Niji
[Rainbow]

The Thirty-Two Flavors of Assassin Orgy Fun!

By Murasaki Suishou and The Queen of Blueberry Toast

~*~

I: "Guest" [Version 1.2]

"Aaa, you've done alright for yourself, Chrestien.  You've done 
alright."

And his friend, unaccustomed to his darkening sighs, tried to quiet 
them by surrendering his lit cigarette to Schuldich's lips.  The 
telepath of course, saturnine or not, was all too glad to take it, and 
leave nothing but a wisp of thanks in his companion's brain.  

No, he couldn't return it, not with intent beyond his incidental 
flavors, but they had known each other that long he was used to the 
intrusion dancing up against his own considerations.  Chrestien 
whistled at their smoke rings, and lit himself another raspberry bidi 
before they swept out of the streetlight's doomed glare.  Soon it would 
be one in the morning, and everyone on his street would be assumed to 
be abed, not so needful of the lingering glare. 

Like specters blinded by the daylight, into the empty shop they both 
swept.  The scent of the air still glared with the lemon verbena and 
asters who had died that afternoon for the sake of some old woman's 
funeral.  A few purple petals lingered here and there, and then 
nothing, for the distant bell tower clanged once and all the light not 
their own perished with the toll.  

He took Schuldich by the wrist and led him away from the window where 
he had been staring at the street and all the emptiness below it 
stitched into the invisible earth.  

"Your friends, even if they aren't here, are dreaming of dolls and 
empty corridors in the castles of old," he told him, but he came 
quietly once the cold of his finger met his lips.  Through the ruins of 
a thousand flowers they swept together to the living quarters tucked 
away in the back.  Still, it was not the eyes of one lamp chased them, 
only each other, and the shuddering breaths as they let their smoke go 
free.  The back of the building lay smeared with sharp and silver 
moonlight, glistening like pearly lipstick on the empty couch and the 
host of books rustling on the glass tables: there were three of them, 
one low and long, and two small ones like invisible pedestals in beside 
the two love seats.  Had it not been for the wayward volumes turned 
open here and there by the unhappy breeze, the room would have been 
perfectly symmetrical.  

::I know what you want.  Don't play with me.  It's unbecoming.  It's 
pointless.::

A smack to Chrestien's skin and he had freed himself to search for an 
ashtray.

::It doesn't look like anyone lives here, you know.::

The little emerald butterfly he burned for the last of his cigarette 
was quite empty after all, until he had ground the scented tobacco to 
dust on it.  His hands still warm with the last of its flame, he 
reached up and undid the brooch he had pinned at the throat of his dove 
grey trenchcoat.  The pearls on it scarcely rang on the surface of the 
coffee table when he threw it, and the buttons, one by one, silently 
fell before him.  Underneath lay nothing but a T-shirt and a beat up 
pair of jeans with a bloodstain on one leg.

"He didn't do that, I carried my sister home one day when she cut her 
knee." 

But with nothing else to say, and his shoes kicked off into a corner, 
Schuldich tore the shirt away, hardly stopping to straighten his hair 
before he reached into the ashtray, and with the singing ash streaked a 
lop-sided heart on his chest.

***

From the raspberry-scented shadows came the rustle of silk against 
cotton, and the slim, thigh-length black coat Kuroe had worn that 
night fell upon one of the love seats. Schuldich turned his dull eyes 
upon him, and Kuroe chose that moment to step into a spot of 
moonlight opposite his long-missed companion. With deft fingers, he 
began to loosen the lace-edged cravat around his neck. 

"I hate that you are so despondent. The man is not worth it, 
Schuldich." Kuroe looped the freed ends away from his neck until the 
scarf sagged and he easily could pull it away. His shirt fell open 
in a deep V, partially baring his chest for Schuldich's view. So 
quietly did he move then towards him, that he might have been a ghost 
save for the fact he was solid and warm to the touch--as Schuldich 
found when Kuroe traced the outline of the ash heart he'd drawn upon 
his chest. 

"I question your choice of medium, old friend. Ash does not linger; 
the merest pressure, it warms to soot. The slightest puff of 
air..." He bent, and blew lightly, "And it scatters into nothing. I 
know your heart is made of stronger substance than it." 

Kuroe trailed his ash-tipped fingers upwards to linger in the dip 
between Schuldich's collarbones, and then he drew his own flowing 
white shirt over his head, to lie forgotten upon one book-capped 
glass table. 

"I know much about you," he whispered, as he drew Schuldich into his 
arms. 

***

Schuldich humphed very loudly and crossed his arms over what remained 
of his hot little sketch, pinning some of his companion's fingers under 
his forearms.  With a toss of his head, he turned away.  "OK... so, you 
know this gets me just 'cause she came with me when I left? Saf likes 
the brat he keeps, you know.  He's her favorite doll."

He knew, he could taste that he knew under the sweet anise flavor he 
always seemed to bear with him- thoughts glad or dark as tragedies 
penned by Romans long since dead.  Doubt there too, a swirl of sweet 
cream for there were few poetic sorts in the world not enamored of such 
things as stirred in gothic lyrics; doubt and self-effacing certainty 
of mood, like a chill on sherbet without any taste of its own.  

"You know how long it's been then? Huh?  Eight years.  I put up with him 
for eight years and he gets pissed over one night in Dresden with you.  
Ch', one night back when we were still in Estet."

Kuroe, his Chrestien, years older than those his lover claimed, made no 
move to seek out his eyes, but covered the faint wounds on his skin 
with his own as he swept in, and set his lips to the fluttering blood 
of Schuldich's neck.

"So now we're going to take advantage of the friend who comes to us in 
confidence? Considering how insatiable you are, if I let you do me 
once, you'll be so bent on getting back in my pants you'll forget why 
I'm even here."

The wall creaked as if with footsteps up above as Schuldich leaned 
against it now, steadying his shoulders so he could open his legs to 
his companion's niggling thigh.  The black silk of his pants ground up 
against the crotch Schuldich's jeans, undaunted by how soft he felt 
beneath them still, for answers had flowed after him once more.

::Making you forget there's a world outside your roses has always been 
one of my favorite distractions.::

He took Kuroe by the throat then, and hauled him up to wound him on the 
lips with his own.  

***

/No one can make me forget, except you./ 

Schuldich released him from his kiss, but still, Kuroe's lips skipped 
here and there over the redhead's cheeks and throat. Nuzzling his 
lover's groin with his thigh, Kuroe traced the shadowed outline with 
his fingertips, skating over his shoulders and arms, lighting upon 
his chest to tickle their way down to his sides. When he encountered 
the low band of fabric bordered his hips, Kuroe let his fingers 
linger there, rimming the bare flesh above it. 

"Come now, Schuldich," he said quietly, "you didn't come here for me 
to dry your tears with hugs and candy. You came here because you 
knew I'd try to charm you into my bed. You want me to touch you. You 
know..." 

The metal button holding his jeans snug around his hips loosened 
under the careful workings of Kuroe's thumbs; the zipper followed. 
Kuroe was careful to rub his knuckles over the soft, henna-colored 
hair which lay beneath it. 

/...Just how to play me./ 

They fell together again in a hard, hungry kiss, and Kuroe worked 
Schuldich's jeans away from his hips, and his hands around to cup his 
ass. He drew him up hard against his invasive thigh, pressing his 
own erection against Schuldich's bony hip.

***

"Of course," his lover told him with a palest flicker of a grin there 
in the moon-shade where he lingered. "That's what I do."

Then between one ardent bruising of his lips and the next, he 
laughed, and the sound of it came strange and spectral through their 
embrace.  Both of them quivered with it, Kuroe at least somewhat 
because the taut bed of Schuldich's thigh had swayed from him, left 
his stiffness pressed rather to the heat which lay just below the 
satin threads he had caressed. 

"Your heart's pounding. All the times we meet like this, and 
you're still shaking inside. I should be disappointed, shouldn't I?" 
Though the tone in his whispers offered nothing but cold 
observation.  

"And you still think you need to charm me! That's almost cute. 
Almost."

His left palm tumbled away from the shoulder it had bruised and lit 
rather between their ribs, working its way down over their skin until 
he had come to Kuroe's crotch. He palmed him there, rubbing anything 
but mildly through his torusers until it grew wet to his touch.

"But not quite."

He fell then, coasting down through the dark air as if it were 
saltwater. His only beckon to follow was a tug to his lover's shoulder 
that lasted only so long as he could find it with his fingers. He 
came to crouch on the carpet, before him, eyes already trained away. 
He knew Schuldich, and Schuldich knew the image of the memory his 
lover wished for just then. So he leaned back, and with all the 
clumsiness he could pretend, began to stoke the edges of his 
rosebud. 

***

"You like it when I shake," Kuroe said, shivering at the sound of his 
voice in the darkness.  "It thrills you.  Don't deny it."  

The metallic grate of a zipper parting whispered from the silver-
tinged shadows.  Kuroe crept out into a trio of pearly moonbeams, 
and swept his trousers down to his thighs, laying his erection bare 
for Schuldich's view.  Deftly, he caught his lover by the wrist, and 
dragged his hand away from between his legs.  Kuroe sank his teeth 
into one side of it, before he cast it aside.  

"I know of something much nicer to put there."  

His lips split in a feral grin, and he raised Schuldich's spread 
legs, and nudged the head of his cock into the redhead's ass.  Kuroe 
sank into him halfway, sighed, then buried himself to the root.  
Beneath him, Schuldich quivered, and Kuroe caught his breath.  

"Schuldich," he sighed.  "It's been too long."  

***

"Yeah," the intonation of it sputtered away into a few deep and ragged 
breaths as he opened himself to his lover's stuttering push, writhing 
away from him so he could balance his back against the living room wall 
while Kuroe left and sank into him again.  "Yeah to everything."  

And only then his scintillating moans.  He reveled with his breath and 
he purred, thrusting back against the body chancing his own when he 
could.  It was all enough for the slight muscle of his hips to bear, 
the shifting of that weight against him.  He would have drawn his 
forearms over his eyes, kept himself seeing less than that flitting 
grace of midnight would let him, but Kuroe caught his hands and pinned 
them to the wall like two white butterflies with the misfortune to be 
snagged on his roses, and he, enamored of his tiny prize, bent and 
kissed the man he had won it from about the throat and the love bites 
not his own that lived there. 

"You're still a lazy screw.  If I didn't know better, I'd say you 
thought we had all night.  And I... aaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Fuck! C'mon, right 
there."

***

"As you wish," whispered Kuroe, and he leaned forward on his bent 
knees, and pressed hard against him everywhere their bodies met.  The 
wall groaned with their see-sawing weight, and the stiff carpet 
prickled his flesh through the slippery fabric that drooped from his 
hips.  He let Schuldich's hands go, and gripped his legs instead, 
hooking them over his elbows and thrusting into him with renewed 
fervor, burrowing his cock as deep inside as the redhead liked.  

"Who says we don't have all night to play like this, Schuldich?"  

Schuldich's eyes glittered at him like a pair of crystal marbles, and 
he let them remain uncovered through the push-and-pull of their 
fucking.  Kuroe held them until he abruptly arched against him with a 
strangled little moan and a violent shudder.  

***

"Aaa, you usedta let me.  No good anymore, eh?" And with as much of a 
shrug as he could give, Schuldich drew the vermilion-gold vines of his 
presence away from his lover's self and tucked them back inside 
himself; all but one at least which he left twined about the other 
man's senses so it could play around Kuroe's nerves as his inner 
muscles played a twanging heat over his cock.

He gave him a hard sort of look, one born of the vacuum that threatened 
the shores of his mind.  The creature in his arms though swept it away 
with a kiss.

"Not surprising.  Hey, quit worrying.  It's not like we *have* to."

Or either that he knew any obligation to throw himself against his 
lover's arms so that his breach body shifted out of tune with the tiny 
thrusts their unconsciousnesses still knew.

"You get me out of the corner, I'll ride you.  If you're so bent on 
doing me all night, it should sound like a good idea."

A wet flicker of a tongue against his own and Schuldich found himself 
alone, the other man supine upon the floor now, a mere shadow among all 
the others save for the shaft at his center where one last trace of his 
wetness gleamed.  Schuldich crept to him, kissed him there and tasted 
the faintness of his own residue.  The play lasted only that long- he 
cast himself down on the quivering cock with his fingers still laced 
around its root.  They fled to his aching nipples then, and he fell all 
the way down Kuroe's length, moaning all the while.

***

"Then we shall. Over and over and over..." 

/I'll make it all better./ 

Kuroe's hands stole around his waist, coasting on the rise and fall of 
his hips as Schuldich rode him. His cock cast jiggling shadows 
across his forearms, brushed the faintly curling patch of bright 
blond hair at his groin. The sight of him, quivering and moaning, 
rubbing him where he ought not, stirred Kuroe to the deepest 
reaches. He thrust upwards into him on Schuldich's next roll 
downwards, and got his nipples pinched for the trouble. 

Schuldich, in turn, found his cock firmly surrounded by one hand. 
Kuroe toyed rather than stroked with any real intent, just to see his 
reaction. 

"You provoked me," he said, all innocence. "I could not help 
myself." 

Schuldich bent to rub his tongue against Kuroe's, and then he was 
back into place, bending against the opaline shadows. It was thus, 
with those muscles contracting around his stiffness, and his moaning 
lover's fragile, pulsing cock in his hand, that Kuroe, writhing and 
panting, at last did come. 

***

And Schuldich screamed, both from the pounding his sweet spot received, 
and for the fact it lasted all too short a time.  "Hey! That's it? 
Chrestien you..."

His complaints died with a thump.  Kuroe simply grinned his sated grin 
and flipped his lover onto his side, none too gently, and so that his 
back struck now the same wall he had first taken him against.  Smiles 
now, on the telepath's lips, and he would not put them out with his 
own.  Just looked on, looming over his prone body as he held him open.  
With one hand he steadied Schuldich, and with the other he pressed into 
him, his digits drumming on the most tender of his flesh as his thumb 
wound up and down the velvety skin the ran between his sex and his 
shuddering rosebud.

"Bastard."

Even though Kuroe bent at the last of all his moments, and let 
Schuldich's tip into his mouth as he jolted him the last time with his 
fingers.

***

As Schuldich came, Kuroe greedily sucked his twitching cock until it 
went limp in his mouth, and his lover sagged contentedly in the crook 
in which he'd fallen. He drew back then, nuzzled his red-gold pubes, 
then sat back on his heels with a saucy grin. 

"You are quite rude, Schuldich." 

Schuldich flipped his mussed hair from his face, and began to utter a 
protest--one which died in a yelp when Kuroe seized him by the knees 
and hauled him out of the cozy niche he was lying in. He flipped him 
onto his stomach, and wrestled his struggling form onto his lap. 

"You need to be taught manners." 

Schuldich fought to rise once more, only to suddenly flop down across 
Kuroe's legs and lie quite still, having had read what thoughts 
permeated the blond's mind. Even so, Kuroe cupped the back of his 
neck, and shifted so his lover's quiescent sex rested between his thighs. 
Having had positioned him thus, he slid a hand down Schuldich's back, 
tracing the bumps of his spine all the way down to his tailbone. 

"Such a bad, bad boy you are..." he whispered, and his free hand 
rose and fell soundly upon his ass. Schuldich jerked, bit back a 
cry, and Kuroe tugged at his hair as a warning, even as his hand 
smacked twice more on his warming cheeks. 

"I will have to teach you to be good."

***

Schuldich only winked, and tossed his hair in the instant between two 
blows.  When the second fell he hid his face in his arms like a child 
might have.  His skin muffled his gasps, and his gasps were sharp 
enough to sting close to where his lips rested.  When Kuroe cooed to 
him, he smiled to himself and chanced a little moan which only served 
in wounding his thighs.

By starlight, his lover toyed with him by touch alone, drawing hotter 
blush from what marks already littered his ass and the tender wells of 
his upper legs.  It hurt, horribly under the occasional scratch of his 
watch, but the warmth the followed seeped straight into his loins, 
bringing but a slow stiffness, but a sure and dripping one nonetheless.  
Kuroe just played, drew his nails over him for the tiny squeal they 
elicited, and then he laughed, opening his cleft so he could land a few 
blows against the supple flesh just behind Schuldich's sex.  

Those made him fuss all the more, and he writhed chasing those invasive 
fingers only to be bumped in the stomach with one of his lover's knees.

::Heh, how long to you plan on keeping this up again?::

But before Kuroe's answer had time to coalesce out of his thoughts, the 
front door flew open with a terrific bang and the floor of the shop 
began to chime as pair of boots after pair of boots stomped over it in 
tired time.  He crammed his fist into Schuldich's mouth and waited, 
praying almost audibly to be overlooked in the darkness of a room no 
one needed to chance.  The boots fell away, and someone laughed only to 
be shushed.  There were sighs, a gentle clap of a kiss and the 
bemoaning of a wound not easily tended.  All this rising, slow and hazy 
towards the steps, which in turn, cackled with feet now naked and the 
dragging of someone's blade.

"Aaa, I'll be up in a minute."

Before he told Furii of the book he'd forgotten in the living room the 
night before, Yuki had possessed the impeccable luck of hitting the 
light switch and, in what his brightness-blinded eyes saw, loosing his 
speech all together.  

For there sat his teammate, quite nude but swathed in a lively-looking 
lover who could claim both a clearly battered ass and a bored sort of 
grin.

Without the slightest change in his expression, or diversion of his 
gaze, Yuki remarked in his enigmatic little way, "Oh, hello.  How much 
was your new plaything, Kuroe? About fifty? He's quite charming."
 
***

Now that he had been found out, all the tension left Kuroe's form; 
once more, he became his usual nonchalant self. After all, it could have 
been worse: it could have been Aya, and not Yuki who had entered 
just then. 

"Actually, he was one hundred and fifty," said Kuroe, "and he is most 
charming--not to mention, talented." 

Yuki gave the barest perk of a brow at that, and Kuroe began once 
more to rub Schuldich's ass, smirking at the boy all the while. 

If any retort begged utterance, however, the moment for it's freeing 
was stolen by Furii's abrupt appearance in the doorway. His mask was 
gone, though he was still clad in his black leather outfit. Blood 
marred the shine of it here and there; from the easy way he moved, 
however, all the gore was that of his victims. 

"Mm. So that's what you were getting up to while we were out." 

"Apparently," murmured Kuroe, still petting Schuldich's rump though 
its owner was in the process of stretching himself over his lap, much 
like a cat. 

"A good fuck, I take it then?" 

"The best," replied Kuroe, smiling now that Schuldich had brazenly 
flopped himself back over his lap again, this time on his back. It 
was plain that he had been aroused by their play. 

"I do hope so," replied Furii, who regarded the scene with a moderate 
show of interest. He then drew a card from the deck he held, and 
glanced at it; showed it to Yuki and then faced it out for the other 
two to see: it was the Wheel of Fortune, reversed. 

The card briskly disappeared into the deck. "I suggest Yuki, that 
you get your book, and we hastily retire to our rooms." 

(ooc: The Wheel of Fortune, reversed, essentially means that the 
situation is going to take a turn for the worst.) 

***

::One hundred and fifty, Chrestien? And I was free if you don't count 
the drinks.:: Schuldich's lush little giggle though was easily attributed 
by his audience to the finger tips that strayed now over his thighs.  
It did, however, finally break what small enchantment had fixed Yuki's 
eyes to his cock as it bobbed against his stomach with his purring and 
his shifting hips.  

Yuki, on another day, after another mission, might well have blushed a 
bit, but in truth this was neither the first tart he had come across in 
Kuroe's arms, nor the last, nor the only male one, and frankly he was 
almost disappointed in a way that the redhead currently entangled with 
his teammate hadn't any interesting piercings or tattoos... not even a 
speck of makeup to be seen.  And Kuroe usually had such exotic tastes.

The glance he canted at Furii as he pushed his glasses back into place 
left his interest at that and was countered with a shrug that could 
only indicate the most exquisite of disinterests.

"Yes, seems prudent." He had every intention of excusing himself when 
Schuldich waved him silent and squirmed away from Kuroe for an instant 
after the single volume left tumbled on the coffee table.  Yuki then 
switched his intention to inquire just WHAT had betrayed that battered 
volume of their modest collection as his, but once more, the uninvited 
guest interrupted him.

"Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder.  Hell of a bedtime story.  Have 
fun."

"Thank you." Though he did make no secret of it when he rubbed the 
volume over his pant leg to make sure nothing interesting of the 
redhead's fingers had stayed behind.  "And you as well.  Please do try 
to keep it down."

"Keep what down?" asked a bright little voice at his side.  He looked 
down just in time to miss Michelle's eyes as they darted out into the 
pool of lamplight.  A split second of silence ensued, followed by an 
ear-splitting shriek.

"Furii," Yuki told his companion, "Forgive me, but I do loathe it when 
those cards of yours are right."

***   

"As do I," piped Kuroe from across the room. 

"Mm...Yes," replied Furii. "At such times as these I fear drawing 
another card." He tapped the back of the uppermost card in his 
deck. "Even though it tempts me." 

He exchanged a look with Yuki, and then Furii prudently slipped the 
deck into the deep vest pocket where he normally kept them. Above 
them, he heard the slam of a door, and thumping that bore the rhythm 
of Aya's weary gait. He approached the steps, then retreated; a door 
slammed again. Furii twitched his head towards the stairs, and Yuki 
nodded. As they left, Michelle ran in, the very picture of fury. 

"Oyasumi," called Furii. 

"Oyasumi," echoed Kuroe with a resigned sigh. The sight of the bristling 
little blond who stood before them proved it would go otherwise. 

Kuroe made no attempt to rise from the floor, nor to push Schuldich 
off his lap. Instead, he held his hand out for the younger boy to 
take, as if it were natural for his lover to come home and find him 
in the arms of another. 

"Michelle. May I introduce you to my old friend, Schuldich?" 

***

"Old friend?" Yuki echoed softly at the fading sound of Kuroe's voice.  
For an instant his eyes crept back down the darkened staircase, but he 
managed to shrug of his curiosity once again.  That, and the shouts 
began again, bursting and bubbling in spats of cool words and tepid 
screams that almost struck him as half-hearted.

Either way, they were nothing he wanted any part of.  "Here I was 
thinking no sane person on the face of the earth could ever be friends 
with Kuroe for more than a year."

The answer then to all unwanted questions: /So he must be as hopeless 
as we are.  How sad./

The next cry came so loud it made him wince.  He couldn't imagine 
anyone in the house doing any better.  What a shame.

"Furii," he called, and the suddenness of the sound broken between two 
shouts snatched up the elder assassin's silent attention at once, kept 
it there with him.  "I have some earplugs in my room.  Come on, there's 
no reason either of us should have to listen to this."

With a beckoning wave, he skipped up the last two steps leading to his 
floor and ducked into his own room where the desk lamp shortly began to 
glow.

***

As for Michelle's bitter screams, they did, contrary to Yuki's distant 
interpretation, have some semblance of meaning to them, namely, "You 
insensitive, jerkwad SKANK! How could you... how... COULD YOU!?"

"Ah, actually, he didn't," Schuldich interjected, stifling a yawn as he 
did so.  "I called him.  He just happened to fuck me.  What's the big 
deal?"

The big deal presently manifested as a hand print on Kuroe's cheek.  
   
***

Kuroe gingerly rubbed his stinging cheek with the back of his 
hand. "As you can see, my little Michelle is the jealous type. 
Never mind that I shower him with affection every single day, and 
prove the depths of my love every night." 

Stifling a yawn of his own, Kuroe added, "I can't please you at all, 
can I, pet?"

***

"No! You can't! But that's not to say you couldn't! That's not to see 
you couldn't, and you did!" wailed Michelle. His breath wore every 
indication of silent sobs in its rhythm, but he did not cry, nor look 
in the least as if tears could ever be forced from the darkening clouds 
of his green-gold eyes.

"And that's what gets me the most, Kuroe! That's what gets me! You 
can't spend one month away from your little party girls when you 
promised me... you promised me every damn thing it is possible to promise 
someone! And all you give me is one month. ONE FUCKING MONTH."

"You stayed with someone a month? Why Chrestien, that's downright 
disturbing," Schuldich remarked as he strained just a little against 
the palm sill fumbling with his thighs. His lover- evidentially not 
only HIS lover -negated any additional remarks to this effect by giving 
his balls a bit of a squeeze.

Michelle promptly went crimson as a small, blond, radish. "I SHOULD 
HAVE LISTENED TO AYA ABOUT YOU!!!!!!" The breath he drew was deep 
enough to herald still most unfortunate events, but neither of them 
made any move to silence him. In fact, Schuldich seemed charmed by the 
though of whatever he was doomed to cry. "***AYA***! I need you in the 
living room! NOW!"

***

It seemed no distance was too great for Michelle's upraised voice to 
span, for on the third floor, in the second bedroom, Fujimiya Aya 
groaned, and flung back the rumpled covers of his lover's bed, and 
struggled his way onto his feet.  He had suffered injuries, albeit 
minor; problem was, every old wound he'd suffered in the past now 
ached in sympathy with his scraped ribs and gashed knees.  He only 
wanted to stay in bed, huddled against Ken's warmth, but...

"What is it?!" he snarled from the hallway, but his question fell 
upon deaf ears.  Below, Michelle's voice rose again in shrill anger; 
rumbling just beneath it came Kuroe's accented replies.  Aya went 
cold all over, for he knew all too well what had happened.  

"I don't live with adults.  I live with a bunch of teenagers," he 
muttered to himself as he began his descent into what could only be 
termed as 'Hell.'  "I warned you against getting involved with Kuroe, 
Michelle--even Ken had his say on the subject.  But would you 
listen...?"  

He came off the last step with a sigh, and dared to stretch.  Ken, he 
noticed, had apparently made himself scarce, and silently, as he 
lurched off towards the living room, he cursed his beloved for 
leaving him alone to face the scene that lay before him.  

"Okay.  Who has he brought home this time?" asked Aya as he strode 
into the living room.  

Everyone froze at that moment--and that was Aya's last moment of 
calm.  In the next heartbeat, Aya's sleep-ridden eyes widened and 
sparked fiercely with wrath.  It didn't help matters when Schuldich 
had the audacity to blow him a kiss.  

"What is he doing HERE?  KUROE!"  

Kuroe, instead of answering Aya's query, suddenly began to laugh.  

***

"Who, me?" Schuldich asked in his very best sarcastic falsetto.

"Yes, you! You dirty little bitch!" Michelle spat back, not presently, 
having the wherewithal to register the joke.  Any of the jokes.  His 
lover's snickers embittered him enough that all but the most 
rudimentary phrases in his collection of words were freed to be ravaged 
by the late hour and the palpable disgust sweeping the living room.  He 
could not speak properly for some time, though he chanted softly to 
himself in the corner now, "Damn, damn... oh damn..."

"Am not dirty! 's just a LITTLE cum.  Doesn't count."  Yawning now, 
Schuldich rocked to somewhat of a sitting position in his borrowed 
lover's half-embrace and draped his arms around the merry trembles 
still wracking his shoulders.  

His lips hovered just above the surface of his cheek as he spoke, 
ticking his Kuroe more addressing Aya, "And why shouldn't I be here? We 
went out for drinks after he heard my boyfriend kicked me out, and we 
happened to come back here for a little action.  End of story.  I'm not 
here to make sure YOU'RE next.  And either way- you wouldn't want one 
of your men to be RUDE to a GUEST now, would you?  Especially not one 
who actually HAS manners."

***

"His manners are convenient--he only displays them when he thinks 
he'll benefit by being gracious," said Aya.  

"I am always gracious," retorted Kuroe mildly, to which a book hurled 
from Michelle's hands towards his head.  He managed to duck at the 
very last; it hit the bounced off the wall behind him, upsetting an 
vase dotted with winged, gold cloisonne horses--which miraculously 
did not break upon the carpet.  

Aya didn't scold Michelle at all, though secretly he mourned the fact 
that the boy had missed his mark.  "You've brought a man I loathe 
into the same house where your lover dwells," said he.  "That's not 
graciousness.  That's being an unfaithful, lying rogue."  

"Such harsh words, even if they are true," replied Kuroe.  "I never 
said I was perfect.  Michelle knew what I was like to begin with, and 
yet he gave me his heart anyway.  I have tried to keep it whole and 
safe," he said, turning to his fuming young lover.  "If I had not 
wanted to spare you pain, I would have taken him to my bed, pet, 
where you would have found us."  

Michelle spun then and snatched up the first object he could find to 
throw; an old soccer trophy of Ken's, one of the few he had kept with 
him as a reminder of his old life.  But before Michelle could fling 
it, Aya caught him, and plucked it from his grip. 

"No," Aya ordered as he replaced the trophy on the shelf adjacent to 
the door.  "That's enough screaming and throwing things.  Go to 
bed."  He dragged Michelle forward, and ushered him into the 
hallway.  "No complaints."  

"As for you"--and here Aya coldly addressed Schuldich--"either you 
walk out on your own right now, or I will assist you in your 
departure.  Which way will it be?"  

***

"Aww, Chrestien.  Looks like we're being sent to bed."

Both men sprawled in the center of the living room floor simply 
shrugged, and picked themselves up, neither making any attempt to reach 
for their clothing whatsoever.  Schuldich yawned and popped one of his 
shoulders.  His voice lilting once again, he said to Aya, "Meaniepants.  
Just because YOU'RE not my friend doesn't mean HE shouldn't be? How 
just is that?"

Before any answer had a chance to pierce the air, the front door flew 
open with a bang and the galumphing of one more pair of heavy, leather 
boots.

"I knew it! The front tire on the bike was low! Ok, so it was only a 
pound, but still, I..."

Ken's attempt to slap his lover on the back ended in mid-swing.  It was 
the metal tenseness of his lines which stilled him first, for Aya 
always filled his vision like sunlight shot with rain.  The shouts he 
had been quite oblivious too, likewise the unwelcome but familiar 
voice.  Only when he had gulped and dared steal a look at that which 
had incensed his beloved did he perceive anything of Schuldich, who was 
presently standing smack in the middle of the floor, arms akimbo, hair 
disheveled, white goo dripping down one leg and his rosy stiffness 
casing a pale shadow on his belly.  

"Guten abend," said Schuldich.

"WHAT IN THE BLUE FUCK!?" said Ken.

This time he bowed and his penis bounced a little with the elegant 
sweep of his waist.  "Guten abend." 

"AYAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! I got hit in the head, didn't I? Is it 
bad?"

***

"Yeah, it's bad," said Aya. "Unfortunately, it's not a hallucination 
brought on by any injury." 

"Now who's being rude?" queried Kuroe. 

"Shut up," groused Aya. "Who says he's going to sleep here?"

"I am," replied Kuroe as he picked up his shirt from the floor and 
shook it out. "I pay my share of the rent and bills around here. If I 
want to take a lover to my room, I will." 

Aya opened his mouth to say something in reply, but found he had no 
good argument to utter in rebuttal. It didn't stop him. "I despise 
him. He's my enemy." 

"As you have said. But he's not mine." 

"Stating the obvious again?" 

"You shut up," countered Kuroe with a yawn. "I'm tired. I'm going 
to bed to sleep--eventually." Kuroe's lips split gently in another 
sly grin, and Aya, seeing he had lost that particular battle, turned 
away from the sight of them altogether. 

"Whatever," he said, taking notice of his lover for the first time 
since they had come back home. Ken was far easier on the eyes 
anyway, unpleasantly startled or not. The second their gazes met, 
Aya caught him by the arm and hauled him out of sight of the living 
room's occupants. He drew him close enough for their chests to brush 
together with their breathing. 

"I could argue with them all night, and it wouldn't do any good. I'm 
too tired to care anymore, anyway--especially now that it's quiet. 
So...Let's go upstairs, and forget about them." 

In the room beyond, came the sound of a gathered shirt falling onto 
the floor, and the husky rasp of Schuldich's quiet laugh. Aya rolled 
his eyes in exasperation. 

"It seems they had the very same idea as I did."

***

"Oh? So you spend all that time trying to convince him to let me see 
this room of yours and NOW I'm not allowed to sleep in it? You skank! 
I'm tired!" Schuldich, half-pinned in Kuroe's impromptu bare embrace 
mimicked Michelle's intonations down to the nasal 'a', not bothering in 
his play to make himself sound the least be tired.  With his stiffness 
ground up against his lover's stomach, the effect couldn't have been 
anything but ruined as it was.  

And Kuroe, of course, took all this in stride.  He rolled his eyes and 
without further ado, hoisted Schuldich into his arms in much the same 
way a groom carries his bride before their doorstep and the bedchambers 
beyond.

"Aaaaaa! Watch it!"  But he only kissed him to shut him up and, without 
another thought to their discarded clothing, marched up the stairs, 
quietly caroling a saucy German folk song all the way.

"Ohhhhh! Don't sing that to him yet!" Wailed Michelle as they swept 
past his door.

Schuldich gave the panels a quick kick.  "Halt fres, jung!"

(OOC: Schuldich says, "Shuttup, boy!")

***

"Shh, Liebe," murmured Kuroe in Schuldich's ear. "Let him wail and 
groan. He won't bother us anymore tonight. We will have all the 
evening to lounge and play...and get reacquainted." 

He chuckled, and once more they kissed before Kuroe reached the final 
set of stairs in the house. These were narrow, and uncarpeted, and 
creaked soundly under their combined weight, rousing another faint 
wail from Michelle's vicinity. But neither seemed to hear, or at the 
least, did care, for once more they kissed when they reached the blue 
painted flat of Kuroe's door. He, in the interests of making it more 
visually interesting, had undertaken to embellish it further with 
fanciful scrolls of silver and gold along the edges. 

The room on the other side of it, a garret, possessed a gently 
slanting ceiling and a glossy wooden floor. From a thick brass chain 
hung an electric-candle lamp with seven bell-shaped globes of 
frosted peach glass. Beneath it lay a bed--a full sized, extra-long, 
Western type with a walnut headboard into which roses had been deeply 
carved. A small table sat opposite it, its surface scattered with odd 
sheets of paper and open books, a fat glass vase of full-blown red 
roses; several more hardback tomes adorned a pair of wooden shelves 
above it. A captain's chair from a dining table, all curved lines and 
well padded of brown brocade seat, stood in one corner. Before the one 
wide, double paned window stood a sturdy perch, under which newspapers 
had been spread. Its occupant was not present, however, for Kuroe had 
left Trabant to her nocturnal hunting. 

Kuroe did not stop to give Schuldich a tour of his quarters, but 
instead did lay him down on the bed, following him onto the russet-
and-cream star-patterned quilt which covered it. 

"Do you know how long I have longed to lie with you here, like this?" 
he asked him, bending to nibbled at one ear, one hand roaming over 
his chest, down to his hip to clutch it. "Do you know how I have 
dreamed of you...?"

***

"Of course I do," Schuldich said with his breath shuddering in 
syncopation with the fingertips that roamed his flushing skin.  "You 
couldn't taste more of me."

Beside him, his lover sighed, too lush with want to complain or offer 
repartee for snide words.  Plucking harp strings were there were none 
now, he reached between Schuldich's thighs.  

"I'm yours now, aren't I?" His companion sighed but softly as he spread 
his caresses now inside his pliant rosebud.

"Just don't call me Liebe."

::Like he does.::

***

"I won't," Kuroe breathed, "not ever again." 

/I didn't know, Schuldich./ 

In apology, Kuroe bent to kiss him over the heart, even as he slipped 
two digits into Schuldich up to the first knuckle. There, he rubbed 
the slick, soft tissues, feeling the muscles stretched beneath them 
tense to embrace his wandering fingers. His sex, which had not fully 
withered to its resting state during the whole of Michelle's tirade, 
began to flow back into robust life. He rubbed it against 
Schuldich's hip, teasing, and delved into the sweetness of his 
mouth. 

"'Til dawn," he whispered, pausing to lave one puckered nipple as he 
slid down his side. "Just like the old days." 

With his hands stroking Schuldich's thighs, he moved between them, 
nudging his cock against the fiery patch of hair marking his groin. 
Schuldich gasped softly, raising his legs without coaxing to drape 
over Kuroe's shoulders. 

It was as easy as coming home, sliding into his waiting body. A 
perfect, pleasurable fit. Schuldich's name fell from Kuroe's lips as 
smoothly as if it were the last line in a poem.

***

And they were all "Schuldich" those echoes of what he was called; no 
"Aubrey" gleamed there, not one.  It left a little hole in his senses 
where it should have been, one easily glossed by the web of sensation, 
but a hole nonetheless.  A kind of lingering strangeness like a voice 
that has changed in time.  

Beneath Kuroe, he laughed at himself for being so smitten with his own 
memory when he could call so many from the minds of others.  Whenever 
he wanted.  

When his lover tried to ask, he covered his mouth and arched against 
him, not that the stuttering breath his wriggling body drew wouldn't 
have been enough to stay his curiosity.  He purred for him, nodded, 
breathed deeply of their mingles scents.

"You're tempting me.  I want to make you feel what I feel.  Kuroe..." it 
seemed to snuggle with his tongue just as well as any other name for 
the man so tangled with his limbs.  "...you're such a delicious fuck."

It was an old threat, and an old truth that Kuroe couldn't take such 
formless stimulation.  They both laughed, and Schuldich slapped him 
lightly over each cheek just because he could, and for that found his 
lover's cock nudged up and down inside him rather than simply dipped 
against his insides.

"Mmm, least it's nice to know that if I tried it, there wouldn't be any 
biology profs around to catch us getting the lab tables fulla cum."   

***

"Mm...I relished being under the threat of discovery. Besides, I was 
only doing what those old men dreamed of," said Kuroe with a
sound smack to that thigh of Schuldich's which hugged his side. "And 
you know it." 

/Speaking of delicious fucks.../ 

He lunged forward to wound his mouth with another kiss, even as he 
nudged his cock against the tensing sides of the channel that 
embraced him so completely. He wanted to stay like that, with 
Schuldich in his bed morning and night, nearby to touch as he wished, 
and never to leave...

"We should not," Kuroe gasped, draping his free arm onto the bed to 
coil his fingers in Schuldich's spread locks, "have parted. That is 
my one regret."

***

Schuldich watched his lover's hands smoothing through his hair.  It was 
the sense of them so close that made him moan, those finger tips 
pinning shivers to his skin more certainly than Kuroe's penis as it 
ground and shuddered inside him.  The satiny little pulls left 
trickling in through his roots, straight to the unadulterated film of 
his nerves: they were melty sweet as the thoughts glinning just outside 
his own.  His breath caught when they ceased suddenly and there were 
words instead.

He tried to sigh and only found himself impaled again.  As luscious as 
that was... "Never mind regrets.  You can regret all you want in the 
morning just *do* that.  C'mon."

And Kuroe, taken now with puzzlement and some slight erotic wonder, 
tore their lips apart and ran a few playful twirls through his hair 

***

"I had forgotten how you liked to be petted," said Kuroe. "Shame on 
me." 

He sifted his fingers through the long, flowing, hennaed strands, and 
zigzagged the thin crescents of his nails against Schuldich's scalp, 
even as he stroked him fully from the inside. Kisses met with 
Schuldich's cheek, his lips, and Kuroe swept his tongue along his 
jaw, and down the column of his neck. 

"With every kiss, every embrace, I find I cannot help but remember 
the past, and how sweet it was with you. So...I will regret or not 
as I choose, Schuldich." 

/Faithless creature.../ Kuroe thought, burying all ten of his digits 
into Schuldich's mane to rub his head as he rode him just a little 
harder than before. /How I adored you./

***

"Suit yourself." He was always first of all people in the world to deem 
himself faithless: it made him grin, it made him groan and want all the 
more when he heard it, tasted it in someone's mind, with or without 
distaste.

"You understand you're right about that."  And he made his words the 
stewards of the tingling considerations that dripping in the other 
man's mind; for his troubles and his tiny, sobbing breaths, the fingers 
in his hair sparkled now over his skin, pattering out brilliant trails 
of wet silver on his nerves.

"That I could never want just you.  And hey, you're... you're... oh Christ! 
...alright with it."

His inner muscles gave a little tug to Kuroe's nestled shaft, and with 
one of his empty hands he beckoned.

::You're so OK, I could almost miss you.  And I don't even miss my own 
sister when she's gone!::

***

/Flirting with me whilst I'm fucking you. I find that charming./ 

Kuroe stretched over the body pinned beneath his own, and savaged his 
lips with another kiss. His fingers he dug into the firm planes of 
Schuldich's thighs, spreading them further apart, his legs higher 
into the air, and he rode him with renewed vigor, bruising himself 
and his lover in the process. 

And neither one cared. 

"No one...said anything about you having to leave when morning 
comes..."

***

"You keep that up, and you're gonna have to throw me out a window 
before I do!" Schuldich's moans swelled then, growing short and shrill 
and misty-soft before finally fizzing into laughter true, though shot 
with happy cries it was.  Kuroe had taken to nuzzling him again, though 
now between the whining of the bed beneath them.  

He canted his lover one last coy wink before he closed his eyes to the 
moonlight where it played across the flaxen threads his sweat had 
caught.  Schuldich bucked against him, and his arms lifted away from 
the tangle of their limbs on the sheets.  With his fingers buried in 
the roses that draped the headboard, he sighed, and abandoned his 
languor to push back against Kuroe's shaft as it slipped into him once 
again.

"Then I won't.  It's not as if I'll feel like it."

***

Assent came in reply to his querying thoughts, and Kuroe, with a 
weary little smile, tossed his damp bangs from his forehead, and bent 
to cradle him within his arms. Schuldich clamped down on him again, 
same as with every invasion now, and he felt the threads of 
sensation gradually coalesce into a rising crest. He was so close...

"Then stay," he breathed. "Consider this a vacation. We'll see the 
sights. We'll...reminiscence."

/And I'll make love to you every night./

***

::As if it wouldn't already be worth it just to see what Aya does!::

The roses in the headboard squeaked a little as his fingers ran over 
them again, the sweat at their tips making the whine as they drew 
inward with the rising of his body towards his lover's mouth.  He 
kissed him, once in jest and once for the seal of their agreement, 
though that of the two swiftly melted into their breathing, and the 
fleeting gasps they took between each touch merely to maintain their 
sense when all they wished was to be senseless with pleasure.

Their mouths were still pressed so close together when Schuldich 
slipped into his orgasm with two long, slow pushes up against Kuroe's 
penis, all the breath his lover bore fleeing into him as he drew it 
away with his gasp.  And then he fell back on the covers, sipping on 
the cobalt shadows that the window frame had strewn on him.

***

Kuroe bowed away from him, his hips meeting with his lover's as he 
rocked into the crest of his own orgasm. It was just they two, and 
the warm summer air wafting around their naked bodies from the open 
window opposite, the bed moaning right along with them. He shuddered 
against Schuldich, and then, frozen, he came, buried deep inside his 
long-lost beloved's body. 

With a heavy sigh, he withdrew, and sank onto the protesting bed 
alongside Schuldich. Loosely, they held each other, the air filled 
with the soft whispers of their breathing. 

"It will," a wearily smiling Kuroe began, opening his eyes again to 
gaze at his blue-bathed lover, "be stupendous. Aya will be so upset 
when he finds out." 

/And if anyone needs to be shaken up from time-to-time.../

***

Schuldich only laughed rather than dawdle over his little mental 
summons with anything more coherent than the most disingenuous of 
raptures soaring through his thoughts.  A few he let spill into Kuroe's 
mind, scarcely a full cascade of himself, but enough that his lover 
could taste without forsaking the world.

Then they both laughed, and Schuldich, with a yawn, flopped down with 
his head against his companion's trembling chest.  Kuroe seemed 
surprised to find himself so used, but nonetheless drew his fingers 
through his hair.

"Your heart's still pounding."  

***

Eagerly, Furii fled into that welcoming haven, and firmly closed the 
door behind him, shutting out the sounds of the ensuing argument 
below. He slumped against the door in relief, and lingered there as 
his host shuffled about in search of his earplugs. It occurred to 
him then just how little like a teenager's room it looked. Or 
rather, his idea of one. 

It wasn't outrageously decorated: there was a white bedstand by the 
bed, one capped with a small red lamp and a glass water carafe 
(empty). The windows bore mismatched curtains, and a shougi table 
sat along the wall next to a faded green armchair. He had a small TV 
perched on a low table, and shelf after shelf of books. It was to 
these that he gravitated, when Yuki proved too long in his rambling. 

Furii flicked his finger over the brightly colored spines until he 
found a novel in Japanese that caught his fancy. This, he carefully 
drew out, and flipped it open to puzzle over the words. 

"I had no idea you liked to read so very much."

***

"Oh. Actually, I don't," Yuki said, his words must more distant than 
their meanings would have warranted in any one else's thoughts. 
Perceiving some uneasiness seeping from his teammate, he turned from 
the trundle he had been working out from under the armchair and canted 
Furii a tarnished sort of grin.

"The situation simply exists that there is no other way for a person in 
my position to learn."

The wooden case failed to please him then, and with a low whistle he 
pushed it back in place in favor of rooting through the tiny, white 
cedar footstool hidden at the bottom of his footboard. A few socks went 
flying, along with a plastic grocery bag and some rather dubious-
looking batteries before a pack of foam earplugs appeared. He held two 
out two his companion just as another volley of screams came speeding 
up the stairwell.

"And since I must learn by reading, I am always in need of these. As of 
late, Aya has taken often to Ken's bed, and Ken's bed is directly above 
my own."


(OOC: If Yuki's one line there sounds a little freakish, it's because 
he nominalized it, and nominalized sentences sound quite odd rendered 
in English: the format itself functions along the lines of a linguistic 
cushion. In other words, he's trying to dull the harsh truth he has no 
other way of educating himself.)

***

"You have my sympathies," replied Furii, as he scooped the plugs from 
Yuki's palm.  Replacing the book into its proper gap, he wiggled the 
plugs into first one ear, and then the other.  And heard nothing but 
his own swallowing and breathing, and Yuki's rustling as he strove to 
seal his own eardrums from the barrage of Michelle's screaming.  

"At least they don't fight like that," he said, cocking his head in 
the direction of the living room.  "Not that it's blissful around 
here when they do, but..."  

Both boys shrugged simultaneously, and Yuki awarded him with another 
reluctant smile.  Furii extended one foot towards him, and Yuki 
plucked away the lone blue sock that had fallen atop one of Furii's 
toes in the melee.  

"Good aim," he said, as he settled himself onto the floor opposite 
Yuki.  "As for the learning-by-reading method you are currently 
employing--it must get tedious, not being able to converse with 
another when you attempt to practice those newfound words and 
phrases."  

***

"Only with some of the Latin," Yuki admitted.  He couldn't presently 
imagine that saying no would ever be the least bit believable.  The 
slight shame of talking to himself at two in the morning might do 
better left unsaid, of course. A tiny smile dusted his lips and he 
explained this at least to his companion with an amicable, "Fitis 
Plocenta."

Furii, unaware of the meaning of what he had just heard, simply echoed 
that insubstantial expression and waited for an explanation.

"You are becoming the cake."

There was a loud bang downstairs, one of such force that while neither 
of them felt it, the vibrations wound up through their folded legs, 
jarring Yuki quite a bit between his nerves and sense.  The door, it 
was only the door.

"It's the most absurd thing I've been able to come up with.  It reminds 
me of living here..."

***

"Yes..." drawled Furii thoughtfully.  "I can see why you'd feel that 
way.  I feel that way.  Every day in fact."  

As if to punctuate his remark, another crash sounded from below, 
sending another round of tremors through the floor, and once more, 
Yuki twitched as if he'd been struck. Eyes averted, Yuki nudged his 
glasses back into place, and began to fiddle with the plastic bag 
that had escaped its niche in the footstool.  Furii was struck with 
the yearning to wrap an arm around him and pull him close, so much in 
need of protection did he seem.  The urge was so strong, that he was 
propelled into uncharacteristic action.  

"You know," he said, shifting so he now sat alongside of Yuki, with 
the footboard bracing his side, "you can always come to me and 
practice, never mind the hour.  I'm not familiar with many languages, 
but...at least I could help you with the few I can speak."  

***

The workings of the boy's mind stole away at once to find some supple 
way of begging off while he agreed in tune, but none came, and none 
came, and while he could find no reason for such things to leave him, 
he would not keep them with his worry.  There was only one thing left 
to say after that.

"Aaa, I'd like that."

And the truth was, as invasive as such a promise would be between him 
and Furii... it honestly appealed to him.  In a relaxing sort of way.  
But he dwelt not on that, but rather the poise of his companion since 
he had moved...

/You look like you want me to ah... to do something.  Shake on it?/

Yuki wasn't much on the idea of touching anyone's hands, too personal.  

/Pat his shoulder like we're old friends?/

That seemed plausible.  If only Furii's shoulder wasn't strewn with 
half-set bloodspatters.

/Ugh./

But then again, so was his.  So he shook the escapee plastic bag open 
and whisked his leather over shirt into it with a sigh.  "Here, just so 
you don't brush off on anything."

Yuki had only a filmy and somewhat sweaty T-shit underneath his 
uniform.  

***

"Oh," Furii murmured, tearing his eyes away from the slim, hinting
lines of Yuki's chest to regard the shameful state of his 
clothing; he looked as if he had just remembered he hadn't bothered 
to change. "I...forgot. Sorry." 

He fumbled with the buckles and zippers holding his vest tight to his 
body, noting with some puzzlement that his hands were trembling 
slightly as he worked, as if he were nervous. Anticipating. Furii 
mentally shook off the half-formed ideas in his head, and peeled the 
leather vest off his shoulders. He turned it inside out, and let it 
drop into the bag to rest with Yuki's tunic. Before the boy could 
set their clothes aside, he reached for the bag again, and fished his 
cards out of his pocket. 

And then, he sat back, unconsciously closer to Yuki than before, now 
stripped to the waist for he did not ever bother with donning 
undershirts beneath his vest. 

"How about I read your cards?" he asked, shuffling them once before 
handing them to Yuki. "Go on. Think of a question, and shuffle 
them." 

***

It was such a novel offer, but Yuki realized quite suddenly, that amid 
the thousand queries reeling in his thoughts, lay the shard of truth 
that Furii had never asked me this before.

Or any of their teammates beyond that first night they had been 
together.  As a gesture of friendship towards the steady chill of Aya's 
social graces, he had offered to perform once for their leader for the 
sake of their team.  It had been a fair result, he recalled, all the 
right cards reversed, and just one unhappy image bespeaking among those 
that were righted...

They were heavy cards, stiffer than the stock usually graced with such 
oracles.  They almost pinged as he ruffled their edges together- once, 
twice, three times before he stopped to rub his hands and cut them.  
Now fitted as neatly as before, he laid them on the table, and knocked 
twice beside them as if he supposed that might make some difference.

"I asked if there was any happiness waiting for me or not, but there's 
no need to hedge the truth, no matter how it comes up."

And oddly enough, Yuki winked a little with that, for reasons not even 
he quite knew.  

***

"Noted," said Furii. And he took the deck and laid out five cards in 
a straight row, then paused to study them. 

"These are all positive cards. This," he said, pointing to the first, 
the Ace of Cups, "represents the question. It means joy, abundance, 
harmony. The second is the situation which has passed; the seven of 
Wands means that you have struggled, possibly still struggle with 
some problem you have. It is also representative of bravery." He 
quirked a slight smile at Yuki. 

"The third card represents you, how you have tried to answer the 
question. The Knight of Wands signifies a journey, a change of 
residence." 

"The fourth card represents outside influences, the attitudes of 
others, things you can't control or foresee. The Knight of Cups 
means an opportunity will arise which will bring further change into 
your life, but it won't necessarily be negative. It could bring you 
great happiness. The choice is yours whether to take what is offered 
to you or not. 

"This last card signifies what will come. The Wheel of Fortune means 
that those things which trouble you now will come to an end; luck is 
with you." 

"Did you find meaning in the reading?" he asked.

***

"I find it... reassuring," Yuki said, trying to dust his choice or 
words with as much care as he could. True, he had not raised himself 
to put much faith in the oracle toys of the occult, but the disaster 
of the evening among so many others Furii had foretold brought him 
into a different sort of magic than the cards offered. Perhaps 
people could not in truth behold what awaited them, but even if so, 
that would have nothing to do with what islands of thought there were 
waiting to be felt, touched, believed.  Choosing just the right 
energies- though random from the images upon the tarot they flew -
could bring a path suggested only into being. 

The thought took shape but slowly as he found himself admiring the 
images his companion had called his own.

"I am curious," he admitted then. "Just what may be offered me. 
It's only a question of recognizing it, right? And then all I need do 
is remember what has not happened yet. It makes me wonder why the 
Western philosophers never wondered about such curious things." 

***

"Because in the pondering of science and God and the human condition, 
they have forgotten how to dream. Magic is to them little more than the 
stuff of cheap fantasy," replied Furii. "How empty their lives must 
be...Or so I believe."

"You should be watchful for that which may be offered, for it might 
be so subtle you may miss it. Something no more than a smile from 
stranger, or the casual, pondering glance of an acquaintance," Furii 
said. "It might be riches you gain, it might be enlightenment." 

Furii idly drew a card from the deck, glanced at it, then raised it 
to his lips, picture facing out. "It might even be a chance for 
romance," he added, echoing the obvious message of the card he held: 
The Lovers. 

"Whatever it may be, Yuki, you must remember that happiness starts 
from within. From here." Furii drummed his fingertips gently over 
Yuki's heart. "All the blessings of the gods might descend upon you, 
but if you can find no happiness in your life beforehand, you won't 
find it even then."

***

It had finally grown quiet, more or less, the almost silence falling 
softly now with the azure moonbeams that swept the larger of the third 
floor bedrooms.  There was only one window, a halo of greenish glass 
set with whitewash lace, but what there was of Cynthia yet to be seen 
held itself in the center of the summer snowflake there, standing 
tiptoe on the summit of the distant clock tower.  The bells chimed, a 
mellifluent thunder on the quarter hours passing the clear sky, and 
their ceiling creaked and giggled in time with someone else's 
heartbeats while the floor sobbed, but for any home of theirs, it was 
quiet.

They left their curtains open most of the time, the window didn't 
intrude enough on their room to merit closing them unless to stay the 
glare of the afternoon sun.  With only one pane of glass to light their 
chambers, Aya and Ken had painted their bedroom to make the most of the 
sunshine.  The walls white and the ceiling chappy aqua blue airbrushed 
with clouds, one of which vaguely resembled a dragon, another a rabbit, 
and finally a tiger lurking over the desk.  The furniture was all hand 
made, very pale wood or painted white itself with a trim of creamy 
pastel yellow here and there.  They had a chest of drawers, a small 
armoire since the walls hadn't been set with a closet... a few other odds 
and ends.  In the starlight, their listless blue-glass windchime 
sparkled but did not sing, and the ink bottles echoed its tune.

Ken's eyes strayed to them for a moment before returning to the ivory 
curve of his lover's neck.

They were draped over their bedroll, he and Aya, the swordsman cross-
legged and naked from the waist up as Ken fumbled with the knots that 
lined the muscles of his back.  It couldn't really be called a massage, 
couldn't really be called curious touches alone... he knew every line he 
crossed by heart, and bent just then to kiss one which would not give 
itself over to his fumbling touch.  His hair spilled out over his 
lover's shoulder- he hadn't had it cut in awhile.  So far, Aya hadn't 
complained.

The springs of the bed over their heads did, however, and he, just to 
make sure, gave the chair wedged under their doorknob a re-assuring 
kick.  

***

Distracted from his lazing thoughts from the burst of noise, Aya's 
gaze darted in the direction of the chair, then rolled upwards to the 
ceiling. He sighed then, soft and low. Ken's worked his fingers a 
little harder along one tense line down his side, as if he hoped to 
lull him back into dreaminess. It only partially worked; while Aya 
gradually sagged beneath the pressure of his lover's touch, his mind 
refused to be calmed. He had been awakened, and now...he was even more 
acutely aware of Ken's presence, every tickle of his hair against his 
skin, every puff of breath which skated over him as he worked. It 
warmed him to the very core, having him so near, despite the lack of 
silence. 

"Don't worry about them," he said softly. "Kuroe wouldn't dare 
bother us now. Besides, we're the last things on their minds." 

Another creak carved the air from the room above theirs, serving to 
prove the truth of Aya's words.

***

"Heh, a poet and a femme assassin.  I wonder who's doin' who?"  The 
speculation had been idle, but when Aya turned his aching neck just 
enough to throw him a dark little reprimand of a gaze, he found himself 
obliged to huff, "Woul don't tell me you're not curious!"

The silence sweeping the crystal blue reaches suspended about their bed 
assured him Aya most certainly did not.  With a sigh, Ken shook his 
head where his lover might sense the flickers of his bangs again, and 
with that, went back to work.

"It would be my luck.  Hell, I can only think of one thing in my life 
ever turned out just right."

He didn't say another word, just looped his arms around Aya's waist, 
careful of the bruises that stained the crest of his ribcage.

***

"Yeah," agreed Aya softly. "Just right." 

Aya turned in his lover's embrace, and he gathered him into his arms, 
chancing little caresses of Ken's body wherever he could. As his 
hands roamed, though, his searching gaze stayed locked with the other 
boy's. Gently, sweeping his lover's long bangs from his face, Aya 
leaned in to press a teasing little kiss to his mouth. 

"I'm not curious about anyone except for you. Anata."

***

"Mmmm, now that's ALWAYS sumthin' I like to hear," this uttered with 
a throaty chuckle seeping through the words. Ken winked, and drawing 
breath as deeply as he dared, he leaned in to wound his lover's 
mouth. Aya had never been one he needed to feign mildness with. 
Never.  It was this absence of fleshly lies which from their 
first night tangled in each other's arms had left him with a feeling 
of permanence. More so than the gentle, living doom they shared.

"That," he added, breathless and blind beside his lover. "And the 
sound of your voice. And your breath, and the salt all over your 
eyes, your skin. I'm inspired. Gimme some to play with."

***

"Everything I have to give, it's all yours." 

Aya sought another bruising kiss from his lover, and they fell 
together, grappling as if they were more carefree boys than young men 
already jaded by the dark workings of the world. Marking each other 
with kisses and bites, squeezing and pinching their respective ways 
in exploration as they divested each other of what little they wore. 

At last, panting, they broke apart. Ken graced him with a low, none-
too-innocent chuckle. Aya, by far more serious and intent, made to 
reach for him again, only to be tumbled onto his back. Ken straddled 
his hips, braced by the heels of his hands, which he had planted 
firmly on Aya's shoulders. The light trickling in through their 
window shone fully on him, silvering his dark hair and skin. Shadows 
dipped in the hollows here and there, and silhouetting his sturdy 
form, and added feral tints to his boyish grin; the sight of him only 
served to further enflame Aya's lust for him. He slid his hands 
upwards over Ken's sides to the puckering, tawny nubs of his nipples, 
and palmed them until Ken softly moaned and arched against his 
touch. 

His hands left him then to lie above Aya's head on the futon, and Aya 
stretched beneath him, nudging his hardening cock against Ken's 
balls. 

"You've won the battle. What will you do with your prize?"

***

"Ravish it," Ken whispered once his moans had passed.  Slow as 
dandelion powder he descended, his lips seeking his lover's open mouth, 
and his thighs the stiffness pushed between his legs.  Aya tossed 
against him as he clamped around him, tore free and bit at his neck no 
matter how much he tried to sooth him with his palms.  

Aya always felt achingly human, touchingly alive, no matter how much 
lust lit upon his unearthly grace.  The way he strained under the 
coasting steps of his palms over his belly, the creak in the bones of 
his right shoulder and the way he winced when he fumbled his bruises, 
it was all, when met with the sight of him in the throes of such 
perfection and such gentle lust; it was intoxicating.  Almost 
unbearable.

It drove him absolutely mad, and he could not have loved it more; the 
melting heat it stirred through ever one of his muscles.

"And by ravish, I mean make it scream, just a little."

He left Aya then, but only long enough to reach into the cabinet where 
their bedroll slept by day with all their toys.  They didn't have all 
that many- a few vibrators, mostly meant for one another's hands, one 
pair of handcuffs that had migrated there accidentally and a little jar 
of lube, which Ken claimed, and proceeded to slather its contents all 
over his beloved's blushing sex.

Ken was chuckling all the while as he slung himself over Aya's hips and 
slipped down onto him.

***

Aya shuddered beneath him; tossed against him when Ken steadied himself 
on the futon and began to slowly slide his ass up and down over Aya's 
hips. As he took Aya inside him, Ken would embrace him from the 
inside just as tight as his arms might otherwise, stoking his desire 
even further. 

He feverishly clutched at Ken's waist, his working hips, until his 
fingers met the fringes of the dark patch of hair at his groin. He 
could sense the bobbing of his sex against the inside of his wrist, 
and Aya grasped him there, intending to mimic the way Ken was holding 
him. 

He gasped when he touched him, and Aya's fingers began to toy his way 
up and down his length, even as Ken made him groan with pleasure. 

"I wonder," Aya murmured breathlessly, rolling upwards into a sitting 
position, and cradling Ken's cock against his belly. "if I can't 
make you scream first."

***

"Well, I like what you've tried so far," Ken said, and with those words 
folded his legs around his lover's waist so from his heels he could 
ride closer to the body fitted so well up inside his own.  Lips red and 
quivering now with every one of the thrusts he pretended with the 
workings of his own body, Ken drove himself down on Aya, who in turn 
pushed his hand down between Ken's legs and fondled the skin just 
flanking his penis.

It took him only the slightest forward tips to press the heel of that 
hand into the skin of his belly and meet him there too, just as keenly 
as he did inside.

"Oh, getting more interesting by the minute! You keep it up, our 
uninvited guest is going to get jealous and leave."

But just as he uttered those words, Aya's fingers descended against his 
balls and he cried out in spite of how hard he had been trying not to.  

***

"Either that, or he'll try to force his way through the barrier you 
set up by the door, hoping to enjoy a little of what I have to 
delight in every night. And then..." Aya wriggled his hips against 
Ken when the boy thrust downwards, shifting his cock a little deeper 
inside of him and making him moan, "there will be a fight for 
sure. Because I don't like to share what I treasure." 

Aya dragged Ken forward to kiss his bitten lips, and then he rolled 
him over onto the futon, throwing one embracing leg over to the side 
to rest against the one he had between Ken's. His fingers lightly 
tapped the underside of Ken's erection, then snaked their way down to 
once more nuzzle his balls. 

"You cried out. You lose. And now, I get to take what I want," Aya 
whispered, with a jiggling push of his sex into his lover's 
ass. "And what I want...what I've always wanted..." 

The floor beneath them squeaked soundly under the weight of their 
bodies' fervored meeting. 

"Is...You."

***

"I can live with that..." Ken's breath caught though before he could 
laugh all he wanted too, his own, small way of expressing his ecstasy.  
It had bothered Aya at first, that he would play as he saw such lightness 
in the ways they took one another, but that seemed like it had been 
eons away now, and sometimes, Aya laughed with him.

Not now though.  Aya was, for all his bedroom half-smile, deadly 
serious in expressing himself and the desire bursting through his mind, 
crying softly himself between thrusts, though so quietly, another lover 
might have taken the sounds for moans alone.

"I'm always gonna wonder why I didn't just throw myself into your bed 
that first night and tell ya to take me now.  Always..." 

Simply because he could, now between the subsequent thrust and the 
gleaming shore of his climax, Ken wrapped his arms around his lover's 
shoulder, and smashed him down against his chest to once more nibble 
his lips.

"I wanted you then and there and that was it.  Don't let me go on like 
that again.  I'd go mad without you.  Completely, fucking, mad..."

Ken lay still then, chuckling still when he could find the strength the 
end his screams.  As much as he hated being submissive, there came a 
point with Aya sometimes where it was better to just lie back and enjoy 
the ride.

And that, of course, had been the whole story of their love.

"An' I do love you too, y'know."

With those words, he ground his fingers in his lover's hair, and, 
arching against him, left his orgasm seep from his loins and into all 
the blood of his body.  

***

Biting his lip to keep from crying out, Aya strained against his 
lover's taut body, spilling his seed deep within the flesh 
that held him. At last, he fell with a thump at Ken's back, his arms 
still around him; one hand covered with the remnants of his lover's 
orgasm. Aya made no move to clean himself of it, but pressed his 
face to Ken's nape, and kissed him there. 

"If you had come to me that first night," he whispered 
breathlessly, "it wouldn't have been as...sweet, nor as unexpected." 
Aya smiled against Ken's shoulder. "Remember? It wasn't any 
romantic impulse which drove you to my room that night. You were mad 
at me, and spoiling for a fight. But..." 

Playfully, Aya sank his teeth into Ken's shoulder, and the other boy 
rocked against him, shoving him away. With a low chuckle, Aya 
released him, and Ken rolled over onto his back, and draped an arm 
around his neck. Aya, after a moment's quiet study of Ken's nude 
form, lay his hand upon his chest, and petted the smooth skin his 
fingers found there. So much lay between them that to say, "I love 
you," seemed so weak a phrase to utter; for those three words 
could not measure the depth of what he felt for Ken. It was all too 
great. 

And yet, he couldn't refrain from echoing Ken whenever he said it. 

"I love you, too, Ken," Aya whispered, and he lowered himself into 
his waiting embrace.

***

Niji I: "Guest" End

Next Time: Niji II: "Clover"

*****