly slamming his 
laptop. He got to his feet then, stamping his beer can to a silver puddle with the 
heel on his army boots with their myriads of buckles, some of which he had 
replaced with padlocks. Either way, between them and the bells on what little of 
his wrists could be seen beneath his flowing, celestial patterned shirt, he was 
ringing like the phones at an escort service New Year's Eve.

"And now they're coming into their own abodes through those accursed and illicit 
alleys. I do tell you!" This whispered. "Suburbia was never meant for the likes us! 
Let's be off."

They were off. He found out later he'd left half of his wires and a power pack 
behind in his huff. The elevator had fussed when he'd taken it that morning, so he 
passed it without a word of explanation to his companion, who had pressed the 
button for it before finally thinking to follow him. In silence, they descended the 
outdoor stairs, spiraling between sun and shadow. They had reached the rust-
trimmed cover of Masato's car before either one spoke, and then it was only after 
one of them had lit a cigarette and the other propped his feet on the creaky dash.

"So Koudou-the-bastard-prick has returned from the land of the dead and unborn 
children... or the bowers of sirens. They didn't know which. Either way, it is all 
well and good for him, but what of us? Where do we..."

Rook it had stopped nursing his tobacco smoke long enough to cock an eyebrow 
in that little way he always used when he didn't get 
something but wouldn't ask. 

"I realize I don't know the fellow. I shouldn't have said that but in all honesty, I 
can't abide cowards. You know why I can't. I told you, and you see I was one, and 
still you come back and pick me up... without even asking for dinner!"

*** 

Mitsuki had managed to look utterly disinterested in her inadvertent companion's 
leaving, at least until he had passed into the stairwell. But once he was gone, she 
dove for the phone he had borrowed and dialed the third number on her mini-
phone. The first was that of Hanano, the second no one she dared call a friend. 
This one...

The moment she heard the receiver on the other end lift she tittered as much as 
she could titter with her stomach so sour- "He's Ba~ack."

"So desu ne!" The formal, slow and feminine voice on the other end replied. 
"When should I...?"

"Whenever you want!"

"I don't want right away, thank you. I've still got quite a bit of work to finish here. 
But the moment I am done..."

"I'll wait for you."

"Honto ni?"

Mitsuki smiled. "Honto ni!

***

"Huh. All that beer you've drank since I dropped you off, you could probably use 
some dinner to soak it up." Masato slid his smoke between his lips and leaned 
over to pop open the glove compartment.  Drew out a tape, flipping the cover over 
to show Naru before doing a one-handed extraction and popping the card-sized 
plastic case into the tape deck. The plastic sheath bounced onto the floor on 
Naru's side of the car. 

It was Queen. A Day at the Races, to be exact. Masato flashed Naru a grin. 

"I was wondering if you'd caught Kudou's entrance. Seems that woman didn't 
though." He stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. "Man, I wouldn't want to be 
in his shoes for anything."

Silence. 

"Ah, well, that's his problem, and not mine, not yours. It's a 
beautiful day in Tokyo, and we have all afternoon to enjoy it in, 
if...you would want to be in my company that long?"

***

Naru, had been flopping his head back and forth to the bouncy 
layers of loudness which had begun to pour from his companion's tinny speakers. 
In fact, he had just been reaching for the dial to favorably adjust the volume in a 
tacit thanks, when Masato came up with the question. Still swaying a bit, he 
wondered over his answer, how to say it, rather than what to say. He'd had that in 
mind for a while now.

"I think we should go see Bishop! He's better that this surveillance nonsense than 
we are, and we really should be forthright with him about our hunches or what 
little, minor molecules of hunches we have. Besides, perhaps if we are 
charming..." They gave each other bewildered looks, both unable it seemed to 
make sense of why he would even suggest the possibility. "Perhaps if we are 
clever enough and shrewd enough, embracing what we whores of murder are 
supposed at least to be best at. Maybe he shall prove willing to share his bounty of 
garden liquors with us."

He crossed his arms at last though, anticipating a response he knew quite well. 
"We can always ask him to come out with us so we don't have to stay said lovely 
afternoon at his abode, which I realize you do not find as... aesthetically 
interesting as I do."

***

"Ha! That's putting it VERY mildly, kid." Masato cranked down his 
window, and propped his arm up on the door. "Man, I don't know what was going 
through his head when he had that place renovated. There are a hell of a lot of 
better things to spend inheritance money on than redoing a house, in my opinion. 
Especially when there wasn't anything wrong with it in the first place." 

A glance found Naru staring at him, heels drumming in time on the 
dash. 

"Yeah, I know. I didn't answer your question." Masato sighed like a man who was 
at the end of his patience and too damn apathetic to get angry. "All right, yeah, 
we'll go to Reiichi's. But," he continued jabbing a finger at the air between them, 
"if he decides to go out with us, that cat of his stays home, and he is going to sit in 
the back. I mean, he's okay and all, but sometimes I can't deal with his constant 
smiling." 

"The chartreuse, now, THAT I can deal with." 

***

"Oh, me too, Masato! Me too!" Naru applauded then, his bells chiming out of 
time with the music.  "Yay! We're going to Reiichi's!" In all spite of the fact the 
night before he hadn't had the vaguest inkling the man in question was named 
Reiichi.  It seemed familiar, the syllabary of the name, so he trusted his 
companion and continued to sing to himself.

"Over the river and through the woods/to Reiichi's house we go!/He isn't a 
grandma/he's just a cat dad/but that's Ok with us/Unfortunately for his postmodern 
chic/the same doesn't go for his couch!"

Masato groaned, cranked up "Tie Your Mother Down" and pulled 
lopsidedly into traffic, speeding somewhat, even for the most irked of Japanese 
drivers.

***

Back inside, Yuuji was starting to recover from his befuddled state. He caught 
Omi's stroking hands away from his head, and kissed the palms. 

"I'm okay. Just got stunned. I have a bit of a headache, is all." 

He gave him a smile, and with an effort, rocked onto his knees. 
Rubbed his eyes. 

"Come on, Omi. Let's take the pictures upstairs to bed, and start 
doing a bit of research; see if we can't glean some more details 
about these people's lives. Maybe we'll find some link the police 
missed." 

He got to his feet, and found it a good thing. The room had stopped its accursed 
ship's roll. Yuuji put his arm around Omi's shoulders anyway. "Anything we find, 
I'll leave outside Kudou's room." 

Yuuji gathered him close, and pressed a kiss to his forehead, 
whispering, "May I have a rain check on the naked rollcake session?"

***

"I was just about to ask you that," Omi giggled, reaching up and 
taking his lover's cheeks in his hands so he could bend him down, and have his 
lips, but just for a moment, and barely with his tongue.

They both took up the papers, and padded softly behind Mrs. 
Higurashi, who had taken up their posts, offering a knowing wink 
only, and then a few pats in the shoulders for Yuuji and his still faintly dazed 
expression. Then to the stairs and their room. They heard the door above them 
slam shortly after their own had closed much more quietly. Then heavy footsteps. 
And finally, a radio playing Gackt as loud as it would go, though from where they 
were, it was merely a breeze of notes. A sense of sound.

"I didn't..." Omi sighed to the ceiling once Yuuji had parted from him after some 
aspirin, "I didn't mean to make you so mad... but why can't you be upset with me 
for a change? It's my fault. Not Yuuji's! You didn't have to hit him. You liked him 
alright before. And you said you liked me too, but now you don't and you just 
keep pretending that..." in the end, he found he would rather worry himself with 
his fingers in his mouth, and his nails cracking under his teeth.

By then his lover had returned, and he knew silence and his smile 
even with his soliloquy left unfinished. In the bedroom, they 
balanced the photos at first on the stacks of doujin there, straightened up the bed, 
and both sat with their backs to the pillows, over a sea of fanned out semi-gloss- 
the faces of dead, when they were living. And some deceased.  There were over 
five dozen images of all, and some bore chromatic ghosts true, for they had been 
taken in bad light. Which seemed to be something no one could have helped. As 
for the fact they were all nothing but pictures.

Omi sighed and scrunched his knees together, for in spite of all his worry and the 
concerns of sweetness that would not come in words in the presence of another, 
he was still very, very stiff.

And yet he didn't exactly want touched then, or any time soon. For he could still 
sense the impression of Youji's hand near him, could still feel Yuuji too, and 
nothing he could think of would pull them apart.

Two things that had never been close together, never been in his 
heart at the same time. He looked to his lover and he wanted him. 
Just him.

Then it hit him, "All the girls are dressed very conservatively- or were -but the 
boys... well... aren't. And some of them are even dirty. These yakuza people... 
they like good girls and bad boys. It's probably a prostitution ring."

***

"Makes sense."

Yuuji fished out the photo taken of Mikage just after she was found in the ocean, 
musing aloud as he studied it. "And so...the morphine the coroner found in this 
girl's veins--probably a cover. Are they moving them out of Tokyo? Operating 
within its limits? Either way, they could be anywhere..." 

On the top of the scattered pile lay the photo of the girl as she was in life. Yuuji 
lay the coroner's snapshot alongside it, and gazed at it mournfully for a couple of 
heartbeats.

Sighed. "People are sad."

He canted Omi a long, searching look, then gathered the photographs, stacked 
them up and lay them carefully on his night stand. Put the doujin on the floor 
beside it, then lay back against the pillows on his side facing Omi. Gave him a 
small smile, and lay his hand on his bare arm, tracing down it until he reached his 
bare shin. Traced down it until his fingers met his ankle. There it rested for a 
moment, before he drew it back to pat the narrow strip of bed between them. 

"...C'mere..."

***

Omi, who had reached after the photos of the seas of people and the seas of dead, 
clear blue, had almost risen after the pictures, and not only for his morbid 
curiosity, that he had not looked every one of those cold bodies in the eyes, or 
against the blades of their shoulders. That he still knew such musing somewhat 
flattered him, and  his skin grew all the warmer for that, and the sense of Yuuji 
stroking it, and his own little embarrassment over such a dark and gloomy thing 
came as a little mark of gladness it seemed. 

"We're supposed to be working," He chided, even as he ran his skinny legs along 
their sheets. Leaning back on his hands, he gave Yuuji a soft sort of look and 
tipped his head back, moaning a little as if he had cracked his back after a long 
while without managing to. 

And then his attention seemed to fall elsewhere, and he reached over across the 
form of his present companion, taking the top doujin from the pile one the night 
stand and opening it up between his sprawled legs. 

"Hmm... I see Vincent and Cloud... they're being awful shy with each other..." A 
page turned, a few mumbles over whatever the pair said to each other. He read 
slowly with his finger in his mouth, and his glance only just looking for Yuuji's...

"They don't sound too smitten with each other buuuuuuut..." A giggle to himself. 
"You never know with these two and I..." another page. "Ohhhh, like I said... 
that's quite a kiss! Mmm, I can almost feel it myself... what a good artist... all 
sense of touch..."

He kissed his own fingers, and still relishing their taste, followed a few more 
images. A little whistle at last. "Vincent looks so soft and inviting... maybe even 
too soft... too dark but..."

Still wet, his fingers fell across his chest, down his stomach where he arched at 
their touch and finally past the rim of his shirt onto the front of his jeans. With a 
very soft moan, he palmed himself, lifting his hips from the sheets after his own 
hand. 

As for Yuuji, he got a very wicked smile.

***

And Omi earned another teasing flutter of fingers down his arm, over the fragile 
slope of his wrist, the curve of his hand. He lifted it to his lips for a kiss. 

"But what of Cloud? " he murmured, turning his hand over and bussing the palm 
before wrapping Omi's arm around his neck. Yuuji moved closer to him, and lay 
his hand on his companion's stomach, drumming his fingers gently. "He's 
teetering on the edge of a decision. Whether to advance or retreat from such 
temptation. What'll he do, do you think?" 

Yuuji sought Omi's gaze, and held it, now slowly petting his stomach with the 
same light strokes as he had given the boy's arm. Then he turned the page. 

The lovers had fallen into bed, hands and mouths exploring newly 
bared flesh. Yuuji whispered against his cheek, "I'm not surprised at all." 

The doujin fell to the sheets, and Yuuji lowered his hand to Omi's crotch, his 
mouth to the boy's. Pressed kiss after fervent kiss to them as he fumbled with and 
conquered the fastenings of his jeans, and lay him bare to his touch.

***

"Me neither, my Vincent. My morning. My koibito."

Omi's fingers wound up in Yuuji hair, tugging just a little at the satin threads, 
losing themselves in the sleek softness while 
otherwise he licked at his lover's lips. They parted for only a moment, and he 
smiled upon him. 

"You taste like gardenias," and much more quietly then. "have you 
been kissing them instead of me? Oh... bad boy."

So he did his best to convince him otherwise. That flowers had not such flavor as 
he bore, and that no where else might it be found. He writhed in Yuuji's lips and 
leaned into his fingers with a tacit eagerness. 

"Bad even for someone who's been locked in the basement away from me for 
most of his life."

One hand he freed from the golden locks and wound it up the front of Yuuji's 
shirt, crumpling and grasping at the fabric until he could almost smell the light 
wetness of the detergent on it again. The buttons begin to cede to him, show him 
white chocolate instead of mere wetness. There was no hesitation in him when his 
hands slid down inside his lover slacks and drew away the little droplets of his 
fresh arousal, which he licked away, almost, and with slick his hands, took him 
that way with his fingers.

And cried out none too softly when Yuuji, fumbling under their mutual 
squirming, returned the favor.

***

Youji had heard him. He couldn't help but hear him, for he had 
retired to the stairs leading to their floor just after they had shut themselves away. 
Had nearly whipped himself into a frenzy just imagining what they were doing. 
He sat now, on the lowest step, fingers snarled in his ebon locks, cigarette 
smoldering between his lips. His security blanket had failed to comfort him, and 
he was at a loss over what to do. 

But what could he do? Pound on the door? Try to break it down? 
Demand quite foolishly and loudly that they come out? That Omi come back to 
his bed? No. It was best to be philosophical about the whole thing. He was a slut, 
therefore it was his fate to fall in love with a boy who was equally faithless. A boy 
who no longer 
loved him. Youji couldn't help but wonder over the abrupt change. 
Didn't he realize he'd only left to protect him from his enemies? 
Didn't he know how much he loved him? 

Probably, he reckoned. Omi knew but he didn't care. Why should he 
when such a handsome, young guy with considerably less baggage than he was 
carrying wanted him? 

Why should Omi stay with him anyway? 

Youji laughed weakly, and rested his weight against the banister 
spokes. Lit another cigarette, and miserably watched the door over the black rims 
of his baby blue shades. 

***

She had never left work early before in her life, but now, today...  Today things 
would be different for the first time in a long while.  Not since that first day, of a 
whole week, which was more than she understood most had the chance to visit the 
sheets beneath those accursed and lovely emerald eyes...

***

Yuuji pushed Omi's t-shirt up, baring his chest. Pale pink buds 
bloomed almost shyly in their white satin field when he touched 
them. He took one between finger and thumb, pinching it lightly in time to the 
rhythm he'd set up with his hand lower down. 

"...Pretty. Pretty Omi." He bent to lap at the other rosy 
nub. "You're all I've been thinking about since that night." 

He raised his head and kissed him tenderly; sucked on his lower lip. Pushed his 
jeans down to gain better access to the warm, damp flesh he'd been stroking. 
Moaned himself when Omi's caresses grew surer, less teasing. 

"Oh...How we're going to play when you get better." 

***

Omi laughed softly, his fingers torn away and caught before his lips for a moment 
until he took them to his tongue and laid them back on Yuuji's turgid cock. His 
caresses became long, drawn affairs, though the stillness of the rest of his body 
lasted not so long, and he leaned into each motion of his lover.

Smiled unto him with lusty, tender eyes.

"Will you take me on the living room floor?"

No time for an answer he permitted, rather smoothed at Yuuji's hair again, 
clinging this time and holding him still so he could see into him.

If he was seeing at all. 

"And let me cover you with something cold and sweet so I can lick it off?"

His tongue fluttered to his rosy lips.

"And let me do you on the train. Oh please, Yuuji. Please. Tell me we can do all 
that and more."

The boy edged closer to him then, sighing with the first whispers of his orgasm, 
barely breathing as he spoke to him. 

"Wearing lace or leather, I would."

"For..."

He kissed him rather than cry out when his orgasm seized him.

***

Yuuji came almost at the same time as he had, his cries turned to 
whimpers in the kiss. Straining against Omi's trembling hand. 

At last, though, they broke apart, collapsed onto each other, chests heaving. 
Behind his eyelids, the world faded from white to red to black. His awareness of 
the boy so loosely held within the circle of his arms gradually increased. Yuuji 
opened his drowsy eyes to gaze fondly at Omi. Kissed him tenderly. 

Wondered over the faraway look in his eyes. 

"I didn't know you had *such* a kinky streak," he murmured, sliding his arms a 
bit tighter around him, and drawing him close. Chuckled softly. "I'll take you on 
the living room floor, and I'll let you have me for dessert. And you can take me on 
the train."

"And maybe...Just maybe, you'll let me tie you up and blindfold you some night, 
and have my way with you."

***

Masato had been right- it WAS a beautiful day.  The sparrows were 
singing gaily in the distinctly mature shrubbery of the neighborhood, which 
indeed possessed such well-do-to undergrowth as to be somewhat of a marvel, 
what with it's being plopped on the very tip of Tokyo.  As for the residents, many 
of them were still home at this hour of the day- enjoying a sky the Cote d'Azur 
would have been so very envious of and the giggling cherry trees, for most of said 
residents were either retired and guarded by their children from afar, or children 
themselves being attended too still by mothers.  And there was many a mother, 
old and new alike, all living in the low, unobtrusive Japanese houses.   The street 
provided miniature glens and fish ponds around them, where they and the koi 
were all blissfully unaware that the mountains in the distance breaking the border 
of their village were shining because they were skyscrapers of glass, and not 
mountains at all.

There was also, of course, the one house all of the elderly tried desperately to 
ignore, and all of the children were too young not to be smitten with.

The one with the translucent walls which glowed by night, making a puppet show 
of all the goings on within and served by day as the only source of light for the 
interior.

The one with Shisaragi written on the door in tiny silver letters.

And in truth, the eccentric house among the otherwise mundane homes was not 
remarkable for its walls alone.  Its owner had seen to *that* before even arranging 
for the walls of it to be torn down and replaced with the sheets of white polymer 
with it's marble-ish trails; the rice paper of the mew millennium.

If only his furniture would have seen things that way, for he owned but one item 
which appeared to be less than thirty years old, and that was his computer which 
Kritiker had so insisted on.  He had themes though to his outwardly nonsensical 
manner of furnishing.

For instance, all of the lights were reproduction Tiffany or the mod mica tubes of 
the fifties and sixties, for he found them to look well enough the same, and 
scattered them about wherever he presently had not enough light to see by.  As it 
was, oft they ended up on tables in the middles of rooms.  The devotees of Fung 
Shui would have been mortified, but he liked such arrangements, as it was easier 
on his eyes.  As for the tables, and any such surfaces, most of them had marble 
tops, which would have worked a little better if they had all matched. Which they 
hadn't, so he had had them dyed, and now they were all blue splotched with 
magenta, which the general consensus found to be worse than their previous 
eclectically colored state.  Silly, silly American marble dying corporation! 

He liked furniture that reminded him of swans, and so he had splurged on several 
fainting couches, and several antique chairs, one of which had the back-brace re-
inserted upside down, creating a much more swan-like effect, so he had abruptly 
dismembered all of the "normal" ones and deliberately ruined them comfort wise. 
Not that anyone ever sat at THAT table.  

He had a way of insisting guests sit on the floor to eat, warming 
themselves by his fireplace which he had rigged to produce flecks of green in the 
flames.

Which also would have done well except the floor of the kitchen was rough stone 
and frequently ashy.

Just the way he liked it.

For Reiichi had one obsession in life, and contrary to popular belief, it was not his 
beloved Albino Somali (so denoted in most minds by the fact she slept in the only 
four-poster cat bed in town).

Reiichi's life was Cinderella.

He had, on the inside walls, the largest and most colorful prints of Cinderella 
illustrations he could find, including several cells from the Disney movie, a hand-
colored woodcut from the previous century, and a foil poster which put a 
distinctly erotic twist to the famous flying down the steps scene, as the lady's 
bodice was open, her hair a mess as if she had been making out...

He owned three bookshelves full of editions of the story of Cinderella, some of 
which were quite rare or dusted with mildew and so residing in little plastic boxes 
to preserve them from sticky assassin fingers.

No one was permitted to eat at the dining room table, for that was where he 
housed his very most favorite specimens of literature, knickknacks, ceramics, old 
movie props, histories, snow globes and dolls, who took up the chairs.

Only one clock in the house kept reasonable time.  The rest were all stopped at 
midnight. 

He had over three dozen glass slippers, several of them custom jobs.  

In his whole house there was only one thing which did not remind him AT ALL 
of his favorite faerie story, and that was signed litho of Upon Theresa at the Dot, 
which he had affixed to the ceiling of the living room as no space remained on a 
wall for it.

He was lying on his back, staring at it now, and smiling because Abbess 
Hildegard was walking back and forth over his toes and it felt very, very nice.  
She gave up shortly though, and decided to flop down on his crotch instead.

"Now, Abbess," he said to her, sitting up and scooping her into his arms, "I told 
you not to do that.  You're a bad, kitty! Such a very bad kitty."

Abbess Hildegard purred.

"Such a bad, bad kitty!" And he lost his face in her fluff for awhile, stopping his 
mouthing of her tummy only when he heard a car pull up outside, and being as it 
was not near time enough for even the youngest of schoolchildren to be home, he 
at once went to his peephole to investigate.

"Now just who could that be, Abbess? Who could it be?"

Abbess Hildegard chewed on her wimple, as she found the present day far too 
warm for such a thing.

"Why! I do believe..." He opened the door though for a better look.  "Oh! Good 
afternoon, Naru-san! What a pleasant surprise!"

Naru bounded up the steps before Masato had even gotten halfway out of the 
driver's seat, and at the threshold bowed to Reiichi, though he tapped his head 
upon rising, rather than utter a greeting.

Reiichi promptly blushed and took of his tiara.

(OOC: Yes, his cat is wearing a wimple, he was wearing a tiara despite not being 
in drag otherwise.  Upon Theresa at the Dot is a painting by Joe Sorren.)

***

Masato had followed in Naru's wake in a more dignified (reluctant) manner. That 
Reiichi was dressed simply in his usual garb, and not in an old-fashioned ball 
gown was quite heartening. Of course, he had not seen the tiara glittering atop his 
head, had not seen him whisk it behind his back, for both Naru and the straight-
ahead sun were blocking his view as he approached the house. 

"Afternoon, Reiichi," he said, nodding amiably before stepping into Bishop's 
private world. He'd been there so many times that he no longer visibly flinched--
not that it didn't affect him all the same. 

/The cat is wearing...What is that thing she's wearing?/

/At least it's not wearing those mylar wings today--fairy wings, he calls 'em./

Masato watched the feline nibble and half-heartedly paw at the bit of veil which 
hung about her neck, then turned away with a shake of his head.

Behind him, Naru engaged Reiichi in a conversation about his glass slippers; 
apparently he'd bought yet another one. Masato wandered over to the collectible-
strewn dining table, just for the sake of doing something while they dispensed 
with the pleasantries. Pointedly whirled about upon reaching it to show the throat-
clearing Reiichi that he indeed had one hand clasped in the other and both were 
hanging down in front of him. 

/I break one figurine--by ACCIDENT--and he won't let me forget it./

/I guess I'm lucky he even let me back into the house. That he 
didn't refuse to work with me again. I almost thought he would./ 

He passed a disinterested eye over Reiichi's precious things, glanced around the 
room, then sauntered back over to Naru just in time to catch the tail end of the 
older man's discourse on Disney's butchering of the story, and how the original 
ending was far darker in tone.

Naru looked a touch bewildered. He was also now wearing the tiara. Masato 
couldn't help but notice how it seemed the perfect accessory to his outfit. He also 
realized he'd just found the perfect thing to buy him when his birthday came 
around--a gift sent anonymously, of course, and in rhinestones, not diamonds. 

A pause ensued, in which the bespectacled agent began to fuss with his collection 
of glass slippers. 

"Uh...Listen, Reiichi, the kid and I have taken on a case--one on the side, so to 
speak. Neither King, nor Queen, nor Yuuji knows about it. Anyway, since 
stakeouts and surveillance are more your specialty than ours, we were wondering 
if we might brainstorm with you?"

***

"Hmm?" Reiichi wondered aloud, not so much speaking as making the 
same little jingle with his throat that Abbess Hildegard was wont to do. An 
inquisitive little noise, though speaking of his cat, she shortly protested of his hold 
on him by means of her claws and he permitted her to jump to the floor, where 
she ran off in the direction of their mutual bedroom, wimple fluttering behind.

Naru stifled a chuckle at the sight, and, as if willed by unseen 
hands, his tiara promptly went cockeyed. Their host reached over and straightened 
it for him, though otherwise turning his smiling hazel-green eyes to Masato. Still 
holding one of his slippers- one of faintly bluish tint and Bob Mackie fashion 
sense -he spoke. "Why yes, you're always welcome to me, so to speak. Can I have 
particulars or would you rather just give me hints? It's alright either way." His 
sentence, as always, was punctuated by a quick smile. 

The other two Crashers glanced at each other, exchanging seemingly meaningless 
looks before Naru nodded in assent to whatever Masato had intimated. 

"Oh, mmm..." Reiichi remarked before either had a chance to 
begin. "This looks as if it's going to be a touch dire. Well, we 
can't do it any justice in here!" With that, he shooed them both into the living 
room and each onto their own fainting couch. Naru got the one with swan's wings 
for the back, Masato the one with swan's heads for legs, not to mention a wisteria 
lamp dangling over exactly where his head would have gone if he laid down, 
which he didn't. Naru on the other hand, did, and with his arms behind his head.

Reiichi, still standing, though leaning over a table where roamed 
bronze mice and sparrows among pewter princes and pauper girls, 
drummed his fingers on one arm. "I have to say, I *never* though you two would 
take up anything non-sanctioned."

"Ah, this would be the first time in seven years the thought has even begun to 
cross my mind, and somehow or other, it seems to have made the journey in 
remarkable time, for here we are, indeed, asking you for help and secrecy in this... 
well... downright peculiar matter." The youngest of the assassins gathered 
stretched backwards as is he had just awakened and watched his host's perpetual 
musing.

"More peculiar than you being from Terra?"

"For you, I doubt that. As a Terran, I'm not inclined to find my lineage the least 
bit strange."

"How sad."

He scowled.

"Kidding, kidding."

"Maaaaaaaaaane. Ii wo, it's about Yuuji."

"Hence his not being involved in the investigation."

"As I'm sure he'd love to, but he can't very well investigate 
himself. The thing is, he doesn't seem to have looked the least bit into his recent 
transfer to Weiss, which didn't bother either Masato or I until the other evening I, 
by chance alone, encountered one Master Omi at my favorite pub."

"And who would Omi be?"

"Omi would be the youngest Weiss."

"Interesting, go on."

"I don't need your permission to do that. In speaking with Master Omi, who did 
not know me, I managed to determined that the two absentee Weiss, one of which 
is that redhead Yuuji liked, are neither dead nor incapacitated- they're simply 
missing, and from our own work at Kritiker, we also know that nothing is being 
done about it. It then occurred to us, Masato and I, that the fact we KNOW of 
Weiss alone is rather queer not to mention some of the inconsistencies 
surrounding the group, if not our beloved," here he rolled his eyes several times, 
"employers themselves. And its not as if things haven't always been this way, it's 
more that I have a very funny feeling about it, for wont of more time and a less 
hackneyed phrase."

Reiichi nodded here, caressing his own chin for a moment before 
curling a few strands of his hair back behind his ear. Naru couldn't help thinking it 
looked as if it needed a trim- wasn't quite the usual businessman cut he usually 
kept. 

"And to make a long story short, as I have never been able to do..." Though then 
the young Crasher glowered as his lines were walked on, something no true 
dramatic ever tolerates.

"So the two of you have, on your lonesome, been stalking our rivals?" Another 
tremendous grin took his lips and held them for a long time. With a somewhat 
unbecoming exuberance, their eccentric fellow chess piece swung himself over 
the back of the nearest fainting couch and sat upon it, working his finger together 
as a highschool prankster anticipating the latest toilet paper rampage of his coterie 
might execute. "Now that's quaint! What can I do to help? I'd love to!" Then 
turning to the taciturn Masato, "You've been rather quiet, care to share whatever's 
puttering about in your head? I know it's something."

(OOC: Naru's Japanese lines translate to something like "I know!!!! (teasing) 
Well then..." (a feminine "well then" no less).)

***

"In that you are right. See, today while staking out the street 
behind the Hanano, I saw Kudou Youji--that is, one of the Weiss--
coming in the back way. Naru saw him too, as I learned when I 
arrived to pick him up, and that got me thinking: How protected are they really? If 
it's that easy for him to sneak in relatively 
unobserved, who else could do it?" Masato swung himself off the 
couch and began to pace back and forth in front of it; he considered it an 
uncomfortable seat anyway. 

"Are all the customers really customers, or are they spies? Is Ms. Higurashi--the 
owner of the Hanano, the flower shop where Yuuji and the two Weiss are 
employed--is she on the level? What if she's part of the scheme? She is retired 
Kritiker, after all."  


He came to an abrupt halt opposite the far end of the sofa, staring at a cel of 
Cinderella's transformation but not really seeing it. Then he looked down at 
Reiichi. 

"I think we ought to install some hidden cameras inside the place, anywhere you 
think is appropriate. Also, I think we should put in a few wiretaps. Maybe tail 
Higurashi on occasion?" He thoughtfully stroked his jaw. "If not regularly..." 

"Because it just seems odd that Weiss has keepers, has contrived 
covers, but we don't."

***

Reiichi looked up from alternately caressing his armchair, and Abbess Hildegard, 
who had returned and there alighted on the table which held his dragonfly lamp. 
"Hmm, well, Masato," He began, "Are you familiar with the military term 
`acceptable losses'? Since that's the long and short of everything about us, and by 
us I mean the Crashers, not all of the Kritiker agents." As if pawing through 
change after a lost button, he began to sort the figures beneath the volcanic ash 
wings of his lamp. The mice remained on their original table, the other figures 
gravitating towards the quadrants the dragonfly feet made out. 

Naru wondered if they were the mice, or Weiss. Weiss, being named 
for cats, wouldn't have made good mice at all. Although Omi did 
faintly resemble one, in a cute way. "The question should be, why is it that Weiss, 
at first considered to be less acceptable than us, have been let loose? And that's a 
very good question. But are you both *really* willing to up and become 
acceptable for questioning our critics?"

His smile darkened a shade, remaining still a smile, and now again a smirk. If he 
had been smoking, it would have been simply a trick of the white haze, but as he 
was not, it could be nothing but real, and still less lingering than a star skirting the 
atmosphere. "Because I am."

Naru sighed and drooped partially from his couch. "Well, it shan't be a problem if 
they know not. So to be absolutely frank, I am counting on that, but even if I 
wasn't, I think I could get by, simply knowing that I am at last getting something 
back from the old buggers." His eyes closed for a moment, and his fingers fell on 
the air as if he sought something blindly. "Yuuji is so ingenuous, he would surely 
go along with our madness, so I am agreeing for him, and for his own good."

"Fair enough," Reiichi acknowledged, and then they both turned to 
Masato. Their host it was who spoke to him. "Well, if you go along yet it'll be the 
very first time we've all put our heads together about something. At least, 
willingly. And either way, I might just try this myself! It sounds like quite a 
challenge. More exciting than out LAST mission at least! Cargo guarding is for 
amateurs!" He pronounced his last word as if he were French and it was not.

***

"I didn't reckon on you wanting to join us, Rei, but I am glad that you are. As you 
probably already know, the finer points of 
subterfuge are lost on me, but then that isn't my specialty. 
Killing is, and I do it well. I can do it and not get bogged down 
with moral dilemmas or pangs of conscience, unlike Yuuji." Masato 
paused to light a cigarette, pointedly ignoring Reiichi's censoring look.

"Anyway...I always figured you were the brains, so to speak, of the outfit, so 
anything you have to contribute, feel free. And no 
offense, kid." 

Here he flashed said kid a lopsided grin. 

"We're a team now," he continued, turning back to Reiichi, "the three of us, and of 
our own accord. I say this is an occasion to 
celebrate. To that end, I would like to make a suggestion." 

There was a pause while Masato exhaled. 

"Why don't you fetch forth a bottle or two of that lovely Chartreuse and we three 
drink it--at the seashore. What do you say?"

***

Reiichi boggled for a moment, at the end of which, he was rather 
obliged to pull of his glasses, mop them, and put them back on as 
little lopsided as he could manage. 

"I would say 'I'll order the cameras tonight so we won't wait more than a four a 
day or two' and `Do you want me to wear my pink or lavender trunks?'."

Naru let out a long moan such as a maiden expecting to be disgusted by an 
unworthy suitor would have been wont to bedazzle the air with. "Spare us, 
Reiichi! I said to you on our last rather wet mission that the world was not yet 
ready for the sight of that flaming fuschia garment of yours and LO! She still is 
too virginal and unseasoned for us to do else but hide it from her eyes!" 

Speaking of which, he covered his own with his jingling wrist.

"Oh..." their host slouched unhappily for only a moment, catching 
himself back as fast as he could manage. "Very well! The pink one it is! I'll be 
back in a jiffy. Come, Abbess! There is an impromptu ball we must prepare for!"

With that, he and the cat dashed off for the another reaches of the house, both 
purring with anticipation.

The youngest crasher meanwhile pulled off his tiara and plunked it on one of the 
various end tables, taking time to cast a bleak look at Masato through the facets of 
the past crystals or the ornament. 

"For once, Masato, it seems *I* am the one obliged to insist it was not my idea. 
He had better bring us THREE bottles of that garden wine of his, for I don't 
believe I shall be able to take in his effigy unless I've a flask of it all to myself."

They locked gazes and knowing smirks then, and it was all he could do not to 
giggle there and then at the sight the crystal balls in his mind forewarned him of. 
That of their piteously blanche teammate come flouncing through the living room 
doors, a pair of sagging, painfully pink trunks flapping about his waist and 
constantly teetering on the edges of his hips, threatening to fall and reveal the 
further whiteness of his ass, which always reminded Naru of two snowy hills- this 
to the extent than whenever he found himself beholding those two jiggly globes, 
he always wished very much to go skiing, or build a snowman, which disturbed 
him to no end, since he had never engaged in either activity in his whole life. 

He apparently rather balked to himself just thinking about it, for the smoke around 
his remaining companion ripples with a chuckle that hadn't quite been swallowed. 

"I do hope he doesn't expect US to join him in the water! Or that he means to get 
thoroughly soaked himself. I don't believe those awful things could remain intact 
if they were very wet. Oh dearie me!"

***

Masato sifted a hand through his hair. "I didn't intend for us to 
actually go INTO the water! I only meant we should lounge on the 
sand and relax. Drink and talk this through. Or just drink, for 
that matter, and watch the tide come in. But then...nothing ever 
goes exactly as planned when Rei's around, does it?" 

He let his hand drop back onto his lap, and slumped in his seat, 
staring blankly at the murder of tiny porcelain crows that stood 
poised for flight on the rose taffeta draped coffee table. "'Let's go to Reiichi's,' he 
said. Why didn't I just say 'no'?"

Something like a 'hmpf' came from Naru's vicinity. Masato prodded 
his leg with his toe. Reiichi reentered the living room cat in tow and humming 
softly under his breath, all pale flesh and saggy pink spandex. But the sight of him 
wasn't as horrifying as what he carried. 

Two pairs of swim trunks--one lavender and blue stripe, the other 
green, with crystal beading around the legs. The garments landed on the fainting 
couch beside him. 

Masato shot a look of wide-eyed panic at Naru. Reiichi only beamed.

***

Naru tugged at his collar, which, as he was wearing a loose shirt 
with and even looser collar, one which more or less bared his 
shoulders if he tipped too far to one side, took him some time. Then he smiled 
unto their hose. "I'm frightfully sorry, Reiichi, old sport, but there is simply no 
way I shall be able to fit into any of your clothing, let alone swimwear of yours. 
And the same would go for our dear Masato, though for the opposite reason."

Naru smiled even through the kick he was given. 

Reiichi chuckled, "But Hun!"

His guests both balked slightly and he was obliged to cough as if he had made an 
error to get them to look back to him with anything but pure terror in their eyes. 

"Your clothing never fits anyway!"

"That may be so, but I'd rather not flash my ass about, deliberately or otherwise."

They both got heavy pats on the shoulders then, the sort one uses to reassure 
someone before asking them to leap from a precarious place, usually into the 
mud. "But you don't have to worry at all! These aren't MINE! I bought these for 
you AGES ago!"

Fashion reservations aside, the youngest Crasher at once got up and marched over 
to the fainting couch, where he lifted and held the striped pair up to the sunlight, 
which broke through them with a rutilated glow and made his face look blue. 
After all though, no one had bought him clothing in almost seven years.

"No, no. Those are for Masato. The sparkly one's are for you."

"They are also lady's cover-up trunks." A perfectly neutral remark that, and he 
lifted up the green pair, letting them hover over his insubstantial waist. Then 
things changed... "OH! Thank you REIICHI! I think they may actually fit! I do so 
badly with bathing wear! Do let me try them on at once!"

And he shed bells all the way back to the bathroom, returning 
flashing bits of colored light rather than sound, not to mention 
casting himself against the door frame in a manner even the most 
sexually frustrated of Calvin Klein models could not have hopped to achieve with 
the same zest or false hopelessness. His fears 
regarding his bottom were quite allayed, would that the same could have been 
said for his other side, for the cut did little justice to the room that part of him 
required. "I adore them! Oh thank you! Thank you!"

The remaining pair he clasped up though, and tossed to his fellow 
guest. "Your turn!"

***

The trunks landed on his lap, and Masato's mouth fell open in 
disbelief. "You don't actually believe I'm going to wear these 
things, do you?"

A single nod. 

"What happened to that whole no swimming stance you took just now?"

A one-shouldered shrug. Naru cast him an expectant look, shifting 
his eyes to Reiichi and then back again. Masato desperately switched his appeal to 
their host. "Aw, c'mon, Rei! No one wants to see me..."

The grins that spread across both their faces told him, yes, someone did want to 
see him thus dressed. Two of them, in fact. 

"Well, I won't! Assassins don't do striped spandex. At least," he 
added, cocking a meaningful brow at Naru, "I don't." 

That got him a forbidding (well, as much as Naru could be 
forbidding), hands-on-hips look. One which Masato held, matched 
stare for stare successfully...Until Abbess Hildegard decided to jump onto his lap 
out of the blue. Masato swore, and she skittered away, but it was too late. He'd 
lost. Naru gave him a gloating smile, and beckoned him to get up. When he at last 
did, it was with very bad grace. 

"Aw, screw you, Naru," he muttered under his breath as he passed him on his way 
to the bathroom. The door shut, and after much rumblings and quiet groaning, the 
grizzled assassin emerged, jeans flung over his shoulder, t-shirt still on because 
not only were said trunks rather see-through, but they were so snug that every 
curve of that part of his anatomy was clearly delineated. 

And Masato was clearly flustered. 

"One chuckle, one grin from either of you--no matter how slight--and I'll kick 
your asses. And Reiichi? I want three bottles of 
Chartreuse for this trip, plus one extra for my own to keep as a 
consolation prize."

***

It was Naru who protested, "But Maaaasaaaatooooo! You look so..." the word on 
his lips, more or less `lovely' ran for the hills. "Ummm..." /Handsome? No, that 
would get me the wedgie of a lifetime./ "Kinda..." /"Smashing?" No, that won't 
work either, although it's better. I guess./ "Well what I meant to say was..."

The Crasher in question crossed his arms and growled his very most frightening 
growl. The sort he used on pesky guards that just wouldn't die, or parking meters 
which died on him without his prior consent. 

"It doesn't matter what I say, you'll bop me one, won't you!?"

Masato nodded and knocked him lightly over his messy, dirty blond 
curls anyway, just playfully, though what was playfully with Masato was most 
men in a truly frightful mood.

Reiichi clapped though. "Perfect! I'll go get some right away then, and my cooler. 
Just remember though- the swim you didn't mean to take may be the most 
exciting of your life! Or something generally to that effect."

With that, he left them both pouting quite acutely in the middle of the living room 
floor.

"I can never tell if he's rubbing it in, or if he knows not how he slices at us 
sometimes with that satirical little rapier of his. I don't supposed you'd fancy 
telling us?"

All this had been asked of the cat, who had now taken Masato's former place and 
there begun to wash herself.

"You're right, if we are to do something together of our own free 
will, we might as well do it without killing each other."

Saying so, he bent, and scratched her behind the ears, leaving his bottom pointed 
in his fellow guest's direction, and reasonable shorts or not, at a most questionable 
angle. Her purr might have shattered glass, had the house had any windows.

"Such a wise, wise lady... and do cheer up, Masato! We might as well have a good 
time, spandex or no! We don't HAVE any good times, now do we?" There was a 
finger shake that passed between then, backwards, for he refused to rise form his 
place stroking the Abbess, but no more, for their host reappeared, clanking a pair 
of the bottle together before tipping them into the cooler slung over his left 
forearm since from his right dangled a see-thru plastic tote bag- one bearing the 
clear litho of his most beloved princess, more beloved than the cat, who he cooed 
to rather than stoop to pet presently. It also held a further collection of his- this of 
plastic bottles that smelled of coconut and bubble gum.

"Well, you take good care of the house now!" He told her, before 
tipping his head in the direction of the door. 

Barefoot, Naru skipped and tumbled after him as if he had become yet one more 
form that he was not- now a water sprite returning to her home. His home. 
Something alone those lines.

Even though it wasn't true. And they both knew that, Masato and 
Reiichi, for they both stood in the door, watching him a moment, and the sunlight 
dancing over him. Though out of their own shyness or true regret for another, it 
didn't exactly matter at the moment, for a few more found them all climbing into 
the car, and directing it towards the beach.

***

"He's upstairs.  I'll got get him for you, Miss," Mrs. Higurashi told the young 
woman she had, at first, taken for a patron.  Ah, but there was something about 
the way she moved that insisted she was not.  No one stands stiffly in a flower 
shop, not even the most nervous lovers, most hurt of minor sinners.

"Ah... domo arigatou!" She replied with a bow, and the woman who 
minded the blooms took leave of her, dashing up the back stairs as fast as she 
could go.  No, no urgency came to the later afternoon, but she didn't like to keep 
guests waiting, or let the door leading the apartment stairs open for too long, else 
her charges might be over-heard.  Assuming they were still at it, which they 
weren't.  And she sighed.  One flight she took easily, but would have panted to 
reach the top of the second.  Except...

"Ah! Youji! There you are!" He silent and blue as the corridors, draped in 
shadows.  Not to mention smoking.  He gave her a look of mere attention, as if 
she was worth noticing for the time being simply for being there and nothing 
more.  But assassin boys were like that, and it didn't bother her.

"There's someone here to see you.  And before you start, she's NOT a biker she's 
NOT wearing less than a schoolgirl in summer and she said 'please' so I don't 
think you've got anything to worry about."

But then, leaning a little closer to him, "She looks like she might be a bill 
collector though.  Gimme your wallet. I'll hide it."

The thin packet of leather fell into her apron with the clippings of some dead 
pinks.  And with a grudging, choked sigh, he followed.  She would have offered 
him her hand, but he didn't look the sort to take it. 

So they went to see her together.

She was standing alone in the middle of the flower shop, Youji's guest.  As if she 
was a flower herself, one left alone in the middle of a long, dark brick wall of ill 
repair.  There for him to see and no one else.  That Youji himself had once 
noticed her (it seemed) had its own remarkable nature.  For she was both very 
plain, and would not have risen to his shoulders if she had been barefoot.  And 
yet, though she could not have been more than 25, she had a sense like old lace to 
her- the way she carried herself, the faint smell of her skin like the air of an 
antique shop.

Or something which at least had always been.  At least somewhere.

She wore a navy blue suit though, white stockings, and shoes with heels like 
spindles.  Her brown hair was wound up in a bun.  Her eyes smiled upon Youji 
from behind a pair of small glasses with clear frames that seemed to be winking in 
and out of being as she crossed the room, and the light darted off at her at 
different angles.  

"Oh Youji-san!" She bowed as deeply as she could without upsetting herself. "It's 
good to see you! I know it's been five years... but... what have you done to your 
pretty hair?"

***

Youji couldn't believe his eyes. 

Five years, and she hadn't changed, not since the day he'd met her in, of all places, 
a coffee shop, it being the place where she worked part-time. She was in college 
then, as he recalled, a fact which interested him not the least, as he had no use for 
teachers and rules and studying; in fact he was barely squeaking by in his classes. 
But then, he was a boy who felt he gained more insight and knowledge just by 
watching and interacting with people. 

Five years, and Youji still felt that way, although he had bothered to crack open a 
book every now and again. Therein lay Omi's and Aya's influence on him. He 
fervently wished they were both there now, and Ken too. He couldn't put his 
finger on it, but he suddenly felt the need for a bit of backup. Not that he let his 
nervousness show, of course. 

"Oh, I just thought I needed a change, y'know," Youji said as he 
moved away from the doorway, raking his overlong bangs away from his face. 
"Can't stay in a rut, always." He looked her over, beaming at her with his most 
charming of smiles. "I can see that you haven't either, Megaera-san. Stayed in a 
rut, that is." 

He leaned forward a little to quietly add, "I must say that the 
successful businesswoman look suits you very well." 

A customer came in, a tired, yet happy young man who was in need of a bouquet 
of pink lilies for his wife, who'd just had their first child. Ms. Higurashi strode 
forth to assist him with a fond, motherly sort of smile, bestowing upon him her 
best wishes.  


Youji blanched. 

"Um...Megaera-san? Would you like some coffee, tea?" he asked, 
gesturing towards the back room, where Ms. Higurashi had installed a kitchenette 
for just such a purpose. "We could have a bit of privacy there, and then perhaps 
you might tell me to what I owe the honor of your visit."

***

She had forgotten the dance, and how they began. Every time they saw each 
other. In the park, at the shop, when she was supposed to be going about her 
duties with the lattes and the strawberry cream cake. And just like the overture to 
a familiar piece of jazz, like the first scamper of morning light across her bedroom 
floor, she began, barely wondering if he remembered the steps, or if he did, would 
he still do them with her?

Usually, it was the shyness of her station which incurred the first courtly motions, 
but today, she was honestly taken aback, and so her single backwards step on only 
the very tips of her toes was of the little fear, that twitters as birds might, and that 
remains clearer in memory than what inspires it. 

For there had been nothing in the world before that moment that could have made 
her believe that Kuudou Youji would even remember her name, let alone find 
anything in it save a darkening lackadaisical mode, vague hatred. So step the 
second, and her eyes fell from his. Third, and her hands held one another before 
her since she had no coat to cradle them in. Had he become as constant as she? As 
ever lasting? No, the dark hair would not allow for that.

But he danced with her. Matched her rite of the faerie fleeing with his own step 
forward, his hands coming to be level with her waist. Though they would not 
touch each other unless left to themselves. Her answering nod was to face him 
again.

"I should like that very much, Youji-san. Thank you for inviting me in."

Now it was his turn, to smile on her, or to ask what the matter was. The smile, and 
she followed him back to the kitchenette- the little white room in the back, outside 
of which the pins of he heels were left alone, like a do not disturb sign on a hotel 
room door. Not that they had ever remembered to hang those up. In her slight 
memory, her eyes traced the sakura blooms air brushed to the rim of the 
cupboards, and so she nearly walked into him when he motioned for her to sit.

As she recalled, Youji was not one to permit anyone to pour his tea. Even if she 
begged him, it was not her place in his mind. She was only to sit, and to talk, and 
to sparkle, and to be glad.

Which she was. Everything in that as she kneeled before the 
scalloped edged of the table. At least for a moment. But the 
happiness, no it had not enough of itself left to sustain any true reflection in her 
mind. And it fled, leaving the most gay bitterness behind.

Since it was so warm that afternoon, he poured them each a cup from the black 
tea which had brewed in the sun and then been tucked away in the refrigerator. 
Then he kneeled with her, and waited until she had a sip herself to try the stuff, 
which was cool and smooth as velvet.

"It's very good!"

And then a moment of quiet, wherein all she thought of was telling him the truth, 
or what had been the truth, for many months. Time to go back, time to say what 
was, or she might never have such chance again.

"I missed you. So I... so I came here when I heard a girl on the train say she 
thought that the Youji who worked at the flower shop was... very handsome." And 
she had heard, but by another chance, and it had only affirmed what the blue 
moon phone call days before had told her. "It was only serendipity I guess. But 
here I am. And you can see what I have done since then."

One question before the dance would never begin anew.

"Where have you been these five years?"

***

That was it? That was all it was? A remark overheard on the train 
and she had been reminded of him. Grew nostalgic and decided to see if it were 
indeed him. 

Youji wanted to laugh from sheer relief. Very nearly did. He raised his glass in an 
airy little toast to her. "Ohhh, I've been doing a bit of this, a bit of that."

/Usually more of THAT.../

He sipped at his tea, then sipped again with more relish. It was 
quite good, as his guest had proclaimed. "I started my own detective agency, just 
as I always wanted to do, if you'll remember." Here he gave her another smile, 
this one more sultry. "The business went rather well, for awhile." 

"But then...Things went wrong, as things are apt to do. I didn't 
have the will to go on with it after that." He made a gesture as if to say, "That's 
life." Didn't hold her gaze too long, though, lest his facade of nonchalance be 
shattered, and she see some glimmer of his old pain in his eyes.

Idly, he sketched patterns across the wooden table top with one 
finger. Caught himself, and took another sip of his tea. "I 
decided then to go into a less dangerous field. Being a florist 
wasn't my first choice of career, no; I made ventures down other 
avenues of employment. None suited me." He smiled at her warmly 
again, striving as always to charm. "I was more chosen than 
chooser. I've been doing this sort of thing ever since then." 

Youji chuckled then; scooted a bit closer to her side of the 
table. "Now, tell me what you've been up to. From the look of you, it's been 
mostly good things."

***

"But nothing very much exciting as all that," Megaera remarked with a shy little 
tilt of her shoulders. "Wow! You know, even if things didn't turn out alright, I'm 
glad for you. That you actually got to do something you loved. Even for a little 
while."

Another sip of tea, after which she noticed her lipstick had left 
copper prints on the rim of the cup. She looked up, intending to 
apologize for making such a mess, but found Youji looking both 
otherwise to her, and whatever had transpired in his life since she had last seen 
him. He didn't seem as glad as she wanted him to be.  And it was alright. She felt 
a fool for a moment.

And then she remembered herself. And she steadied herself. And she went on.

"Not that I don't like my job, because I do! For me, well, I'm afraid nothing so 
exciting as all that happened. I did have to leave college for awhile since I became 
somewhat ill. But that didn't last long, and I managed to get back in. I didn't figure 
I would, but anyway... I graduated. And I'm a translator now. Just like I'd always 
expected to be. I worked for the embassy for a spell, but they don't hire people 
permanently there. Business negotiations are easier anyway."

She teased him a little then, leaning down with her fist curled under her chin. And 
she winked at him. "Sometimes I forget I can have conversations in JUST 
Japanese. I haven't had one in so lone. Not since Kumi moved out. I have my own 
apartment now. Mom's pretty mad about it."

But Megaera pulled away then, back to the space over her own 
cushion. "Ah, Gomen ne! I didn't mean to sound so unhappy. I'm not."

/Or won't be, much longer./

"You seem... like... well... are you happy? That you don't have to make special 
trip out to buy your itoshi flowers?"

A little smile, most of which she meant.

***

Youji bristled at her use of "itoshi," for the obvious reasons. His attitude towards 
her became decidedly chilly; again, he fervently wished the other four were 
present. Or that the two who were here at least gave a damn about him. 

But no one gave a damn about him anymore. 

He averted his eyes, choosing to focus upon his drink. Addressed it instead of her. 
"I don't have an itoshi. I've been playing the 
field as it were. Makes life easier, not having any attachments."

/And all I've ever had were attachments, eh, Asuka?/ 

/I'm a damn liar. A fool and a liar./

Youji set his now drained glass down, and began to toy with it, 
turning it around and around in place. Mourned the fact that it 
wasn't a Sapporo. 

"So you got sick, hm? What did you come down with that was so 
serious you had to drop out of school?"

***

It was over.

No more dancing.  No more laughing.  No more memories of wine.  
Spring had frozen backwards into winter.  Time stopped and flowed the wrong 
way.  

/It makes things easier? You would say that.  You would still live that way.  And 
without me./

/For you, maybe, that is the truth.  And once it was the truth for me./

/I used to go back and wish we had parted friends, just so I could.../

/So I could.../

/Always, always remember what it was like before... under your green, green 
eyes./

/But you would have forgotten if I'd known you still./

/And you would not have been Youji./

/Which you are, and today, I will finally be Megaera again.  What 
becomes of you.../
  
"Well, actually that was one thing I meant to bring up.  Eventually.  If you didn't 
mind.  I'm sure it will only make you unhappy to hear..."

He had nodded though, for her to go on.  And she looked away from him, 
wringing her hands underneath the table top.

"It is... well... I ought to go to my car and get something quickly.  I'll only be a 
moment.  It makes more sense this way."

That time at least, she took no permission.  Seemed to remember he had not asked 
to leave her apartment that last time.  That he had merely pushed passed Kumi the 
roommate on her way in and that was that and that was five years ago and nothing 
else in the world...

...had mattered, save that he was gone.

/Why did I even ask this of you? I knew you have no one.  She told me.  The blue 
moon but... I just wanted to hear it.  For myself./

Today was her turn to have her honor.  Her chance to say goodbye.

She got what she wanted from the back seat of her car and took it inside.  Mrs. 
Higurashi was wrapped up in a conversation with a friend of hers.  She didn't 
even hear her come in.  Probably had not heard her leave.  

Which made her think of something, she said, it seemed, to herself.

"You never really left me all together, did you, Youji-san?"

But when the kitchen door swung open before her, he had cocked his head up as if 
he had heard her.  But no time to ask.  Not today.

Hanging by Megaera's hand was a little boy.  About four.  With hair the color of 
crow's feathers and eyes as green as the emeralds of emperors.

***

Youji gave the little boy a frowning, curious look, before turning back to Megaera 
to ask her just what she meant by bring a child in for him to see. But then, he 
realized exactly why before he even uttered one syllable, and he was absolutely 
floored. Confusion melted to dismay. Slowly he turned his attention to the boy 
again,

It was so clear.  Never mind the fuller pout of his lower lip, same as Megaera's; 
the sharpness of his tiny chin, also like hers--the child was a miniature of himself. 

Nothing he could say could dispel the truth, not now. Youji had more sense than 
to even try. 

"He's mine, isn't he?" 

A nod. 

He stared at the boy again, not really seeing him, but seeing himself for one 
instant. Youji wondered if his father felt like he did, bewildered and lost? He 
doubted it vehemently, then banished all thoughts of his unhappy childhood to the 
darkest corners of his memory. 

Youji swallowed hard, and got to his feet. Stood there quite unsure as to what he 
should do next. 

He decided to speak. 

"Wh--What's his name?" he rasped.

***

"Seishirou," Megaera answered, lending an unnaturally proper sound to each one 
of the wispy syllables.  Perhaps it was but only the twinges of one of her many 
accents coming through, but she made it sound as if she spoke of a wraith, far 
removed and who she had only visited in nightmares.

As if he knew this, as if he had grown so used to the different flights her tone 
might take, the boy's eyes fell to the floor.  The first place they had looked to 
since he had entered the room.  Before it had been Youji and only Youji in them.  
Even without even the faintest flutter of emotion.  

He didn't seem to know where he was, and yet he didn't look lost, the boy.

Megaera though had let s single hint of a smile creep onto her copper lips.

Her shoes had stayed on now, and they rang loudly on the floor as she stepped 
deeper into the room.

"Sei-chan, this is your otosama.  You remember me telling you about him, right?"

A nod, but since she was not looking at the boy, she did not realize he had 
answered her, and so gave his hand a little shake.  "Right?"

"Hai."

As if given the affirmation to free some little bird, she released his hand, and he 
made no move to take hers back.  Her spindles knocked again.  The opening of 
the dance.  One step back.  Unanswered.  

And she had no second thoughts.

Not that she had from the start.  

"I have... taken care of him for four years, so, I think it's only fair that...you take 
your turn now."

It finally occurred to her that she had not done Youji the same favor her son had.  
She had not torn her eyes away.  Had not been the proper, humbled mother.  For a 
moment she wished to scream with the joy that kiss and grind Kuudou in her arms 
until he wept for her.

Well, he would.

But even outwardly, she would not see.

"Sayonara, Youji.  Koishiteru."

The door squealed on it's hinges as she closed it behind her.

"At least, I did.  I'm sorry you don't remember."

And she broke for her car.  Now the bird she had herself released.

(OOC: Koishiteru- alternate, somewhat lusty form of "I love you".)

***

If the day in the city was pretty, then the day beyond it was 
absolutely stunning. Gone was the tang of carbon monoxide from the air; now it 
was just salt, the occasional whiff of wildflowers. The sky now vivid instead of 
dull. 

And they had the road practically all to themselves. 

It being a work day, a school day, the beach was nearly completely deserted; the 
only other signs of human life was a pair of teenage boys, uniform jackets slung 
over their shoulders, shirt sleeves turned up; trouser legs rolled up above bare 
feet. Masato climbed out of the car just in time to see them share a kiss at the 
water's edge. Then they laughed and chased each other over the pale sand, away 
from them. 

Then Naru got out of the car, and he forgot all about them. The 
youngest Crasher careened away from the car, down through a rolling field of 
blue gentian and dull grass until he reached the sand. There, he stopped, 
impatiently waving them to hurry.

"We're coming, kid. We're coming," he called back, chuckling. "Why don't you 
go find us a place to camp out?"

Naru lit up in a grin, nodded, and, after surveying their 
surroundings, sauntered off in the direction of the ocean. He stood at the water 
line, waited for a wave to splash over his feet, then took four steps forward. When 
he stopped, he dropped to his knees, rolled over and stretched out on his back, 
arms and legs spread. There he stayed until his two companions reached him. 

Masato couldn't help but think he'd just come across a merman made flesh, as 
corny as that sounded to him. He also had the outrageous impulse to pet his sand-
sparkled chest. Among other places. 

He gave his head a little shake as if to clear it. 

"So what do you two want to do first? Swim, or drink?"

***

Naru blinked his big gold eyes up at Masato- they grey eyes and whiskers that 
were upside down and blocking his view of the sky.  Funny, it struck him then his 
elder companion was fluttering his lashes in time with his own, and so he winked 
and he scrunched up his nose like a rabbit and dusted some of the silky grains 
from his chest.

"We should swim first," Reiichi ended up answering, having discovered after 
looking up from spreading out the tropical blooms which made up their three 
towels, that he seemed to be the only person with enough sense left to answer.  He 
couldn't help thinking Masato, bless his stubborn heart, looked for all the world as 
if he'd just drop-kicked little Naru, or some malcontent target who looked an 
awful lot like Naru, and so inspired regret.  It made him sigh, not to mention 
plunk his hands on his hips, 
which were already half bare, for his trunks, even while dry, had gone cock-eyed.  
"After all, it wouldn't be very funny if one of you got cramps and floated out to 
sea on our first day out together."

"Merely drinking, my dear Reiichi, I am rather sure does not lead to such 
unpleasantries." The youngest of their group insisted with all the proper smugness 
of his age or lack thereof.  "And MUST you use that dreadful word? We AREN'T 
disagreeable teenage girls, are we?"

The bag of sunscreens clattered and sent a little burst of sand up when he dropped 
it.  Cinderella's skirt left a blue spatter of sunshine underneath it, and that was 
where he tucked the case for his glasses in the mean time.  From inside the bag, as 
he fumbled around for the SPF 35- "I suppose you expect me to use some 
polysyllabic archaic nonsense word like collywobbles?"

Applause.  "Oh! I love the word collywobbles! It's so colly and wobble-ful!"

Masato's obvious sigh was drowned out by a rather conspicuous wave, which 
slurped up very far onto shore, utterly dousing Naru and sending his other guest 
scuttling away onto a somewhat drier patch of silt, which if luck served, was 
soaked on the next beat of the ocean.  

"Well, that may be, but even of you don't believe me about those 
wobbling collies, you'll get yourself smashed if I give you a bottle.  And then you 
WILL float out to sea, and you'll be saved by some grizzled old fisherman who'll 
be so blind he'll think you're a girl and demand you marry him on the spot."

His jousting opponent was obliged to spit out a mouthful of saltwater before 
answering, which he did as if he was a sputtering and upset fountain.  "Bah! Such 
banalities this! I wanted to go swimming first in the first bloody place!"

"You know you'd like it!"

"Do shut up, Reiichi."

And blowing a coy little kiss over his shoulder, Naru leap to his feet and took off 
into the surf which, as it had been fated to do, assaulted Masato for the second 
time, leaving him cursing and running further up the shore.

But Naru flew out into the retreating pulse of water where it was all broken and 
left without foam.  He sang too, spinning like a wind up ballerina caught in two 
way sunlight- both lines blue, and he the only golden thing about.

I'm accustomed to a smooth ride
Or maybe I'm a dog who's lost its bite
I don't expect to be treated like a fool no more
I don't expect to sleep through the night
Some people say a lie's a lie's a lie
But I say
Why deny the obvious child?
Why deny the obvious child?

And I'm remembering a road sign
I am remembering a boy when I was young
And we said "These songs are true
These days are ours
These tears are free..."

And maybe no one could hear him over the throaty roar, the complaints the waters 
made over his shrill voice, but he sang anyway, and he danced with the swells as 
if they would last.

Reiichi clapped for him and he didn't notice.  But Masato did, for he and the 
remaining dry Crasher were standing on the shore together.

"I saw that," He said to him.  And smirked.  

(OOC: Naru sings another Paul Simon song, and he sings it wrong! It's supposed 
to say "girl" instead of "boy".  And I REALLY don't think you could actually 
dance to this...)

***

"Eh? Saw what?" Masato asked, to which Rei merely waggled a few 
meaningful looks at him, replete with odd twitches of his head 
towards the sand, the sea. 

Another wave rolled forward, but Masato anticipated its approach this time, and 
darted back. He circled around Reiichi, and came up alongside him again, only to 
catch him flash that same knowing, contented grin his way. It irritated Masato to 
no end. 

"What ARE you talking about? I simply asked a question, so stop 
smirking at me...And pull up your trunks before you lose them 
altogether."

***

Reiichi sighed, never losing his simper, and being in a rather obliging mood, 
complied with his companion's request.  Complied as much as he could, pulling 
his trunks up as far as they would go, so they become painfully tight for a moment 
as opposed to indecently loose.

But then they fell down again, melting pink around his hips and letting his navel 
and a good deal of the innocuous but sometimes suspicious flesh elbow it peer 
out.  Masato groaned and covered his eyes.

There came a slapping sound then, and it happened NOT to be the sound of one 
Crasher taking a corrective smack to the cheek of another, but rather, Naru 
bounding out of the water.  Dipping, and with his hair asunder.  He clasped one of 
Masato's burly arms with both of his spindly ones.

"NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Don't be such a dreadful, dreadful 
beach-flower! The water's perfectly delightful to-day! I guarantee it shall take the 
sourness right out of you.  Please? Do come along!"

Not that he had any choice, as Reiichi assisted his youngest teammate but giving 
their mutual quarry a good shove, one which sent him sprawling along towards 
the lip of the ocean.  And his hands did not dart from his shoulders after.  He 
came as close to him as he dared, and spoke above the waves, just loud enough 
for one in his audience.  Not that Naru was anything but blissfully smitten with 
the afternoon.

"Oh, you know.  But you don't have to tell me about it.  But I'll warn you, he's not 
what he seems."

***

Masato turned to look at Reiichi--or rather attempted to do so. His constantly 
smiling companion quickly pushed him forward and hard before he could, nearly 
sending him sprawling into the surf. When Masato did manage to recoup his 
fractured composure, Rei was already off to the beach towels and the book he'd 
brought. The scruffy assassin stared after him in a great deal of puzzlement. What 
did he mean by his last remark? Was Naru not as bright? As gentle? As sneaky?

As innocent? 

Furthermore, what made Rei think that Masato considered him as such? That he 
considered him at all? 

And why did he himself think he could win an argument when both of them were 
on the side against him? 

With a huff, he turned away from the shore, stubbornly remaining 
where he stood in the knee deep water. Beyond him, Naru swam and 
floated on the rolling wet field of sun-dappled blue. He made it 
look so easy. Made it look so...fun. His obvious enjoyment of it 
was encouraging, his laughter, infectious. It wasn't long before 
Masato, still clad in his t-shirt on account of his wholly decorated back, was 
swimming as well: Less merman, though, and more human.

***

Reiichi didn't intend to read just yet, it was only to adjust the 
cover of his book that he had picked it up.

After all, the revelation that he was a lifetime member of the 
Leisure Romance a Month Club would pale in comparison to the mere 
notion the three of them might have decided to co-operate. Ah, 
another day perhaps. That and he had finally gotten to the "good" 
part of The Marriage Bed. Or one of the many good parts it might 
have been. Either way, he did not wish to be disturbed by taunting of any sort. Or 
by curious eyes trying to make out the description of Lady Dornei's nether parts. 
Probably to scoff. He left the book open on the sand. And let his eyes skim it as 
he started to douse himself with the coconut sunscreen.

It occurred to him then that he should have insisted his two 
companions make use of it as well but... ahh, too late! Let them have their fun.. or 
otherwise.

A quick glance upwards over the rims of his glasses and he got to see they two- a 
dolphin and a cat, chasing each other... no, rather, it was Naru chasing Masato. 
Backwards as usual. And the elder assassin was floundering constantly, trying to 
keep above the waves and out of the arms of that lovely boy.

Poor him.

But not poor Lady Dornei!

She'd had that coming for a couple of chapters now. The cries were not of her sex-
wracked body, but they were unbecomingly shrill for his gruff guest, who had just 
been set upon by a water sprite.

Who made off with Masato's shirt and carried it with him into the distant sighing 
body of the water, the place just before where the foam was born.

Ah well, his horny couple would be there tomorrow, and the next day.

He set the book aside and watched the live show, instead of that so poorly 
recorded by Ms. Dain.

***

Masato, who had plainly never been much of a swimmer, undauntedly set off 
after his cavorting young companion. "Oi! Come back here!" 

Of course, Naru didn't listen. Merely spun said shirt over his head to taunt him. 
Burst out laughing over the string of foul words he emitted in reply, and dove 
abruptly under the water. Masato didn't trust his ability that much to follow after 
him, especially as he could have just as well gone off towards deeper water; the 
idea of going beyond where his feet couldn't reach without his head being totally 
submerged didn't appeal to him at all. In fact, it rather worried him. 

"Naru! This isn't funny anymore!" 

Nothing. No bobbling, grinning blond head hovering above the 
rippling water. No flash of sleek, pale skin. 

"Naru!"

Masato swam a bit towards the shore, until he thought he was 
at the point where the water would touch his shoulders, then righted himself to 
scan the horizon, pondering over whether or not to risk following him. But before 
he could push off, the whole plan was rendered pointless. The boy in question 
popped up directly in front of him, grinning like a cat, and waggling his t-shirt 
through the water at him like a banner. 

But Masato was not amused, as Naru found out when the older man 
lunged forward and grabbed him around the waist, pulling him back to what he 
considered his comfort zone. And there, he kept him. 

"What the hell do you think you were doing just then?!"

***

Of course, in Masato's comfort zone, Naru was more or less lucky that the rolling 
level of the ocean more or less permitted him to breathe.

More or less. And breathing was all he did for awhile- without his lips pursed, or 
his head tilted. With none of the usual gestures of confusion or pondering. After a 
few moments, he even refrained form looking Masato straight in the eye.

But finally figured out if he got on his tip toes, he was more liable to have an 
ample supply of air. 

As for the soggy t-shirt, it quite suddenly popped from the surface, and dripping 
stood before its rightful owner. Who didn't seem to want it back straight off. Who 
didn't seem to want anything besides and answer.

"I don't rightfully know WHAT exactly to say. I'm sure you won't be satisfied if I 
tell you I was merely trying to play, for it is 
children who play, and neither of us are, least of all you. But if I said I was trying 
to ascertain if you might follow me if I ran, that would be closer to what I seem to 
remember thinking. Why would I want you to follow me though? And why take 
this of yours," He squeezed the unhappy lump of cloth here, "When I might ask, 
or tickle you."

They both sighed, and for completely different reasons.

"Well, as someone I knew used to say, but I'll be damned if I can 
remember who- `Do you know why you do everything you do?' Because I fear 
that I don't."

Before Masato could reclaim his rumpled and sopping garment, Naru 
whisked it away again, shook the thing out which included dipping it pack in the 
brine which held them. He sprung off his toes then, and made to yank the shirt 
over Masato's head. He got it over his head alright, with one arm halfway in and 
the other still quite free.

"Hmm... well...  koko est vie. I've given it back now, and I'm sorry."

(OOC: That's BB for "That's life".)

***

"Swimming pools are for playing; the ocean is NOT. No, we aren't 
children, and yes, I would have followed you if I thought I could 
have caught up to you."  Masato briefly leveled his eyes to the horizon. "If I 
hadn't been so damned unnerved." 

Naru said nothing, didn't move away from him, so he hesitantly drew his attention 
back to him. He became aware then of how much of a struggle it was for the boy 
to keep his head up, and, tightening his grip, he pulled him back in the direction 
of the shore, until his shoulders cleared the waves as well. Kept his arms around 
him as their feet touched bottom, but held him much more loosely. 

"I don't know why I do what I do sometimes. I don't always know why I think 
what I think...Like now. Because now..." his voice dropped an octave lower, even 
though the only eavesdroppers they had were the gulls, "I'm thinking about how 
smooth your skin feels. How incredibly gorgeous you look in those damn silly 
trunks." 

"About how--and *please* don't be offended, kid--how much I want to kiss you, 
and if you don't push me away right now, I just might do it."

***

Whatever grimness had possessed Naru fled then, but he did not smile even the 
littlest bit at Masato.  After all, what he knew- what he was sure he knew about 
his companion -was that when he was trying to be serious, it didn't do him well to 
be beset by even the faintest hint he was not being taken as such.

But then there were all the things he wasn't sure of.  Like why on earth he insisted 
on thinking the ocean wasn't for playing, when the very waters frolicked under the 
watchful eye of the moon, or why he wasn't doing a thing to right the bubbles in 
his t-shirt, which had puffed him out like a scraggly penguin.  

The latter at least, he took care of for him, and since that left his arms about 
Masato's middle- close enough to be swaying with the current in the same time as 
his companion -he stayed there.  

But would he be heard above the laughter of the waves?

"Neeeeeeee, why ever would I be offended that you would want to kiss me? It 
surely isn't very much to ask, even if I didn't much like to be kissed.  Which 
simply isn't the case, I ought to say.  In spite of the distinct tragedy of my 
romantic past, which I seem to think I should tell you to remember.  And yet you 
are Masato, and I, ironically enough, can not remember you ever forgetting 
anything."

The sand sagged beneath him as he rose once more to his toes, and the ripples 
threatened to snatch it out from under him, make him sink or fall back into the 
blue oblivion of the water.

So he made things just about as short as he could.

"Now, I've never bussed anyone with whiskers before, so bear with 
me..."

And in the still between to swells, two motions of watery laughter such as he had 
insisted not to undergo himself, he seized Masato's chin, yanked him forward and 
gave him a wet and smacking kiss.

***

Masato's eyes were slow to close when Naru kissed him, as he had been 
somewhat surprised that the boy had taken the initiative. He'd been surprised 
when the other didn't break away from him, for that matter.

Had been even more stunned over how Naru's kiss made him feel--

The older man gently thumbed the red prick marks his scratchy stubble had raised 
around Naru's mouth. "Some night in the future--whether near or far--when you 
pop up on my doorstep seeking food...If it turns out that I've bothered to shave 
that night...Will you kiss me like that again?"

***

"I should very much like to, Masato! Very much indeed.  Whether you have 
shaved or not, whether you have up and grown a beard on me or not.  In all truth, 
I might be ra'er inclined to kiss you again as we speak."

To which Naru leaned in dangerously close, catching the hand that 
fingered him so softly by the wrist and scooting it over to his cheek so they 
shouldn't bump into one another by accident.

"I hope you don't mind.  Your stubble gives it a bit of a kick though."

But it was not he who began things this time, but the elder Crasher, who leaned 
down and dipped him against the waves.  Just a little, enough to show it was he in 
charge this second time. 

But how did Masato kiss? Well, not at all how he would have supposed such an 
outwardly coarse fellow might.  Even if he held him back a little, it was without a 
sense he would be dropped.  Even if he had lips that looked as clumsy as could 
be, he was very mindful of them, would not brush them against his own with any 
sense that was less than light or gentle.  And yet, it simply wasn't the way one 
kissed a child or otherwise novice.  No, rather the way one kissed if one has been 
waiting very long 
indeed to come so close an intimate against another living body- mouth to mouth.  
Like smoke (which he could taste on him, just faintly) and like the breaths of old 
memories coming back with the most exquisite detail.

They parted, both trying not to gasp.

"I say, you've been holding out on me! To THINK I would come about to bother 
you about supper only!"

***  

"And I say you've been holding out on me, Naru." He grinned at him then, at last, 
and playfully tugged at a long, golden lock of his hair. "As for coming around to 
bother me...I don't care why you come, so long as you do." 

He slid his fingers under his chin and kissed him again, softly. 
Nibbled at his lips the tiniest bit before letting him go. "In fact, I shouldn't mind at 
all if...If you decided to come for a visit tonight." 

His hands fell away from his waist, skimming his hips, and caught at his hands. 
Held them fast. 

"It's all entirely up to you."

***

"Well," Naru began, "As much as the mice which roam my dwelling 
should miss me, and that cats which chase them should not whish to catch solemn 
mice, as such surely isn't a challenge even for the eldest neko..."

It was not a wave which cut of his speech this time, or even a feisty crab.  Rather, 
a long clear whistle came and tickled at their eardrums, even over the roar of the 
surf.

It was Rei, of course.  Rei, who hadn't bothered to look up from his romance 
novel, and so had plainly had no idea they had been in the middle of a discussion, 
let alone each other's arms.  

Well, at least he was smothering his eyes with it by the time they each looked 
over.

"I don't mean to alarm you two, but..." The hand of his which was lost in his 
cooler came up and shook itself onto one of their towels, "But I don't think the ice 
is going to hold out much longer.  Unless you want to try WARM chartreuse, 
perhaps you'd better stop you swim for now."

/And it wouldn't be fair of me.  I know you two.  Leaving you alone out in the 
water just wouldn't do./

/It wouldn't be fair at all, Masato./

So he waited for the two of them to come and claim their flasks of bright green 
wine.

***

"Man..." Masato murmured in faint dismay. "Just when things were 
going somewhere..."

/I have the worst luck./

He released Naru's hands most regretfully--both for the fact that 
their interlude was over, and that he knew Rei had just interrupted Naru's 
rejection of his offer. That last didn't surprise, him, not really. But that he hadn't 
been surprised didn't mean he hadn't been stung by it. 

Naru dove away from him, as agile as a fish. Masato followed via 
wading, watching him slice through the surf. /Ah, well. You had 
your moment, and now it's gone. At least you tried, huh?/ 

Small consolation. 

He did not let his mild dejection show on his face when he fully 
emerged from the sea, instead giving his lounging companions a slight smile as he 
approached their little camp. 

"Not too warm?" Masato asked as Rei took up the bottle meant for him and 
applied the corkscrew to its mouth. The bespectacled Crasher smiled, and shook 
his head, and the cork came out with a definite pop. Whole, much to Reiichi's 
credit. A puff of frost curled away from its lip, and he handed it over to Masato. 

Who took a deep drought of it, mindful of the fact that such a fine liqueur 
probably ought not be guzzled in such a brutal way, and not giving a damn at all.

***

Naru had hung in the water a moment, watching Masato from afar and hoping he 
had thought himself to be the follower.  Such a pretty fib.  He'd only wanted a 
look at him- just close enough to see all those little cues that made Masato... well, 
Masato.

That they had known each other for so long and he still wasn't exactly sure what 
all of them were was beside the point.  But he seemed to detect a little droop to 
his shoulders, and not only for the fact the dragon's crimson had bled through the 
wet shirt and could be seen as a red ghost sitting on his shoulder.  Naru wondered 
if it was cold there...

He also followed him.  At last.

/I guess he doesn't know I really, really was starting to tell him I would./

/Even if it was in my usual roundabout way./

/Well... do I... tell him it was otherwise? Everything?/

/He'll ask again./

/No lecherous designs indeed!/

Still miffed as the sweet wine afternoon could leave him, he pulled out the 
remaining towel and dried himself, having forgotten entirely to shake the thing 
out first.

Reiichi paused in handing over Naru's bottle of Chartreuse, and rather waited 
there for him to finish, drumming his fingers over his book all the while.  When 
the youngest Crasher had finished, he told him the sad truth then- "I do believe 
you've gotten sand all over your ass."

Which sent him spinning in circles trying to see the grit which covered his 
bottom, not to mention frantically dusting himself in places he would not have 
ordinarily smacked so in public. 

Reiichi popped a third bottle to savor while he enjoyed the spectacle, after having 
first taken the lips of Masato's bottle out of his mouth.

"Take your time, the wine isn't going anywhere and neither is Naru it seems."

*** 

Masato had grumbled at having his avid attack on his bottle 
disrupted, but he didn't hurry it back into his mouth. He was much too busy 
watching Naru smack himself sand-free. He rather enjoyed the sight, as well. A 
little too much.

With a grunt, he sat up, knowing his new position--and his baggy t-shirt--would 
conceal his current state. Masato averted his eyes to the sea, to the birds wheeling, 
and bobbing, and swooping over, on, and down to the waves. Took another hearty 
swig of his wine. 

And turned the conversation to the only topic he could think of. The safest one, 
that is. 

"How'd you manage to score such fancy wine as this, Rei?"

***

"Why, by doing a bit of side business, actually," Reiichi began, speaking rather 
loudly above the roar of the restless waters and the frantic complaints of Naru 
regarding sand which had set up residence in parts of his shorts not generally let 
to such tenants.

To Masato's little glare of disbelief, he merely shrugged, and continued his smile 
unabated, even as the bottle of Chartreuse passed it, and he sipped but daintily 
from the neck.

"Why yes, you have gotten me a bit wrong.  I'm not completely faithful to 
Kritiker, and haven't been for some time.  You see, during one of our missions in 
the past, and I don't really remember how long ago exactly, but I happened to 
come across an unrelated case of a bar owner watering down his vermouth and 
charging double for his martinis.  So, I took the liberty of taping him and..."

"You're now a bloody extortionist!" Naru gasped, clapping his gritty hands aside 
of his face and leaving white prints there.  For one reason or another, he didn't 
seem too inclined to bat THAT sand away, probably because it made him look 
like an albino Yanomamo.  

"Now, now, Uhyuo-san, you didn't let me finish." Though finish he did not, and 
slurp he did.  "You see, the whole thing was really HIS idea.  Although how he 
arrived at the conclusion that paying me off with this would be cheaper than 
selling descent cocktails I'll never know."

"Nor do you intend to care it would see. Ah, so it goes, karma fails to work both 
ways or else we should all die within the hour a hundred times.  I am not sad, and 
I hold nothing against you for taking brides on the side.  Kritiker may be not only 
white and so do we all know.  To grey! And unto green.  Kanpai!"

***

It was like his stockinged feet were stuck to the floor, for Youji didn't follow her. 
He just called bewilderedly after her retreating form, until the front door closed, 
and then, he fled after her, past his downtrodden son and flung open the door just 
in time to witness the departure of her little white sports car. 

It was too late to stop her, but still Youji stayed in the 
doorway. From somewhere to his right, Ms. Higurashi strode 
gracefully into his field of vision, to the door where she turned the lock and 
flipped over the "Closed" sign. Without a look in his direction, she vacated the 
shop, and clicked-clicked down the hall to her own set of rooms. 

Never had he felt so thankful towards a woman in all his life. He 
should have been at ease at that point, but he was not. There was 
another matter which demanded his attention, one that was small, yet so, so 
enormous. One he could not ignore. 

Hesitantly, Youji turned around to look at his son. His son. Those two words spun 
around and around in his brain, but never quite sunk in. How could they? It was, 
after all, the last thing he ever expected to happen. He never considered himself to 
be a fit parent, and therehe was, stuck with a kid whose own mother didn't want 
him.  

His eyes stung, and cursing softly, he blinked them clear. Walked 
over to Seishirou, and crouched down next to him. 

"Um...Seishirou? Are you hungry? Tired? Do you want...Do you want 
to come to my apartment and watch TV?"

***

Seishirou regarded Youji with a blank look, the sort one gives another who has 
done something utterly, utterly out of character.  He moved then, rocked 
backwards on the toes of one of his feet, as if he meant to take a step away.  Youji 
did not look surprised by this, but as for his son, he changed his mind and 
remained quite close.

Though he didn't answer.

He simply stood, looking back into Youji's eyes, as if he had never seen such 
things as they before in his life, and they were worthy of years of such study.  
Even if it simply couldn't have been that way, for after all, they were his eyes too.

For both of them, at that moment, had a world weary glass over their gaze.  Such 
to me expected for the elder...

"You're not mad at me.  Okasama always is." There was a certainty to his words, 
though they were quiet.  Unassuming.  And yet without the expected lilt of simply 
living joyfully most children had.  "But I'm bothering you, I know it."

***

Youji's heart broke, just a little. It was enough to sorrow 
practically anyone's heart, the way the child had responded to him. 

"No, I'm not mad at you, Seishirou. And, while I wasn't expecting to ever find 
myself with a son, you aren't bothering me either."  Youji gave him the best 
reassuring smile he could coax his lips into, and stood up. Held his hand out to the 
boy. It felt so strange when he took it. Tiny fingers grasping his own larger ones 
so dutifully. Rather weakly. 

/You wouldn't have asked for me as a father if you could have chosen, I know. 
And I'm sorry./

"Come on, Seishirou." 

/So damn sorry, kid./

Youji led the boy out of the back room, through the shop, flipping off the lights as 
he went. Locked the door between the shop and the private areas. Checked the 
back door, then took him to the stairs. 

"Uh..." he began, realizing in midthought that the boy was completely without 
luggage, toys. It only made him angry at her heartlessness. Made him hurt a bit 
more. He gave his hand a little squeeze as they reached the second floor.

***

He had kissed Yuuji good-bye, even if it was only up one flight of stairs, and he 
was still carrying his taste on his lips when he made it to the landing halfway up.

And stopped himself so fast he had to grab the banister to keep from falling.

Seishirou was the only one of the pair who turned in time to see Omi's papers 
spiraling down to the carpet.

"Oh da-... darn it!" Omi sighed, and bent down after those which had settled on 
his bare toes first, or at least, began to.  He froze only halfway down and watched 
the strange little boy who took Youji's wrist as he unlaced their hands, and 
without so much as a suggestion, pattered down after the farthest fallen of the 
notes.

His hand went out to stop him.  At first.

/But he's... he's not old enough to read.  Not well enough to make those out.  It'd 
be different if I'd brought the pictures but.../

And he wasn't looking at his teammate when he spoke to him- he was sitting on 
the steps, watching the little boy, half knowing who he was.  The enchanted way 
he moved.  The mere fact that Youji was taking him upstairs.  The details be 
accursed, he knew.  He just knew.  And he wished he had no other business at that 
moment.

Then feeling his belly was rather cold, he looked down, and shortly also wished 
he had remembered to do the top button of his jeans.

Seishirou straightened up the edges of the fallen documents by tapping them 
against the wall, and bowed a little as he handed them over.

"Ah... domo!" A slightly flustered Omi replied, tipping his head a little since he 
was sitting and couldn't bow.

"Doitashimashite."

"Umm... say, what's your...?"

"Seishirou.  How do you do?"

"Aa, fine thanks." And as one hand he laid against his chest. "I'm Omi."

The boy said nothing, simply bowed again, and returned to his place at Youji's 
side.  Youji, who had watched the whole scene as if it was happening on TV, and 
he had little to do with it besides being there to see it one Thursday night.

Then what he had forgotten in those moments of watching Seishirou came back to 
him, and he shook the glumness from his head, and said what he had meant to, but 
without looking back.  "Youji-kun, I was just bringing you the notes for to-night.  
I didn't mean to interrupt.  You can... you can still come along.  Can't you?"

And then he realized his heart was pounding in his ears and his eyes had begun to 
ache.

***

"Oh, of course, I'm going to come along, Omi-ai," he began in the 
suavest of tones. "I'll just drop my son--for yes, he is my son--off with a stranger 
to mind him tonight, just as his mother has just done a mere few minutes ago. Or 
perhaps, I'll simply bring him along, hm? Let him ride on my shoulders..." He 
paused, and mouthed the rest over his solemn little boy's head. *...and let him 
watch me kill someone.*

Omi's eyes widened slightly, but he said nothing, moved not. Youji simply was 
impassive. 

"You don't approve? Very well, then, I won't do either, for I 
certainly don't want to displease you. I'll just stay home and get to know 
Seishirou." 

He glanced down at his son, who at that moment turned his face away from Omi 
towards his. "I'm afraid you'll have to go it alone, now, just as I will have to," he 
added softly. 

Without another glance in his lost love's direction, he stooped to scoop the boy up 
in his arms, then turned to resume his journey to his room. 

"Oyasumi, Omi-ai. Ganbatte."

***

The two dark lines the frames of the windows threw crept onto his ankles and 
nibbled his socks.  So he had found out without even asking and not the slightest 
stirring besides his own troubled the halls, not his pulse, though there had been 
farewells...

Almost.

"Ah... you two, Youji-kun. Oyasumi." But he did not even know then if they had 
lingered long enough to listen to his farewell. Just the same, in case it was not 
only his breathing he heard, he stayed on the landing, working the folder of papers 
back and forth, until the shadows had grown somewhat longer, and a whole hoard 
of shades been given room to pass and muse on him from behind.

"Your son... is real pretty. I'm glad. I'll keep him some time if you want. Just 
because we're friends."

Then he got to his feet.

"Yeah..."

And walked back to his room, realizing on the way enough time had 
passed for his lover to have grown worried over him. Why, he found him waiting 
on just the other side of the door, and having guessed he might have such luck, he 
wasted no time shutting the two of them in.

"Yuuji? Did you hear anything funny awhile ago? Like shouting or 
slamming doors?"

He shook his head.

"So da na! Umm... well, I think we might have to be kinda quiet from now on. 
Youji... Youji's got a little boy living with him now. His little boy!"

***

Seishirou road rather stiffly against his father, and was quite 
plainly unaccustomed to being so handled. But he made no outward 
complaint, nor did he wilt onto the shoulder which bobbed against 
him. They had reached his door by the time he let his arms stray to Youji's neck, 
as if he meant to hold him close there, though he all but posed them, as if asked to 
do so by someone else.

It was a searching look that Youji found, when he turned to him, and he watched 
it right back through the baby-blue lenses of his glasses, rather than see what he 
did with the doorknob. 

As for his son, he squirmed as if he wanted to be let down only after the door had 
clicked closed, and if not at first plainly out of curiosity, "Will you turn on the 
light so I can have a look around?" 

Though some of the room could still be seen- black shadows over the dying, 
airbrushed fuchsia of the far side of the sky. The overhead lights seemed petty, 
yellow imitations of the lamp that the window had become, even if they did 
provide clear sight. And it was that window, the one Omi had leaned against the 
first night he and his then lover had spent in that apartment and Seishirou 
inspected it as if he could make out whatever glitter and skin prints might have 
been left, and knew what they meant. 

From his new vantage, the far side of things, he surveyed the 
strawberry glow over his new abode. Crossed the room but not the 
doorway to the empty room which had been one the place of Omi-ai. 
He stood on the threshold, and looked past it, as if it had become the window 
now, and he looked inside some pristine garden he was not allowed to enter; some 
majestic place at the least. The sort of place it was questionable he had ever been 
too, or would hold any reverence for.

But he walked away then, and his fingers over the stack of CD's, 
seeming to look for one he might recognize.

***

In the Honjyou-Tsukiyono residence, things were now decidedly less laid back. 
Yuuji had taken the news not with the same delight as his young lover had. 
Rather, he was quite aghast at the prospect. 

"Kudou's got a kid?! What...He has no business keeping a child! 
What the hell is he thinking?"

Omi gave him a worried sort of look; then a disapproving, pouty scowl. 

"I'm sorry you disagree with me, but...He's not fit to be a father.  He's a playboy. 
He has a certain lifestyle. I've known him for almost a week, and I already know 
it." Yuuji glanced at the door, and, taking him by the arm, lead him into the 
bedroom, as if he feared someone was listening. 

It never hurt to be cautious. 

"And need I remind you that he is an assassin?" he continued in a 
much softer voice. "How's he going to do his job? What if he 
decides to quit? How will we continue with just ourselves?" 

/And will they even let him go if he asks?/

***

Omi hung his head then, seeming ashamed to have contradicted his 
lover. Which he somewhat was. More of his rather sudden dilemma had to do 
with the fact he couldn't come up with a reason he was happy. At least, not one 
that wasn't completely selfish.

/Well... I was hoping he might let me play with him!/

/I was hoping the other day... well... wishing really. Thinking about what it would 
have been like... if he'd said we could keep Mitsuki's child./

/I... really shouldn't... have said that. Thought that even. Told 
Yuuji.../

/Yuuji.../

But looking into those aquamarine eyes, he knew then, and no longer could he 
find himself regretful.

"Well, it could be worse. I know that frankly NONE of us would make *great* 
parents, and I don't think now that he's one, he's going to settle down but... you 
know... it might be nice. For all of us. Not... just for getting along but because... 
he's a child. Think of all the things that children are. Aren't they happy things?"

A step into his lover's arms then as he flitted his fingers over his lips.

"And before you say anything about us being the kinds of people who take those 
things away, let me say that you're right. And we're just gonna have to try as hard 
as we can not to. Alright?"

He got a somewhat unexpected kiss then, on his cheek. And it made 
him feel a little as if he were the child. Or two old to be doing 
what he did somehow. And he liked it.

"Besides, I'm sure if any of us asked nicely, Higurashi-san would 
watch him while we're out, which is usually while he'd be in bed. I think his 
name's... Seishirou if you run into him."

They both paused and for the second time that afternoon, faced the ceiling, which 
had now started to echo with a low, melodious tune, which as if distant, could not 
be clearly plucked from the air.

"Speaking of going out, I should go change."

***

To Omi's request regarding Youji and his newfound son, Yuuji said 
nothing. Instead, he gave him a kiss, and a swat on the ass. "Oh, I don't know 
about that. I find you quite attractive just as you are now..." 

This said with a nuzzle of noses before Yuuji let him go.

"But you do as you see fit. I'll change, and get my weapon. And the list of clubs. I 
thought we'd start at the one where the last 
victim was seen. Perhaps some one knows something." 

Yuuji snapped the locks on the trunk at the foot of his bed, and took out the 
whipsword; dropped it on the bed. 

"I'll be watching you every minute tonight. Every minute. Manx gave me one of 
those wrist communicators you guys always use, so if anything suspicious 
happens, CALL me." 

He went to the closet and took out his white trench, but didn't put it on. Hung it 
over his arm, and fumbled with the clasps. 

"I don't have to tell you to be careful, do I?" 

***

Mitsuki had given in.  Surrendered.  Not to a man, not even to a woman for the 
sake of kinkiness, but to some sexless fae thing which made her heart burst and 
gave her the blessing of a stomach fit enough to withstand what came of it.

She laughed until all of her eyeliner had left streaks towards the storm drain when 
her fallen tears evaporated under the lingering heat of the falling sun.  Her sides 
hurt, but in the best way she had ever known.

Still cradling them, she stood and stumbled into the elevator where she suffered a 
relapse in front of a middle aged woman bearing ferns, who got out a floor early 
and left her.

Then she got on her bike and took off after Megaera, smiling as she thrust her 
fists at the drivers she ran loop-de-loops through.  Now and again, she still choked 
on the speeding air which filled her throat.  Now and again, she still let the giggles 
pour from her.

They surely hadn't left her by the time she found that white sports car idling at a 
stoplight.  Behind the grey gloss of the windows, the tiny woman chewed her lips 
with and clung to the wheel for dear life.  Screamed when Mitsuki rapped on her 
passenger's side door.  The barrier may have rolled away with only the hesitation 
of fumbling, but she still had to shout above the rush hour traffic.

"DUDE! He's not chasin' you! It's OK.  He just went back inside with Sei!"

And audible sigh of relief, and Megaera collapsed against her steering wheel, 
setting off the horn and not apparently caring for the noise or the fact her bun was 
coming undone.  "Kami-sama..."

"Hey! S'ok! Don't worry about it.  You're like, allowed to freak out and 
everything.  'specially after I told ya what he did to my neck." Her finger flew to 
her lips in a little gesture of hindsight.  "Probably shoulda waited to tell you that."

"No, no... it's alright, Mitsuki-san.  I was nervous already.  There was nothing you 
could have said or done to make it better OR worse.  Please don't blame yourself."

"That goes double for you, Meg."

"So desu ne!"

Not more laughter then, nor any hot anxiety.  Mitsuki waved her 
accomplice over to the curb which bordered a small park, and they 
stopped there awhile, one to revel, and one to see if she could again coax feeling 
into her numb feet.  They wandered without speaking under the sunset and the 
ginkos, not really seeing the last of the dogs racing after their owners, or the first 
of the lovers risking holding hands in public.  The lanterns in the bows came on 
long before it was dark, long before the streetlights even, and so all the shadows 
went wrong.  

It was still hot, and Megaera eventually took off her jacket and carried it so that it 
hid her hands, even when she bent down to see if she could find any foreign 
money in the fountain, or any spray from it to sooth her burning cheeks.

"I don't believe I did it."

The comment had been meant for what could be made out of her 
reflection, but Mitsuki answered it anyway.

"Butcha did! You really got guts, girl! Good for you, doing whatcha wanted for 
once."

No answer came at once, their eyes did not even meet.

"Ah..."

"Hey wait! You don't feel...?"

She shook her head, and grinding the toe of her shoe against the walk.  "Watashi... 
watashi ureshii ne... eto... I think."

Settling herself in for a potentially long argument, the biker girl plopped down on 
the edge of the fountain and crossed her legs.  "Aww, what's the matter?"

"I think... I forgot..."

"Forgot what? C'mon, you can tell me! What the hell good would dirt on you do 
me?"

"Saa... annou... I've just been wanting to... for so long." Saying this, her voice 
seemed to at last return to the land of the living, and she faced her companion, 
steadying a grin on her lips as if she had meant to bite it away and had only 
changed her mind the moment before.

"Well then! Be happy!"

"But I haven't been happy in so long! I don't think I'm remembering it right."

Mitsuki blinked and spit out the lock of hair which had fallen in her mouth.  Her 
lipstick left a shiny red imprint on it.  "Now what did I tell you about reading 'Ai 
to Yokubou no Fascism' too much?"

A little roll of her eyes, "That's not what's in that book.  That's what I said 
myself."

"Well then..." Just as quickly as she had taken it, she left her place on the stone 
around the water, and her place instead was filled with the birds who came 
wishing for drinks before bed.  One arm she slung over Megaera's shoulders, and 
that was all she needed to drag her off.  "Then we'll just have to get you to say 
something else.  This is insane! You're a free woman now an' you deserve to 
fuckin' act like one, ne, ne, NEEEEE?"

"Aa... hai."

"Don't you 'aa hai' me! I tell ya what.  You did a favor for me, not just for you.  
And maybe I'm not all into karma and stuff, but you get what you pay for or 
something like that, so let's go out! My treat."

This elicited a small perk from the woman she was dragging along.  
"Oh... Arigatou! I'd really like to! Just let me go home and change."

The biker started to agree to this, but instead spun her companion around in her 
arms and fumbled her own chin.  "Mmm... something tells me I'm not gonna 
approve of whatcha come back in.  I got a better idea.  How 'bout we gettcha 
somethin'... umm... pretty to wear.  Also on me."

And here a blush instead of any known excuse.

A blush countered with the appearance of a credit card.  "That's what plastic's for, 
girl! B'sides, you REALLY remember if it's both love and desire that are pains in 
the ass? You say you forget what it's like to be happy, so lets see if you remember 
how to lust.  Love being for people with nothin' better to do."

"I'm going to have to say I mustn't because you're not making any sense."

"Great! You drive, I'll call Hiro, we can all go out and commemorate the day that 
Kuudou Youji's life became hell on earth courtesy of us."

Megaera added with a distant smirk of remembrance, "And himself."

(OOC: Ai to Yokubou no Fascism by Ryu Murakami is one of many texts which 
influenced Shin Seki Evangelion, but has the distinction of NOT being of the 
heretical Hebrew sort.  The title means "The Fascism of Love and Desire".)   

***

Youji watched his son make the circuit of the living room, noting how he'd 
hovered on the threshold of Omi's apartment. It struck him as funny that the boy 
hadn't made any move to enter his ex-lover's former dwelling, as if he could sense 
it had been only recently abandoned. As if Omi's old living room bore lingering 
traces of his aura, even if the room itself looked as it had before the boy had even 
moved in. 

Or at least, that's how Youji viewed it. He hadn't dared to set foot into Omi's old 
room since he'd returned to the Hanano, and he figured he never would again. 

He sank down on the cushions around his coffee table, and reached for his 
cigarettes, only remembering his situation after he'd gotten one smoke between 
his lips and the lighter to it. Crushed it out with a muffled curse. No more of that. 
No more drink, not to excess as he was wont to do. No more lovers. 

No more late nights out. 

The pack wound up in his pocket. The lighter as well. Youji 
reclined on the cushions like a pasha, and watched Seishirou flip 
through his collection of cds. 

"You like music? There's a player in the bedroom if you want to 
listen to some."

***

Seishirou glanced up from the stack of cases, his eyes growing 
faintly wide as if his father's words were the last he had expected to hear. A nod 
from Youji, and he stopped once more to fish out what had caught his attention- 
something older towards the bottom that hadn't been listened to in awhile. After a 
moment of tugging, he had the good sense too remove the CD's above it in several 
handfuls so as not to tip them over, and so, rather bumped into his guardian who 
had dashed over to prevent just that from happening, but instead, merely patted 
him lightly on the head for his foresight. 

And who suspected at first that his son had only picked the disk he had for its 
gleaming golden slip cover. Certainly, a logical thing to think a child would do 
when faced with one bright item among what were otherwise simple pictures in 
the world of Japanese pop music- wild hair and women's clothing aside. But it 
was with definitely on purpose when Seishirou clicked over to track five, and 
adjusted the volume to a pleasing background level.

No one, not even anyone old enough to remember when the song had been 
popular, had played B'z in the various houses of Weiss, since he had been a 
member. His son though seemed to take more pleasure in the song than if it had 
been simply a tune he knew, simply a fancy nursery rhyme as most children his 
age would have regarded it.

Youji wasn't really surprised that it was "Alone" out of every song he owned. But 
a boy who liked low melodious rock, victorious and sad enough for the end of a 
long adventure movie...?

Lost in lone and quiet rapture did Sei stroll back into the room. Still smiling.

"Okasama didn't like this song much. She didn't let me play it."

But for the time being, he joined Youji on the cushions where he had returned to, 
and sat there with his hands crossed on his lap, looking out past Omi's window to 
the first hints of white ice freezing over Tokyo under the flowing flames of the 
sunset.

The guitars soared and neither of them would be inclined then to 
interrupt them, silence the lament with their own words, the 
sparkling backbeat which moved in tune with the shuddering horizon. 

Seishirou though reached over to the pack of cigarettes listing on one corner of 
the table and took one out, holding it up to his 
father's lips.

Only when the last of the sky and her bare eyes had faded did he 
explain himself.

"I really don't mind if you smoke. Or drink. I know I'm not 
supposed to do those things. And I'll behave myself if you want to be out late, I 
promise."

(OOC: Seishirou is listening to The Best Pleasure album by B'z, the Japanese 
version of which comes with a metallic gold slip cover. It's rather old J-rock, 
though the band is still together. This is I THINK their first greatest hits album. 
The last line of "Alone" is `Naked eyes in the sky'. Wish I knew the rest of it.)

***

The cigarette fell to the strip of cushion between them, and was 
forgotten. Youji sat up and caught his son around the waist, pulling him into his 
lap. Stared deep into his green, green eyes; eyes like his.

"You read my mind, didn't you?" he murmured, at once incredulous, at once 
soothing, when his son gave him an uneasy look at being thus held. He promptly 
loosened his hold on the boy, patting his sides before dropping his hands away. 
"Don't worry, I won't hurt you. I was just...It wasn't what I expected."

/Especially not from a son of mine./ 

/Fu....Er, I wonder just what else he's divined.../

/He probably knows everything about me now./ 

He set him back on the cushions, and reached for the pack he'd 
stashed in his breast pocket, and the lighter. Considered both for a moment, before 
getting to his feet, and going to the window. Opened it, then lit up. Youji 
desperately needed his crutches, and since he had been given permission, he 
would indulge. However, he wouldn't poison the boy if he could help it. Youji 
dragged the wooden kitchen chair he kept by the wall between the kitchenette and 
the living room over to the portal, and, after taking an ice cold Sapporo out of his 
refrigerator, sat down. 

/Man, this is just too weird./ 

The cap came away with a refreshing POP! and rolled off across the floor. He 
drank greedily from it, then dragged his sleeve across his mouth. 

"I...will have to go out some nights, and I will have to stay out 
late. Usually quite late. But I won't leave you alone here. Ms. 
Higurashi has an apartment on the first floor. I'm sure I could 
persuade her to look in on you in the evenings."

***

Seishirou nodded.  "That's fine.  I wouldn't mind at all." And then he looked over 
the pile of cushions he had been left to, glancing about them in a manner 
suggesting he had been recently dropped.  Their cases he stroked or patted, 
fluffing them this way or that.  He left then, but not for any discontent regarding 
the pillows.

Rather, Youji's floor, which he swiftly relieved of the beer cap.  The sliver of 
metal he snapped up over his head in a little twirl, was caught, and neatly dunked 
into the waste basket.

Then back to the cushions, which he now collapsed on, stretched against with all 
of his inherited lazy grace and was still then, with only his eyes and his mop of 
raven hair peering out from behind one leg of the coffee table.

"I'm sorry I said all those funny things to you, but I feel bad if I don't tell people 
I'm like that.  Okasama didn't like it when I did, because she thought it was weird 
too.  She'd never met anyone like me before, but you have, and you don't like 
them one bit, do you?"

A rhetorical question, despite the squeak of the voice that spoke.  His lashes 
crinkled then, as if he smiled.  But what sort of a smile did he offer?

It was more than the tone of his voice told his father it was not mere sweetness, 
nor mere jest.

But not really a smile either

"And I didn't read EVERYTHING.  Just what was... up there.  When you were 
thinking.  I won't do anything else so... can you just tell me... umm...?

Only then did their eyes wander apart.

"Why would you want to do such a thing to Omi? It sounds uncomfortable."

***    

Youji crushed the cigarette out on the sill, and left its charred 
remains there. Left the chair where it was when he took himself and the beer back 
over to the pile of cushions. He pulled one away from the fringe of the pile and 
half-reclined on it. 

"Er...I did it because we were in love and that's what lovers do. Or most of them 
do. I do. Obviously." He took a long pull of his beer. "And it can be 
uncomfortable, but it doesn't have to be." 

He drained his beer, and set the bottle on the table, and then moved over with his 
purloined pillow to lounge alongside his son. Smoothed a lock of hair from his 
cheek. 

"Tomorrow, what if we go shopping? You need some clothes, obviously, and I 
can get you a toy or two. And if you want, I'll take you to a barber's and have him 
cut your hair." He drew his hand back. "If you want." 

Youji hitched a shoulder in a shrug, then stood up, and stretched. Picked up the 
remote off the end table and punched the TV on as he flopped down on the sofa. 
Found the news. Youji didn't change the channel. 

"And just because I loathe that other telepath doesn't mean I'm 
already set to hate you. Okay?"

***

Seishirou nodded and rather clumsily rolled onto his back.  "I'd like to go out 
tomorrow and get my hair cut.  It's all itchy in my eyes."  The pillows still had 
their intentions of eating him up, and even though he did manage to shift himself 
among them, the moment he got settled, he sank down and seemed to disappear 
into their shadows.  At least part way.  The news announcer murmured on about a 
string of locker thefts which had befallen 
some of the upper-class bath houses and Youji's son took to watching the petals of 
shadow the light spread out across the ceiling.

"I didn't know there was anyone else like me before, so I feel better, even if 
they're bad.  I won't be like that."

It seemed some assurance of his promise at first, when he reached up and pulled 
up his father's hand, which he dragged up above his eyes, and there admired, 
turning his fingers this way and that.  His palm he folded, and his wrist he 
fumbled thoughtfully before stroking his nails.

"Okay, Otosama? I promise.  And I won't think you hate me, because you 
promised me in your head.  And you thought about things before you said them to 
me."

A pause then, or what could be called a pause.  His brows only knitted for a 
second and he let go of his father's hand.  But he hadn't exactly grown quiet all 
together, the air rippled softly with the sense of wordless speech, if the sensation 
of such could be thought of as tangible instead.  A little knock on Youji's mind, 
and Sei-chan hovered there, and said what he though in his cloudy little presence- 
a sense as incidental as the shadow of 
a bird; completely free of the sexy invasiveness his father knew.  

::I don't hate you either.  But I don't hate people period, no matter what anyone 
tells me.  And Omi doesn't hate you either.::

***

Youji frowned, and huffed rather impatiently, and rolled onto his 
back. Flung his arm over his now closed eyes. Oh, to sink into 
blessed darkness. 

Yeah, right. Like he still wouldn't have the same old damn problems. 

"Don't..." /talk to me about Omi./

"Because that's all over with now. He may not hate me, but he 
doesn't love me anymore. So there's nothing between us. There can't be after all 
that."

/That's the way things go between lovers when relationships fail. 
And ours did./

/I have my doubts that he even loved me. Probably didn't. He's so 
young, and...I didn't think./

He let his arm drop to his side, and opened his eyes. "But then, I never do." 

Youji sat up and regarded his sprawled son. 

/I am glad you don't hate me, though.../

He gave him a tentative half-smile. "Come on, Seishirou. Go get 
cleaned up. I'll give you one of my t-shirts to wear to be 
tonight; should be comfortable enough for you. Then, while you're 
watching TV, or listening to music...I'll wash your clothes for you, so they'll be 
ready for tomorrow."

***

Seishirou only nodded faintly, and he drew himself up from the pillows as.  His 
arms he rubbed a bit as he followed his father to the bedroom, and the half 
darkness there.  Neither of them thought the other seemed to be looking at 
anything, seeing at all.  

The boy stood under the tails of Youji's things, carefully inspecting the offered 
shirts without touching them.  He would glance upon one, or at least face it.  
Judge the reaction from the man behind him- both the little verbal ticks he made, 
and what he seemed to remember of each one.  A well of softness came up and 
danced around his thoughts like sakura petals falling in the golden weeks when 
Sei-chan considered the green one which 
had been worn his last day with Omi, only to crumble to dust and the stale flavor 
of a lost morning.  He turned all to glass cool regret when a black one, otherwise 
nondescript was wondered over.  He saw a woman, very pretty, with short dark 
hair.  The two of them were sloshing water at each other in a fountain.  He knew 
she had died before Youji even remembered her fully.  An innocent white one he 
chose at last.  One that did not bear the taste metallic taste of murder, or two many 
touches of friends.

Seishirou considered, as he peeled off his things, if he could ever leave any such 
echo in Kuudou Youji.  Or if he should always be second to the darkness, and the 
pungent vapors there which his while form sensed, not merely the part of his mind 
which had such peculiar talents.  

He came out carrying his things and looking even smaller than before, now that 
the shirt which covered him was so very much too large.  A few offhand 
comments about what they were obviously already doing from his father.  They 
went downstairs together and he watched him fiddling with the buttons on the 
washer and spilling the soap and trying not to curse.

Seishirou really didn't mind if Youji was preoccupied.  No, he had expected that, 
known that.

Well, expected he would be the preoccupation.

But he wasn't.

The pretty blond boy was.  And a lot of dead people.

He pulled the collar of his shirt up over his nose to soak up the tears he couldn't 
force away. 

/There's nothing... I can do... to make you happy, is there?/

***

At first, Youji wasn't aware that Sei was weeping. He wasn't aware of anything 
but his own mournful ponderings. That is, until he heard the faintest, little boy 
snuffle over the near silent slush of the washer. It was then that he broke off his 
blind regard of the seashell painted concrete block wall, and glanced down at 
Seishirou, who stood next to him. 

And he was immediately struck with a pang of regret. Solemnly he 
knelt beside him, and hesitantly wrapped his hands around his tiny waist. 

"Don't cry, Seishirou. Please? I know you must miss Meg--your 
mother. I know you probably don't want to be with me. He--Er, I 
wouldn't want me for a father either. I'm just a screwed up mess, 
after all." 

He fell silent, frowning at the worn concrete floor but not because of Seishirou. 
Because of himself, and all his rotten memories and long-buried fears. Then he 
drove them back, suddenly mindful of the boy's ability. No need to poison him 
like that either, if he could help it. 

Of course, the way the tears still trailed down his wan little face, he probably had 
done just that. 

"Look, Sei, I know I'm not fit to be a dad, but...I'm willing to 
try. I...never thought I'd have a son, I never wanted one because 
of...Because I was afraid I'd treat my kid badly, like my dad did 
me. But, I think now, maybe I won't. Maybe...I'll be an okay one, 
huh?"

He gave him a wavering smile, and tried to coax him fully into his arms. "So, 
please don't cry, Sei. Please." 

***

As funny as it felt to him to try, Seishirou fell limply into his father's arms, his 
toes sliding off the ground, his nose knocking against his shoulder, for Youji was 
rather startled by the sudden change of heart on the part of his son.  

But it wasn't something he had simply done, and not exactly of his own derision, 
that Sei took to those arms.

He wondered... were they always so awkward, so clumsy tight and 
lingering? With only the dainties of hooks did he try his father's memories below 
their present, watery incarnations.  And he found, no, they were not always like 
this.

But neither was his father.

And thought that only troubled him more, he swallowed his sobs, and the 
knowledge the man who held him was more than miserable to do so, at least in 
some part beyond his fretful smiles.  The last of his tears could be taken as simply 
residual saline from the spell.

Not still freshly doused in the cradle of his newborn misery.

That even this unfamiliar movement could not always cheer.

He sighed, and his father cradled him as he stood.

"I... I won't! Not if it makes you sad.  I'm sorry, Otosama! I'm so sorry! I'm just 
really sleepy.  I didn't mean to!"

/And... maybe I can't make you happy./

/But I know who can./

/And I'll be a good boy, just like I promised.  I'll bring Omi back to you./
 
/Somehow./

***

Youji absently patted Sei's back.  "It's okay.  Don't apologize.  Maybe I should.  I 
should have known you were probably tired."  He petted his shaggy, dark head, 
and swiped gently at the damp, reddened skin above the neckline of his t-shirt.  
"No more tears?"

Sei shook his head, and Youji snuggled him a little bit.  After checking the dial on 
the washer, he carried him back to the stairs, to his apartment.

"I'll put you to bed, and then I'll come back down to take care of your things." 
Youji toted his son into the bedroom, and sat him down on the edge of the bed.  
He flipped the covers back, and patted the middle of the mattress with a wan 
smile.  "Come on, and climb in."

Seishirou crawled up to the head of the bed, and stretched out on the pillow Youji 
had scooted over for him.  Youji pulled the covers back up over him in a 
haphazard fashion.

"The bathroom's there," he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.  "If you get 
hungry or thirsty later, come and get me.  I'll make you something, okay?"

/Don't be afraid to ask me.  I won't mind./

"I'm going to stay up for awhile, but don't worry--I'll just sleep out there tonight 
when I do get tired, so you won't be disturbed."

"Er...that is, if you think you'll be okay in here by yourself?"

***

Seishirou nodded from underneath the lip of the covers which had landed 
somewhat over his nose.

And he yawned.

And he tasted black satin.

It was dark outside now, or as dark as it would ever get in Japan.  He thought of 
telling Youji that the window would be enough of a nightlight for him, but after 
his father went to such trouble to fiddle with one of the knobs on his bedroom 
lamp, he simply didn't have the heart to say so.

And yet, it was only with half of his attention he got to know the room and the 
man who lived there.  The rest... something simply didn't seem right.  Not the 
slippiness of the covers, or the unfamiliar ceiling.  Not the angle of the lights or 
the shirt that didn't fit.  

Or the fact he knew well enough Omi had slept here where he did now.

He tugged on his father's conscious to get him to come back.  Which he did, as 
easily as if a hand had come upon his own.

"Umm... can you disturb me when you get tired?  I feel funny all alone in this 
BIIIIIIIIIIG bed."

***

A little of Youji's nervousness dissipated at that, and, smiling, he reached over 
and nudged the covers away from his face, and arranged them under his chin 
instead. 

"Tell you what--when your clothes are finished washing, I'll bring them back up 
and drape them over the chair by the window so they can dry. Then I'll get ready 
for bed, and I'll get in with you." He patted him gently on the chest. "Okay?"

Sei nodded solemnly. Youji nodded as well, and left his son alone in his sea of 
black satin. 

***

Yuuji had been shocked.  It was the only thing about it he minded tonight.  About 
dressing like a slut.  Even on the train into the heart of the city he'd attracted a few 
wanton stares, and then averted his eyes from even himself since he and his lover 
had taken separate paths to tonight's circuit of stakeouts, and he had not felt 
threatened being alone, nor curled his legs together to hide himself.

He couldn't really remember even how he'd gotten the lime green go-go boots, let 
alone the shorts which matched them in everything but texture.  The neon yellow 
tank he'd ordered though, mistaking it for something less loud.  Tonight, in his ire 
for it, he'd cut holes in it which bared one of his nipples outright.  And still, under 
his clear orange vinyl waist jacket he was actually too warm, and kept 
straightening the tangerine  wrist gloves as if that would make a difference.  A 
little gel in his hair, a touch of watermelon lip gloss.  Glitter lotion in his thighs 
and eye shadow around the kohl in his lashes.  The cheap plastic rhinestones of 
his earrings.

All this and he had been dying to say goodbye to Youji just like that.  But he 
didn't know why.  Didn't know how he bothered having such things about, since 
these past few days had been the first he'd gone out as himself. 

As the little gay boy who could no longer maintain the illusion of innocence.

He'd managed to stiffen himself in his pants just thinking about how awful he 
looked.

But they called his stop then and he left his worries on the train, slid like spilled 
paint through the crowd of suits and respectable garb.  Was not the only slip.  The 
other clubbers were just coming out.  They didn't know him and they didn't know 
each other.

They all just rode the escalators down from the platform and into the station, 
through whose gallery windows the first of the neon aurora was beginning to 
creep.

Yuuji was waiting for him.  For now they could only nod and follow each other 
with no signs of recognition.  One assassin, and one boy who made it look as if he 
owned the night.

***

It was a charming French bistro, the finest of its kind in Tokyo. 
Hiro had been looking forward not only to sampling its fare, but 
seeing his two cohorts. They had all successfully acted out their 
parts, and now, it was time to celebrate. 

If only they would show up. 

/Damn,/ he thought as he reached for a bread stick, /Trust them to be late./

***

It was clear to Yuuji that the Black Velvet Lounge wasn't the sort of place one 
went to because of its ambience, for it had none. The club's walls had been 
painted black, and over wallpaper; in places it was peeling badly. Graffiti covered 
one wall, and was now spreading to the others. The floor was concrete, equally 
splattered with paint and ash, both tobacco and marijuana. It was the scent of the 
latter that Yuuji had smelled the strongest when he swept aside the black velvet 
curtain that served as the front door. 

A metal staircase led from the entryway to the dance floor, nearly impossible to 
traverse due to all the kids who'd congregated on it.  The ceiling was dotted with 
lights, white and colored, and they either spun dizzily or hung stationary in their 
respective holes. To the club owner's credit, there were a great many of them, and 
it was because of his overindulgence in that area that Yuuji was able to keep tabs 
on Omi. 

And, as he noticed, he wasn't the only one whose attention he had. Many of the 
boys, and a few of the girls had noticed him. Yuuji wondered just how long it 
would be before one of them made contact. 

He'd only been at the bar long enough to have one drink, and dissuade the 
advances of a coked-up seventeen year old before he got his answer. No sooner 
had Omi neared the dance floor than he was claimed, his would be suitor being no 
older than a boy. 

Yuuji paid his bill, and headed over to the dance floor for a better look. 

***

Same old boys, same old girls, and Shigure was bored. He'd had just about 
everyone in the club, everyone of interest, that was, and there wasn't any new 
talent. No hope of any. He ran a hand through his jagged blue locks, yawned, and 
sagged on the metal bar fence that surrounded the dance floor. Blinked heavily 
lined and blackened eyes rather dismissively at the gaggle of teens before him, 
and mourned the fact that Jun wasn't there. Jun, you see, could help him score--
carried just about everything a body would want, and could easily get the stuff he 
didn't have. 

No damn luck tonight. 

The boy shoved away from the fence, and turned to weave his arduous way 
through the crowd...And then stopped dead. 

It looked like he had been too quick to make an assumption, and never had he 
been so glad in his life. The boy was a fallen angel, the stuff of wet dreams; never 
had anyone made secondary colors look so damn appealing. Shigure whipped out 
the tiny mirror he carried around in his pocket, and checked his makeup, then 
headed over to Omi--who looked to him just like a lost lamb. 

It only aroused him more. 

The boy boldly walked into his path, and blocked him. Gave him a 
smile that bordered on feral.

"Lookin' for someone, baby?"

***   

/At least he didn't have to look for one now./

He just held his ground and glared, snapped his fingers in front of himself and 
they made no sound, but the flash of orange took the attention of he who had 
approached him back to whatever semblance of a conversation they might have 
there in the air which was barely fit to breathe.

"Well I WAS lookin' for Amano-senpai," snapped, a quote from one of the 
missing persons reports and the well known nickname name of one of the missing 
boys.  "Hoped he could hook me up.  But I hear he bit it and all so I'm just here."

Someone brushed against him from behind and he felt a palm side 
between his legs from behind, but only for a moment.

It was plenty of excuse to whirl around and see the blacklight captured phantasm 
that was Yuuji, unnatural blue on his white, still showing through now and then 
when the doors opened onto the streets beyond.  

He hadn't even heard it start to rain.  

Frankly, he wondered if he would ever be able to hear it rain again.

*** 

Omi's show of temper wasn't what Shigure had expected, wasn't part of the game, 
and it only served to tempt him further. He didn't move back, rather, he got closer. 

"Amano-senpai, huh? Yeah, it was a shame 'bout him. One of the 
best dealers around, but..." Shigure shrugged. "That's how it goes.  Cross the 
wrong people, and," The boy made his hand into a gun, held it to his temple, and 
mimed it being fired. Then he smiled, as if they'd just exchanged pleasantries 
about the weather. Moved to Omi's side and slung an arm around his shoulders. 
His fingers unhesitatingly found his bared nipple, and began petting it. 

"I know a guy who can hook you up," he purred in Omi's ear. "He 
doesn't have any of the hard stuff, mind--just grass, but it's 
premium. Why don't I introduce him to you, and then, maybe you'll 
let me find out if the glitter on your thighs is edible?"

***

With a little toss of his hips as he moved, Omi unhooked Shigure's hand from his 
shoulders, squashing the other boy's hand up in a fist as he handed it back to him. 
It was almost with a saunter when he came up before him, stood face to face, his 
tongue playing on his lips.

Yuuji was still there. Just close enough to be seen but not really made out.

He himself permitted a smile to spangle his lips.

/I kinda like this. Being... something like normal./

/Where there is no such thing. It's more like.../

He kissed the air. 

/More like being just screwed up enough to fit in./

"This guy... he got Indo-san? `cause if he does, suuuuuure you can..." here he 
leaned back in close once more, but only for a fragment of a moment. "`introduce' 
me. But as for the glitter..."

Since Yuuji had turned away a moment to address the bar tender, he favored his 
lying elation and spoke into the other boy's ear just then, and with soft, illicit 
words no small time druggie would ever want to hear.

"I'm, 75,000 yen a night."

(OOC: Indo-san- marijuana from India.  And Omi's about $700 a lay.  Ouch.)

***

Yuuji had finally made his way to the rail, and was now lounging 
against it. One foot propped up on the lowest pole and his untouched drink 
cradled in his hand. The bartender had been rather loose tongued about certain 
patrons, especially Shigure. He appeared to enjoy that particular subject the most; 
Yuuji figured the guy had a thing for him. At any rate, he learned that the boy was 
a regular, went through lovers like candy--one of which was one of the victims, a 
boy known only as Keisuke. 

It appeared that Omi was next on his list. He was so tempted to go over and smash 
the brat's face in for even touching him so brazenly, but he held back.  Resisted 
laughing when he saw Omi lift his hand away. That kid didn't like being rejected--
despite his friendly smile, his eyes were hard and cold. Yuuji wondered if he 
noticed it. 

"Aw!" moaned Shigure. "You're so rough, and here I'm just a 
lovestruck boy!" He gave Omi another bright grin, and slipped an arm through 
his. "Tell you what--I'll introduce you to Haj-san, and maybe you'll give me a 
kiss, hm? Just one little kiss?" 

Without waiting for an answer, he withdrew his arm and caught Omi's elbow in 
his palm, and dragged him forward towards the dance floor. "I tell ya, baby, he's 
got the stuff--deals in only Indo-san! You won't be disappointed, I promise!"

Shigure gave him another bright smile, and pulled Omi up close as 
they ended their zigzagging crossing through the swarm of gyrating bodies. 
Before them lay a number of dimly lit, noren-curtained booths. Shigure pulled 
Omi towards one and pushed him through the beads; snagged him around the 
waist to hold him there. Around the circular table sat four men. Shigure motioned 
to the one who was dressed in an expensive looking black suit and shirt, and 
looked to be in his early twenties, clean cut. Not what one expected a drug dealer 
to look like. 

"Oi, Hajime-san."

The older man nodded to one of the men at his side, who promptly got up and 
came to stand behind Shigure. The boy pretended not to 
notice, even though his nervousness was quite apparent. "Shigure-
chan. I've been wondering where you've been."

"Oh, I've just been here and there."

Hajime nodded. "And, that you've come to see me uninvited--does this mean that 
you've brought me my payment?" 

"Oh, yes. I brought it! I have!" 

He sat back then, and signaled for his man to stand down. The guard moved back 
from Shigure, but didn't go back to his seat--just hovered by the curtain. "Very 
good." Hajime glanced from him to Omi, and upon the youngest Weiss he let his 
gaze roam. A nasty smile licked at his lips. 

"And who is this charming young man?" 

***

"Hidaka Ken," Omi responded, pulling his feet up beside him on the bench so he 
could run his fingers over his shins, or where his shins were beneath his boots.  
But he never took his eyes from the strapping and sinister reflection that was 
Hajime.  

"Shigure tells me you've picked up Amano-Senpai's business, and a lot of other 
things besides.  You know he's collecting finder's fees these days?"  At last, he 
gave the blue-haired boy a little, kissy pout and a wink, just to see him balk, 
which he did, his face growing paler than his otherwise stoic look should have 
allowed.

"Oh?" Haj-san inquired, glancing back and forth between his guests, seeming 
merely intrigued, at least for the time being.

"Yeah, but just kisses.  Still, he oughtta know no one here goes in for that kinky 
stuff anymore."  A shrug then, all sarcasm.  "But hey, no damage, I wouldn't get 
mad about it.  Besides, he's actually findin' people for you.  I'm up to do a little 
business.  Your weed really all that good?"

***

"My weed is the best in Tokyo. But I'm sure Shigure told you that 
before coming to meet me--especially since he's told you so many 
other things..." Hajime leveled an ominous look in the boy's 
direction, before giving Omi another cool smile. "No harm done, I 
suppose, but, even though he brought me such a...charming new 
customer, I think Akito needs to review the rules with him."

At that, Shigure looked like he was about to faint, or run, but was rendered unable 
to do either by Akito's restraining hand on his neck. "The usual lecture?"

"Hmmm...No. Just the basics, I think. A reminder is all he needs, 
nothing more." 

"Right." Akito tightened his grip and pulled him along as he made 
his exit. The last sound Shigure made in their hearing was a 
frightened little squeak. 

"Now, Ken-san," Hajime continued, "that's out of the way, shall 
we go? I have arranged with the owner use his office when he isn't around in the 
evenings, which is often. It's there where I usually do business."

***

It was with the utmost dispassion that Omi watched Shigure's forced departure, 
but not apathy.  Certainly, he did not dare wave to the other boy as he was 
dragged away,  But he smiled.  Just a touch.  An empty grin, the sign of being 
long lost to the world above the night and the clubs, and the coteries of lovely 
ghouls there.

The curtains swung before him, seeming to swirl into the darkness, past the 
darkness, into something wholly different from the darkness.  As if with fever was 
he taken by the sudden, gloaming nightmare, and he looked back at himself 
through the slit leading to the outside world.  And he was in his whoring clothes, 
and he was in his killing clothes but they were ripped to shred.  He was the real 
Ken, and he was no one.  Then he had on a midnight blue silk shirt which had not 
originally belonged to him, and he was laughing.

"Ken-san?" Hajime's voice again.

And he started, at himself, not the sound of another voice.  For there was no one 
there, in his station of awareness.  No one but Hajime.  And he snatched after him 
with the answers of his words, for he had not else to hold himself down with.

/I guess he'll just think I'm strung out on something.  Which isn't so bad.  It's not 
like I'll ever see him again./

He got to his feet with a swish of his hips.  "Hai, iku zo.  Lead the way."

"Certainly."

Even if that wasn't exactly how things ended up.  Hajime lead him indeed, but 
they, side by side, fought their way through the crowd, the scents of unfamiliar 
bodies and the slants of unfamiliar lights.

At least to Omi.

Who glanced back through the crowd and found the blue light of Yuuji had gone 
for the time being.  He felt like Gretel must have when she realized the birds had 
eaten her breadcrumbs.  

But curiously elated.

"What are you looking at?"

"Aa, nothin'.  Somebody just goosed me is all, but what do I care?"

***

"Why indeed?"  Hajime slid him a most searching look, then broke away and 
ahead of him again.  Around the walls the crowd was considerably thinner: Just 
the odd cluster of chatting kids, lovers pawing at each other.  Hajime breezed past 
them all in favor of a rather nondescript, grey metal door, which he opened with 
the single key he drew out of his pocket.  He signaled for his men to wait outside, 
and ushered Omi in.

It looked more like an executive's office than a club owner's.  The walls had been 
soundproofed, as Omi found after Hajime shut and locked the door.  The carpet 
was a deep green pile, the desk dominated the room.  A leather sofa spanned one 
wall, and a fully stocked bar filled one corner.

Hajime made a beeline for the desk, from under which he produced a small duffle, 
and from it he produced a small plastic bag full of the very thing for which he was 
known:  Indo-san.  The duffle landed back on the floor, and Hajime walked 
around to the closest corner of the desk, and leaned against it, holding the baggie 
up for Omi to see.

"See, Ken-san?  I always deliver on my promises.  You will find smoking this to 
be an extraordinary experience."  He held the bag out for him to take, but before 
Omi could lay one finger on it, he snatched it back.  Held it there, and gave Omi a 
cold smile.

The bag ended up in Hajime's pocket with a pat.  "Don't look so dismayed, Ken-
san.  I'll give you what you want, after you give me what I want."

His smile broadened into a lascivious grin.

"Strip."

***

Mitsuki whistled in appreciation upon beholding the faŘade of the place they had 
agreed to meet Hiro.  In fact, she did it in such a way, it sounded rather that she 
had called unto the charms of someone who caught her eye.  Several of the 
patrons looked up from their menus and their pastries, to find instead of a 
gentleman sighting a lady, only Mitsuki with Megaera trailing several steps 
behind.

Hence that the level of half-heard conversation rose substantially, the lights of the 
drip candles flickering accordingly, making the glow around the tables unreliable 
and surreal.

And not merely for the fact Lesbians were quite uncommon in the 
particular district where the bistro stood.

Above the pool of whispers now and again rose one rather remarkable flicker of 
words- "KIZA!" Over and over.

And it only made her grin wider and wider, the bikeress, who had made little 
effort in the field of concealing her lifestyle. Her hair hadn't been combed from 
her last spin on her Suzuki she had neglected somewhere long the curb she and 
her companion had stopped at, and none of the silver beads in it matched each 
other.  She had one brushed steal hoop in her left ear and the right was bare save 
for an ordinary stud.  Ribbons from her 
corset floated like black wings behind her as she walked; she had worn one of 
black leather on top of her transparent chiffon shirt. She wore also a pair of ripped 
up blue jeans, so fraught with holes it was a wonder they did not go to pieces, 
though underneath, now and again in the pale light flickered a pair of silver 
pantyhose.

It was hard to imagine that a woman so clad had actually been the one to prepare 
Megaera for the evening.  To begin with, her hair had been meticulously combed- 
parted on one side and then swept back for the most part, save for the milky 
brown wisps of her bangs.  Her glasses remained, but her eyes had been done up 
with faintly pearly white eyeshadow.  Her lips were glossed, her ears pieced with 
tiny, diamond studs, her throat encircled by a Y necklace who's finale held a 
single pearl.  Her sleeveless shirt of fair yellow and white batik silk hung off her 
shoulders, and her skirt of light denim hung to her ankles.  Three thin, gold 
bracelets adorned her right wrist and a single feather had been tied in with her 
tresses.

They both wore sleek and heavy boots of black though.  

Mitsuki pushed past the maitre'd and Megaera apologized for her.  So did things 
go at the table when the growing gossip relented to see them join Hiro, which the 
first of them did with a mere, curt "Hey."

As for Megaera, she bowed and went rather pinkish beneath her makeup.

"Hiro-san, we're ever so sorry to be late.  And it was no one's but our own fault.  
We didn't mean to keep you waiting so very long though."

(OOC: Kiza- tacky)

***

Hiro looked from one to the other appraisingly, scarcely believing his eyes. 
Mitsuki, now, he had expected such a flashy outfit, but still--she looked truly 
amazing. And Megaera! There was the transformation of caterpillar into butterfly. 
He figured 'Suki'd had a hand in that, but even so...

Both were worthy of all the attention they had received since 
entering, and before.

Hiro remembered himself then, and quickly got to his feet to return Meg's bow. "I 
find I don't mind having had to wait now." He straightened and gave her a bit of a 
smile, and gestured at the chairs. 

"Please, ladies, do join me." 

He waited until both had taken their chairs before he seated 
himself. A flick of a finger at the waiter across the room, and he turned his 
attention back to his companions. 

"So...I take it that the last peg is in place?"

***  

"OHHHHHHHHHH YESSSSSSSS! You-know-who is stuck with you-
know-what for who-knows-how-long!" Mitsuki hissed, weaving her 
shoulders have and forth as if she was very delighted or very embarrassed.  As 
corsets outside of one's clothes were not the present fashion in Tokyo, and she had 
never cared for such rules in the first place, it was  doubtlessly the former.  
Megaera nodded, but made no sound herself.  

"No, no! She's bein' all modest and crap again!" The bikeress insisted, lightly 
jostling her companion by the arm.  "Why, you should have seen li'l Meg! She 
was just FANTASTIC!  I mean, if they gave Aokis for acting, she'd have one! She 
really would."

Which only made her blush frightfully, and reclaim her hand, which she rubbed a 
bit.

"Go on! Don'tcha have something to say! You deserve to make a speech! Thank 
all the little people, even if it's just to us."

"Annou... saa... Youji-san..."

A quick glance up from the tablecloth found both her companions quite rapt and 
grinning, Hiro from behind his glass, Mitsuki while twiddling with a fork.  She 
sensed and admiration, such as little had befallen her before.

"Youji looked as if I had gotten someone much stronger than I to clock him over 
the head." Here, she made a gesture which roughly resembled swinging a pole 
down on someone's crown.  "Which just made me glad we'd already arranged for 
you," a nod to their male guest who just smirked and waggled his brows a bit, "to 
do something basically along those lines, as he surely deserved it!  Awfully silly 
of him to think he had no children, and here, he has fathered at least three and I..."

Her voice left her and blushing even harder than before, she captured Hiro's eyes 
with her own which shimmered with intense regret.

"Oh! I'm sorry, Hiro-san.  I did not mean to say it in such a way! I really didn't."

***

No trace of cold tainted his expression; rather, he gave his shy companion a sad 
smile.  "I know, Megaera-san.  It's okay."

And from her, it was.

He sipped at the martini he'd ordered prior to their arrival, hoping to clear the 
sudden sting from his eyes.  It worked, but then, liquor had that power he'd found.  
He only wished it could permanently erase the last image he had of his sister from 
his memory.  Hiro knew with deep down he'd carry that with him until he died.

Pity Youji hadn't that night.  If he had...

Hiro shook off the dark thoughts gathering in his mind, and held up his glass to 
his companions in a toast.  "Ladies, I commend you on your efforts.  Well done!"  
He sipped again, then set his glass down.

"The downfall of Kudou Youji--This is truly a time to celebrate!"  Hiro waved at 
the menus he'd had the waiter leave when he arrived.  "Order anything, ladies.  
This isn't a time to stint.  And...I say we have fresh cocktails before we eat, hm?  
How about...Champagne?"

"And then...Perhaps you might tell us, Megaera, what you intend to do now that 
you are free from your burden?"

***

At the mere mention of champagne, Mitsuki whistled again, and upon hearing 
her, nearly every guest within the bistro turned towards the door, expecting to see 
someone, boy or girl, suitable to their tastes or not, slide through the entrance.  
Instead, disappointed did they covertly face the bikeress, who was skimming the 
wine list as if it were a most engaging novel.  As for Megaera, it took her some 
time to come to the end of the 
apologies she offered their host, and when she was done and he had patted hr 
hand, crimson came about beneath her makeup and rather did she express her 
gratitude for his willingness regarding the tab.

Mitsuki gave up and just picked the most expensive champagne.

And then, beyond the pearly golden haze of her parting storm clouds, did 
Megaera realize she could not find the sky. And she knew nothing of what she 
should take to reach those intractable heavens.  "Oh dear..." Said to her napkin as 
she wrung it between her hands before smoothing it over her lap.  "I... I really 
don't know.  Oh, how I must be boring you then! But if you want to know the 
truth, I..."

"Hadn't thought that far ahead?" Mitsuki prompted, leaning up from her little dip 
down to sniff at Hiro's martini, whose make up she did not apparently approve of, 
and so called the waiter back over to insist that their next drinks be brought as fast 
as possible.

Megaera slid the catches of her bracelets around in lieu of fiddling with her 
napkin, since she didn't want to move it now that it had been arranged properly.  
"Ah... I... suppose so."

Even this meek assent earned her applause and a hand slung over her shoulder.  
Perplexed, she faced her cohort, who was grinning just as wide as she had been 
when they had met at the stoplight.  "That is so fuckin' rad! I never thought I'd get 
you impulsive again THAT fast."

"But you don't know I ever was! We only met the week before last."

"So you admit it!" Asked with a waggle of her eyebrows.  Not to Megaera, but to 
Hiro who had leaned down on one of his fists to better contemplate his dinner 
entertainment.

And that gave Mitsuki and idea, for he did look so charmed, and her other guest 
so nervous.

She kissed her on her softly powdered cheek, so lightly it may well have been she 
did not feel it through her powder.

***

Hiro twitched a brow at that, and bestowed upon the rosy-cheeked Meg a 
bemused smile. The martini glass rose from the table between forefinger and 
thumb, and hovered at eye level. 

"Then here's to impulsiveness," he stated, and the glass swooped over to kiss his 
lips, and he tipped it up to drain it of its contents, ignoring the grimace on his 
more outgoing, equally lovely companion's face. 

"A drink is a drink, Mitsuki-san. And I do feel like celebrating." 

No sooner had he set the glass down on the table, that the waiter 
arrived with their champagne. Something French of course, and old.  He eased the 
cork out of the bottle, poured a bit for Hiro to sample, and after he had proclaimed 
it good, poured for the ladies, and then filled Hiro's glass as well. He lingered 
long enough to take their orders for dinner, and then scampered away. 

And Hiro asked, "So Meg-san's yet to make up her mind. Perhaps, will decide her 
life as the choices arise, hm? But what about you, Mitsuki-san? What will you 
do?"

***

"For starters, I was gonna get wasted." Mitsuki said while her nails drummed 
against her champagne flute.  She spoke to Hiro, but watched Megaera, who had 
become smitten with the ice bucket the remains of their champagne had come to 
rest in, for she would not take her eyes from it.

In truth, Megaera found herself, in all her freedom and her glory, unable to shake 
the feeling that SHE should have been the one to pour the wine! That she should 
have been the one to order for everyone! And that she ought to be the one paying.  
It was as if every one of her distaff relatives came to stand behind her and belittle 
her manners then- some twisted semi-flashback scene in a bad anime, with 
spotlights and echoes and...

Mitsuki got bored and promptly went on.  "Now as for what to do about the fact 
I'm still knocked up, I haven't decided if I should just hit the fuckwit up for clinic 
money, or have it and watch him pay me for the rest of his worthless life.  Or if I 
tell him he has to pay me for the first few months, get the abortion and run off to 
Guam for a couplea weeks, courtesy of his wallet." Somehow, she had managed 
to speak and drain her glass at the same time, for it was empty by the time she 
finished.  "I know I'm goin' to Guam though.  Hehe, sailor boys and beaches."

Her companion was a little more indulgent of the champagne's flavor, and so had 
in her silence taken but one sip.  "Well, I didn't know that sort was your taste, 
Mitsuki-sa... Mitsuki," Here, she had narrowly managed to avert a swat over the 
back of her neck, and while her relatives familiar with Japanese mannerism all 
turned away in disgust, her sense of self gave 
them all raspberries. "you do know what they say about American 
sailors."

"Mmmmmmmmmmm... no, I don't.  They can't be hung worse than the 
one's 'round here, can they?"

"I hear many of them are... okama." Having managed to say such a word with 
only a pause and no drop in her voice, did she enjoy the bubbly wine in her glass 
again.

Mitsuki sputtered.  "NO WAY! K'SO! That totally sucks! Damn, oughtta ship ol' 
Youji over there then.  See if he gives himself somethin' nasty." 

Clanking then, and not a thread of human speech.  Both women faced their 
awestruck host then.  And smirked, glanced to each other, and smirked some 
more.

"Guess who's up an' gone gay!" Mitsuki giggled.

***

"No!" Hiro exclaimed, looking from one to the other in disbelief. "Kudou's into 
guys?" 

At that, both women nodded simultaneously. Hiro was positively floored. He 
reached for his champagne and sipped at it without really tasting it, mind 
whirling. 

"I never pegged him as being okama-chikku. That's very interesting..."

/VERY interesting./

/So damn interesting that I might have to pay him a visit at home to congratulate 
him on taking that most difficult first step./

/Yes, me and a few of my friends./ 

Hiro grinned as he set his champagne glass down. "Then I guess it's a good thing 
neither of you ladies loved the bastard." 

***

It didn't take the clothes long to finish, and upon returning, Youji opened the 
window in the kitchen and set the garment laden chair in front of it. Down below, 
the suburban bit of hell they'd ended up in was roaring with life. Cars, lovers, 
friends--all coming and going in and out of the shops and eateries, or heading 
further away to the train station, and the heart of the city. Youji lingered there, 
having one last smoke before light's out, and watched the scene. It was a play with 
no set players--whomever wanted to have a part, could. 

Everyone, it seemed, but him. His scene had shifted to a different stage, and no 
one was there to watch him go through the motions save for one somber little boy 
who stared at him sometimes like he was a lab rat. Perhaps to Sei, he was. 

The cigarette, still smoldering, went out the window. /I never 
thought I'd end up like this./

/I'm alone, Asuka. Wholly alone. And I'm kind of.../

Scared? No, that wasn't the word for it. He didn't know what the 
word was he needed to describe his tumultuous emotions, and right then--he didn't 
care. 

His shirt he pulled up and over his head, and let it drop on the 
floor en route to the bedroom. A glance at the bed showed Sei curled up in a ball, 
very quiet, so just as quiet, he rummaged through his drawers until he found a pair 
of red pajama bottoms (never worn). He slung on it along with the black t-shirt 
Asuka always liked to borrow, and went off to the bathroom with them. Showered 
quickly, and changed, and left, his jeans and socks still littering the floor. 

Youji stopped by the boom box he kept on the sole empty shelf in his book case, 
and, turning the volume down to the level of a whisper, did a quick spin of the 
dial to his other favorite station. Some seiyuu was playing DJ that night, one of 
the few he was familiar with. Happily enough for Youji, the man shared his taste 
in music.  Youji crossed back over to the bed and slid under the blankets to the 
sound of Kuroyume's for dear single. 

The light went out, and the neon glow from the street suffused his room, but he 
didn't go to sleep. 

He couldn't. So, he laced his hands behind his head, and settled 
down for a nice, long wait. 

(ooc: If you don't know--Kuroyume was a punk/pop band, who has since broken 
up. I wrote the title of the song Youji's listening to in lower case because that was 
how the group wrote it.)

*****