Chapter 3 - The Enlightenment of the Gods, Part Two

The Enlightenment of the Gods, Part Two[/b]
 
*~*~*~*~*~
 
   It was a smallish and rather shabby house that clearly could not have belonged to anybody other than Nijiiro. The roof was sprawled with sleeping cats of every color and kind, clearly having decided that the red-tiled roof made a fine place to take a siesta. The house itself had been painted a quiet, unobtrusive white, but somebody had begun to paint over the white with periwinkle and simply never finished it. The lawn was no longer a lawn, but something closer to a wild savannah, covered in feathery yellow grass a few feet high, the stalks of which rattled against one another in the slightest breeze and produced an unearthly, whispering percussion that was disconcerting, to say the least. The only parts of the lawn not covered in this dying orchestra were a path up to the front door and a large patch in front of the right side of the house. However, this patch was not bare, for all that it was even more dead than the sea of grass.
   This patch of cleared ground was what screamed that this was Nijiiro’s house. Plunged into the dirt like some new breed of unearthly flower were almost two hundred plastic pinwheels, all of different colors, some patterned, some solid, some with four petals and others with up to twenty. The same breeze that provoked the rustling of the grass stirred through the pinwheels as well, creating a tickety-tickety-tickety sound that at the same time clashed against and meshed with the cadence of the grass. It was positively eerie.
   Just before he touched the front door (which was navy blue, standing out like a shout against the rest of the house and everything around it,) Nijiiro stopped and said, “Hey.”
   “Yes?”
   “Okay. Um. Look, I want you to be forewarned,” Nijiiro said. He was playing with his hair restlessly, braiding lemon and azure streaks around one another. “I have a big family. And we all live here. So don’t be surprised that there isn’t much room or that it’s pretty loud. And...and...” His voice faded away.
   “And what?” Naoki prompted.
   “And you might wanna stay close,” Nijiiro sighed. He pushed open the door.
   The inside of the house was even crazier-looking than the outside. The front door opened into the entry hall, and off to the left was a paper door positively quaking with the noise coming from the other side of it. Nijiiro kicked his shoes off onto a mountain of footwear next to the front door and slid open the paper door while Naoki removed his own.
   The paper door led to what was clearly the living room, crammed with what seemed like Nijiiro’s entire family, playing a ferocious game of mad, free-for-all Nertz. The chaos was astounding.
   “HEY EVERYBODY!!” Nijiiro shouted over the ruckus.
   “NIJIIRO!” shouted a woman in her early forties, her brown hair cut short and sticking out all around a heart-shaped face that blazed with triumph as her long fingers threw cards onto the table. “I’M BEATING THE PANTS OFF THEM! SIDDOWN AND GET READY FOR THE NEXT GAME!”
   “WHAT?!” shouted the girl next to her, her hair thrown up in a hasty ponytail that was coming loose and spilling blonde strands over her face. “DON’T LIE TO NIJIIRO, MOM! I’M WINNING AND YOU KNOW IT!”
   “LIKE HELL YOU ARE!” the woman hollered back at her.
   “NERTZ!!!” a little girl roared louder than all of them, throwing down her last card decisively.
   This was the cue for everyone to start shouting at the little girl, and for several people to throw their cards down, and for the woman who had claimed she was winning to throw the pillow she was sitting on at the little girl. The girl retaliated, and shortly an all-out pillow-fight broke out.
   “Ow!” Naoki said as a pillow hit him in the face.
   You wouldn’t think anybody could have heard him over the hullabaloo, but Naoki’s unknown voice somehow reached every ear present. In a stunning two seconds, the entire room fell silent as every one of Nijiiro’s present relatives twisted around to gape at the stranger Nijiiro had brought home.
   “Now that you’ve all shut up,” Nijiiro said into the silence, “this is Hayami Naoki. Hayami-kun, this is my family.”
   “Oooh, -kun[/i]!” said a girl with long, beautiful brown hair.
   “Does he have a brother?” asked the girl sitting next to her.
   “He’s not my boyfriend,” Nijiiro said. “He’s in VG.”
   A respectful murmur went around the room.
   “Let me give you more specific introductions,” Nijiiro offered, towing Naoki forward by the arm again. “This is my aunt, Kaoru—” this the woman with short brown hair who had first hailed Nijiiro “—and her husband, Daisuke—” a man sitting close to her, with similarly-colored hair, smiled at them both “—their eldest daughter Maki—” the blonde girl spared Naoki only a cursory glance as she attempted to rebind her ponytail “—and only son Ietsuna—” the only other blonde person in the room, a boy like a whipcord with spiky hair and an unbuttoned shirt “—my older brother Fuma—” a very tall boy giving the impression that he had been folded over to fit into the room “—my older sister, Shiho—” this the girl with beautiful brown hair, longer even than Nijiiro’s “—my—”
   “I’m Nijiiro’s sister, Yuna,” said the girl sitting next to Shiho. She looked a lot like Nijiiro, with brown hair caught up in a ponytail with a saucy violet ribbon, dressed in a swirling violet dress that had clearly seen better days. Oddly enough considering the heat of the day, there was a black velvet scarf around her neck.
   “And I’m his brother, Hiroji,” said the boy sitting next to her[/i]. He also looked a lot like Nijiiro, except his brown hair was short and spiked, and his nose had an obscuring bandage across it. He was wearing a voluminous white shirt with a green stripe across it and baggy jean shorts.
   “No you’re not,” Nijiiro said crossly. “THAT is Yuna, and THAT is Hiroji.” He pointed at the boy first, then the girl.
   “NIJIIRO!!” the girl—who wasn’t a girl—screamed. “You didn’t have to tell[/i] him!!”
   “I wanted to see if he could tell,” the boy—girl?—grumped.
   “You’re taking unfair advantage of him,” Nijiiro said, throwing a glance at Naoki. He didn’t look like he was going to faint or anything, so Nijiiro plunged ahead. “That’s my youngest sister Haruna.” It was the little girl who had won the Nertz game. “That’s my other uncle, Eichi.” A man with a very thin face and a look of perpetual tiredness bowed formally to Naoki. “And all of those boys are his and my aunt Himeko’s sons—Shirai—” a very handsome boy with black hair and glasses looked up from picking up cards “—Kaii—” a short boy with his black hair kept out of his face by a white headband “—Azumamaro—” he had been the first one to jump to his feet and join in when Kaoru had thrown her pillow and was bouncing on the balls of his feet, clearly impatient for the fight to resume “—and Niou.”
   Niou was a small, kitten-like boy with huge amber eyes and short, soft black hair. He had taken cover behind his brother Shirai when the pillow-fight started, and now he ran around him and grabbed Nijiiro around the waist, which was as high as he could reach.
   “Nii-san, didja VG? Didja? Didja win? You didn’t get hurt, right?”
   “Oh, yeah, I did VG,” Nijiiro said, remembering. “Where’s Himeko-oba? I want her to answer the door.”
   Fuma, Nijiiro’s folded-over brother, groaned. “Jin finally found out you joined VG, huh?”
   “How did you know?” Nijiiro asked dryly.
   “Jin’s the only idiot dumb enough to follow you back to this[/i] house after trying to beat you up,” Hiroji—Yuna—the one who looked[/i] like a boy, at least—said. “He’s a glutton for punishment. Or maybe he’s in love.”
   “Disgusting idea. Where’s Himeko-oba?”
   “Why aim small?” Kaii, the short boy with the headband, shrugged. “Ask Chihiro to open the door.”
   Nijiiro raised his eyebrows. “Chihiro’s up[/i]? It’s still daylight.”
   “Chihiro’s awful mad,” Niou informed Nijiiro and Naoki solemnly. “Somebody threw rocks at her window and woke her up.”
   “Oh, God,” Nijiiro said.
   “It was that guy who lives across the street,” Shiho of the long and gorgeous hair said. “He threw rocks at her window from the sidewalk—”
   “—and all of a sudden, Chihiro comes down the stairs like a thunderstorm,” Fuma continued. “Well, of course we all got out of her way—”
   “Bit of a nasty shock for him,” Shiho said wickedly. “You know she’s got those black drapes over her window, he probably didn’t even know she’d left her room and all of a sudden the door bursts open and out comes Chihiro—”
   “She came back a few minutes later,” Kaii chipped in. “She had a load of hair in her hand.”
   “He’s just lucky his head wasn’t with it,” Shiho said.
   “Or whatever it was she pulled it out from,” Fuma said innocently.
   Shiho smacked him.
   “Bastard,” Maki said unexpectedly, finished tying up her hair. “He deserved it.”
   “If he threw rocks at Chihiro’s window, he’s too dumb to deserve air,” Nijiiro said. “She’s one of my other cousins,” he added to Naoki. “She sleeps during the day and stays on the roof all night looking at the stars. I think she wrote to the Prime Minister to petition the dimming of city lights so people could stargaze when they wanted to...”
   “Light upsets her,” Niou said sagely.
   “Pretty much,” Nijiiro agreed. “Where’s Mom?”
   “Your mom, or my mom?” Niou asked.
   “Mine.”
   “The kitchen.”
   “Figured.” Nijiiro grabbed Naoki by the arm again. “C`mon, I want you to meet my mom.”
   “You sure he’s not your boyfriend?” Kaoru teased.
   “Not yet,” Nijiiro said, and he pulled Naoki across the room into the kitchen amid a great “Oooohh!” from all his family at once.
 
 
   “Mom?” Nijiiro called as he opened the door.
   The kitchen looked horrific and smelled fantastic. It was a semi-large room crammed with cupboards, shelves, drawers, a huge and ancient refrigerator, and a colossal sink like a lake dropped away in the counter. The walls—what little you could see of them—were covered in absolutely horrendous faded, lime-green wallpaper which looked especially terrible contrasted with the vaguely pink tiles of the floor. From the stove came the thick, steaming aroma of ramen, boiling in a cauldron-like pot which a woman was stirring.
   “Himeko-oba!” Nijiiro exclaimed.
   The woman stirring the pot stopped stirring. Then, ever so slowly, she turned her head—just her head—to face Nijiiro and Naoki.
   With her heavy-lidded eyes, her long, coiling black hair, and the steam of the ramen wreathing her pale, triangular face, she looked like a witch.
   “It smells delicious,” Nijiiro said, although he looked slightly nervous. Naoki looked like he was reconsidering his idea of running to Osaka.
   “Nijiiro!” exclaimed a voice.
   From behind the witch-like Himeko poked the heads of an older woman, her hair rich auburn but streaked with grey, and of a little girl, her hair tied in a thick auburn braid that the woman’s might have looked like when she was her age. Both of them were holding knives, and it quickly became obvious that they had been chopping meat and other things to add to the ramen.
   “Mom!” Nijiiro ran forward—fortunately remembering to let go of Naoki first—and embraced his mother, careful to avoid the knife. His mother was not a tall woman, but Nijiiro was still shorter than she was. “I brought somebody.”
   “He’s tall!” said the little girl, looking at Naoki with large black eyes. “Is he your boyfriend, Nijiiro?”
   “No, I’m not,” Naoki said.
   “Oh,” the little girl said. “I’m Hikaru.”
   “I’m Hayami Naoki.”
   “`k.” Losing interest, Hikaru went back to the carrot she had positioned on a cutting board in front of her and took aim.
   WHACK!
   The decapitated head of the carrot ricocheted off the side of the sink.
   “Not so hard, Hikaru sweet, you’re going to cut the cutting board,” Nijiiro’s mother said, letting go of Nijiiro. “Hayami-san? I am Ii Ayaka, Nijiiro’s mother.”
   “Nice to meet you,” Naoki muttered, bowing to her.
   “Likewise,” Ayaka said. “This is my youngest sister, Himeko.”
   The witchy woman had returned her attention to stirring the ramen and did not say anything, or even acknowledge that she had heard them.
   “Mom, can Naoki stay with us for a while?”
   Ayaka looked from Naoki to Nijiiro. “For dinner, or longer?”
   “Longer. He’s in VG, and he came all the way here to enter the nationals, but he doesn’t have anywhere to stay—”
   Ayaka looked shocked. “Oh my! Certainly, Hayami-san, stay as long as you like!”
   For a brief moment, something indescribable fluttered across Naoki’s face. It was gone quicker than it had appeared, and Naoki dropped into a very deep bow.
   “Thank you[/i],” he muttered, his red hair falling into his face.
   “Natsumi’s coming to dinner tonight as well, so we’d better eat in the backyard,” Ayaka murmured to herself, tapping her mouth reflectively with one slender finger as she returned to the leeks she had been chopping. “There’s not enough room otherwise...”
   Hikaru took aim.
   WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!!
   Bits of carrot flew everywhere as Hikaru went at the hapless vegetable with a vengeance. Nijiiro picked a chunk out of his hair and said, “Well, we have to go talk to Chihiro, I need to ask her about something...”
   “Be careful,” Hikaru said, slashing away at the pathetic remains of the carrot with a look of determination on her face. “Somebody woke her up.”
   “I know,” and Nijiiro and Naoki ran for cover as Hikaru finished with her carrot and advanced on a tomato.
 
*   *   *
 
   The upstairs level of the Ii house was surprisingly quiet. Although there was mild background noise from downstairs, the second floor was mostly silent. Nijiiro, steeling himself to beard Chihiro in her den, was therefore taken by complete surprise when somebody grabbed him and pulled him into the bathroom.
   It was Naoki. He shoved Nijiiro towards the towels, closed the door, then turned around and advanced on him.
   “What are you doing?!” Nijiiro demanded.
   “Explain to me what was going on downstairs,” Naoki said vehemently. “Your aunt looked ready to eat me alive. So did that blonde cousin of yours. And why did everybody think I was your boyfriend? And what’s with this crazy cousin we’re going to see who sleeps all day and rips people’s hair out?! And what’s going on with those two of your siblings who you said—”
   “Okay,” Nijiiro said, laying his fingers on Naoki’s mouth, “shut up. You’re getting loud, and you’ll wake up Sakura.”
   “Sakura?” Naoki demanded.
   “My aunt Kaoru’s youngest daughter. Listen, you want to know what’s going on with all of us? Okay. Here’s the explanation.”
   “An explanation would be nice,” Naoki said sarcastically.
   Nijiiro took a deep breath. “Out of my siblings, Ashootei’s away at college, Fuma and Shiho are in love, I’m—” he stumbled over the hated word, “—gay, Yuna and Hiroji are both transsexuals and switch identities because they can’t switch genders, and Haruna is just a tomboy. Well, at least, we think[/i] she’s just a tomboy.”
   He paused to check Naoki’s reaction. There was none. Naoki seemed to have frozen completely.
   “My aunt Kaoru’s kids: Maki and Hikaru are lesbians, Yue’s bisexual and probably Himeko’s long-lost child by mistake—though she’s not here right now, she spends all day at the library, she wants to get a degree in molecular biology if she gets to college next year—Ietsuna’s a sk8tr boi, and Sakura is named after my mom’s oldest sister, who died four months after our[/i] Sakura was born.”
   Because he seemed to have temporarily deprived Naoki of speech, Nijiiro plunged on. “And finally, with my aunt Himeko—Shirai’s bisexual and has a boyfriend, Chihiro’s nocturnal and homicidal and wants a telescope, Kaii’s going to enter VG the second he turns sixteen, Azumamaro can’t sit still for more than seven seconds, and Harunobu and Niou are twins. You haven’t met Haru yet either, he’s probably out in the back feeding the cats.”
   Naoki blinked. Then he blinked again. Then he said, “Anything else?”
   “Yeah, my dad ran out on my mom and got divorced in Russia, and Natsumi—the woman who’s coming to dinner tonight—is her girlfriend. Mom’s bisexual too,” Naoki added to clarify.
   Naoki stared at Nijiiro, then capsized rather than sat down on the edge of the sink. “When were you planning on telling me all this?”
   “After I asked Chihiro to answer the door in case Jin comes,” Nijiiro said. “I wasn’t going to leave you hanging too much longer. Oh yeah, and the whole boyfriend thing...I’m not really sure where that came from. Probably just my family being my family.”
   “Your family is one screwed-up family.”
   Nijiiro took umbrage at this. “Yeah, I guess. But we have fun and love each other anyway, and you know, I happen to think that’s more important than being socially correct.”
   “I guess,” Naoki said, though he didn’t look convinced.
   “Are you through?” Nijiiro asked. “`Cause I need to go ask Chihiro to open the door.”
   “I did have other questions,” Naoki admitted, “but I don’t remember what they were now...”
   “Okay, then if we’re done.” Nijiiro went around Naoki to the door and pulled it open, then let out a very small scream.
   Standing in the doorway, long black hair falling over her face and obliterating her right eye from view, stood a girl dressed in a shabby black nightgown. It was a good thing one of her eyes was hidden from view, because twice the heat in her pitch-black glare probably would have burned a hole right through Nijiiro’s head.
   “Chi...Chihiro!” Nijiiro said weakly. “Uh...um...uh...”
   Nobody could unhinge Nijiiro like Chihiro could. As soon as she started glaring, he went to pieces. Now, as soon as her eye flashed furiously once at his mouth, he shut up.
   “Too...noisy,” Chihiro growled, very slowly and very dangerously. Her eye flashed at Naoki as well. “I’m trying to sleep[/i]...and you[/i]...start...shouting.”
   “Uh, Chihiro, can I ask you someth—?” Nijiiro began lamely.
   Chihiro glared Nijiiro into submission.
   “I...want...to...sleep. Got it? Sleep. Now. Nice and quiet. Keep...it...that...way... or...else[/i].”
   Naoki watched Chihiro lean closer to Nijiiro’s face with every word, until he fell backwards onto the floor looking like he might turn into oozing jelly at any moment.
   “Good,” Chihiro muttered, and she yawned hugely and turned around to leave.
   It was the worst possible time for anybody to knock on the door. Chihiro was facing the staircase, which was facing the door, and the loud banging coming from it made her stop dead in her tracks. What’s more, a fight broke out in the living room at that moment for no discernible reason, and the screams and shouts were clearly audible. Chihiro seemed to feed on all of this noise, growing in size and stature and surrounded by furious pulsating energy you could almost see as thunderheads and electricity.
   “SHUT UP!!!!!!!!![/i][/b]”[/i][/b] she expostulated, and she flew down the stairs without seeming to touch any of them and almost yanked the door off its hinges.
   Jin never had a chance. Chihiro was on him in a nanosecond, hands curved into claws, fury rolling off her like heat from a smoldering car-wreck, her billowing black nightgown and flying black hair giving her the appearance of the Grim Reaper tackling a victim. The door slammed shut behind her.
   At Chihiro’s roar, the fight had stopped immediately. The living room was quieter than a grave—after Chihiro slammed the door, there wasn’t even the sound of breathing.
   “That was...quite freaky,” Naoki said.
   “That was what happens when Chihiro gets woken up in the middle of the day,” Nijiiro said, his legs still jelly and unsuitable for standing. “She can usually sleep through anything, but boy, when something wakes her...”
   Naoki started to leave the bathroom, but Nijiiro—still on the floor—grabbed him around the leg. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?!”
   “Downstairs?”
   “While Chihiro’s on the warpath?! Are you nuts?!”
   “She’s outside now...”
   “Do you know when she’s coming back in?”
   “No. Do you?”
   “No, and we’re staying right here until she does! Good God, I don’t think you realize how dangerous she is!” Nijiiro used Naoki’s leg to pull himself to his knees. “You said my aunt Himeko looked like she wanted to eat you alive?”
   “Yes...” Naoki said slowly.
   “If Chihiro was looking at you that way, you’d have been in that pot before you could say ‘VG.’ ACK! Here she comes!”
   Nijiiro yanked Naoki into the bathroom and closed the door just as the front door opened. A moment later there was the sound of stomping footsteps going up the stairs, followed shortly by the slamming of a door.
   There was a long silence.
   “Is—?” Naoki began, but Nijiiro laid his fingers on his mouth again, raising his eyebrows in a way that clearly said, Shut up, you idiot![/i]
   Both boys waited for several long, breathless minutes.
   “Okay, now stay quiet,” Nijiiro whispered. “Once she goes back to sleep, we can make all the noise we want downstairs and talk pretty normally upstairs...but while she’s still awake, stay quiet[/i]!”
   Naoki was clearly wondering what had possessed him to accept Nijiiro’s offer of his home, but he obediently followed Nijiiro silently out the door, down the stairs, and into the living room—thankfully without incident. If Chihiro heard them, she paid them no mind.
 
   “What happened?” Nijiiro’s sister Shiho asked them as soon as they made it back into the living room.
   “Jin knocked, and Chihiro killed him,” Nijiiro said succinctly.
   “Why on earth was Jin knocking on our door?” Kaoru asked.
   “I VG-ed him on the way over here and played a little trick on him after I beat him up,” Nijiiro explained. “So...”
   “I see.” Kaoru’s husband, Daisuke, had collected the packs of cards from Shirai and was absentmindedly stacking them on the floor. “So now he’s dead out in the front yard, huh?”
   “Probably.”
   The kitchen door opened.
   “What’s going on?” Ayaka asked, poking her head out. Everybody noted the tomato bits splattered over her face and silently thanked God that they were not in the kitchen while Hikaru was “helping.” “Was Chihiro downstairs?”
   “Briefly,” Fuma said.
   “She killed somebody,” Shiho clarified.
   “Oh dear,” Ayaka said, not sounding surprised. “Who?”
   “Suzuki Jin,” Nijiiro said.
   “Oh, Suzuki-kun? That poor boy,” Ayaka said without much sympathy. “Nijiiro, go bring him inside, I don’t want dead bodies in our front yard when Natsumi gets here...” And she closed the door again.
   Nijiiro groaned. “Ugh. I don’t want to drag him in. I just beat him up. Fuma, you get him.”
   “I don’t think so,” Fuma said.
   “Fine. Be that way. Ietsuna?”
   The spiky-haired boy, his shirt still unbuttoned, shook his head. “Hell no.”
   “Shirai?”
   Shirai sat on his hands with a wicked smile. “He’s not my responsibility.”
   “He’s not mine either!” Nijiiro looked around. “Yuna? Hiroji?”
   “Mom told you to do it,” Yuna—the real Yuna—said.
   “Have fun.” Hiroji blew his (?) brother a kiss.
   “I hate you all,” Nijiiro told them.
   “I’ll help you,” Niou volunteered.
   “Leave Hayami-kun with us,” Shiho said, smiling flirtatiously. “We’ll take good[/i] care of him.” She and Hiroji snickered together.
   “Speak for yourselves,” Maki muttered ominously.
   Nijiiro blew strands of crimson hair out of his face. “Fine. FINE. Hayami-kun, stay here and be careful. Remember, if you say no twice, it’s rape.”
   “Oh, he won’t be saying no,” Haruna said innocently, and she joined in the roar of laughter that greeted her remark.
   Nijiiro rolled his eyes and left the living room.
 
*   *   *
 
   There was a large Jin-shaped patch of smashed grass in the front yard, so it was pretty easy to tell where Chihiro had thrown him. Nijiiro and Niou beat a path past Nanami-obâ’s pinwheels into the grass, which wasn’t really dead, it just liked to fake it. Even the grass at the Ii house went against traditional conventions.
   Whatever Chihiro had done to Jin, it was pretty bad. He was unconscious in the grass, his Jin Saotome costume even further destroyed by Chihiro’s half-inch-long talons, halfway between a spread-eagle and a fetal position. He was still breathing, and he wasn’t really bleeding too[/i] much, but he would probably be black-and-blue all over by the next day. Hopefully Chihiro hadn’t broken anything.
   “Ohhhh,” Niou said, looking wide-eyed at Jin. “Is this Jin?”
   “Uh-huh,” Nijiiro sighed. “I’ll take his right arm, you take his left. Okay, heave—”
   After a not insignificant amount of trouble—Jin was not light, and unconscious bodies are notoriously uncooperative—the cousins managed to wrestle Jin mostly upright and drag him back through the grass to the front porch and through the front door.
   “Where should we put him?” Niou asked.
   “In my room,” Nijiiro groaned, bowing to the inevitable. “It’s closest...”
   They maneuvered Jin into the room shared between Nijiiro, Shiho, Hiroji, and Haruna and got him onto Nijiiro’s bed. Nijiiro surveyed him—he was[/i] bleeding from several of Chihiro’s slashes, and his costume was beyond repair.
   “Niou, get a bowl of water and a cloth from the kitchen,” Nijiiro said. “I don’t want him bleeding everywhere...”
   Niou nodded and raced out of the room.
   After a moment’s hesitant thinking, Nijiiro slowly slid off Jin’s gloves and boots, pretty much the only parts of his costume that had remained undamaged. Both his scarf and headband were gone, probably lost in the grass or to the wind. His jacket was thick and pretty much undamaged as well, except for being severed down the front—which was of course Nijiiro’s fault, not Chihiro’s—but his pants had been torn to ribbons. Chihiro had gone for the legs with an instinctive sense of their vulnerability. Nijiiro pulled Jin’s arms out of his jacket and, trying not to think about it too much, peeled away his shredded pants.
   Niou came back in, proudly carrying the items Nijiiro had asked for, and put them on one of the two tables in the room.
   “Thank you,” Nijiiro said.
   “Welcome. Gotta go.”
   Nijiiro looked at his cousin, confused. “‘Gotta go’? Go do what?”
   “Clean up after Hikaru. Tomatoes,” Niou explained, and left.
   That did make sense.
   Nijiiro picked up the cloth and dipped it in the water. He wrapped it around his hand, about to wipe blood, grass, and dust off Jin’s body, but then stopped.
   A miniature battle was going on in Nijiiro’s head at that moment. His brain was ordering him to leave the cloth where it was to avoid overt contamination by Jin’s idiocy. Some other, smaller, yet more persuasive voice was coaxing him to let their skin touch.
   The idea held considerable appeal.
   Nijiiro dithered for a moment, but eventually, as usually happened in Nijiiro’s brain, common sense lost out to impulse. He unwound the cloth from his hand and laid it—and his hand—over one of the Chihiro—caused scratches.
   Unexpectedly, just the brush of his thumb on Jin’s chest sent a feeling similar to an electric shock through his arm.
   Suddenly furious with himself for no reason he wanted to explain, Nijiiro concentrated solely on the wounds as he came to them. By focusing on parts of the whole, he was able to keep that persuasive little voice silent—until he reached Jin’s loincloth, the only piece of clothing he hadn’t taken off him.
   The little voice was back, much louder, much more persuasive, and this time much more dangerous—strip him naked.
   Come on, who’s going to see?
   Your family already knows you’re gay.
   They’ll just think it’s natural.
   If they ever even find out.
   Just keep it a secret.
   He won’t ever know.
   Nag, nag, nag.
   It was exactly what Nijiiro had been afraid of. And even scarier was his inability to resist it.
   Carefully Nijiiro unwound Jin’s loincloth, and for the first time in his entire life he let himself look at Jin all over, completely naked. There was a familiar-unfamiliar boiling feeling just below his stomach, dripping down like spilled tea—he could hear his heartbeat resounding oddly loudly in his ears—
   Then he realized it wasn’t his heartbeat, but somebody knocking on the front door, not the hammering that had been Jin’s knock but a soft tapping, and then the sound of the front door being opened and Ayaka’s joyous greeting echoed by a low, husky voice.
   Natsumi was here. It had to be almost dinnertime.
 
*   *   *
 
   They ate in the backyard, as Ayaka had arranged, as the sun set ahead of them, casting wonderful fiery shadows across the world. Chihiro had been awakened by Natsumi’s knock, but as Natsumi had brought anpan[/i] and it was so close to dinnertime, she forgave her.
   Ayaka, Natsumi, Fuma, Shiho, and Niou had brought out every bowl and plate in the house, and Maki and Shirai had staggered out carting the huge cauldron of ramen. They ate picnic-style, there being more than enough ramen for all of them even despite the Ii’s huge size and huger appetites. Kaoru ate three bowls, Maki four, Kaii six, and Haruna the card-winner, whose small size seemed only to make everything else about her so much larger, a staggering nine. The joint cooking of Ayaka, Hikaru, and Himeko was deemed a success as the entire family laughed, yelled, fought, and joked until late into the night, pulling Naoki and Natsumi—the two technical outsiders—into it until even they had forgotten that they weren’t blood relations to the Iis.
   Natsumi turned out to be an older woman about Ayaka’s age who had surely once been a radiant beauty and had not lost all of it yet. Her hair was completely grey, but as long and thick and beautiful as it must have been when she was seventeen—her eyes were gems framed by fabulously long lashes and her voice was a dusky, sultry, husky murmur with a music to it fully as irresistible as that of Daisy Buchanan’s from Fitzgerald’s famous novel The Great Gatsby.
   She had been an actress of some small repute once, but show business ended up breaking her instead of making her. The loss of her career left her working as an assistant in a florist’s shop to make ends meet. The owner, a strong-willed woman who had struck out to start the little shop on her own, fell in love with her, and the emotion was returned and changed into a blossoming relationship. Natsumi worked in that florist’s for thirteen years, until the owner was killed in a car crash and the store went bankrupt.
   Natsumi had met Ayaka soon after this, while she was still reeling from the double loss of her love and her job, and Ayaka had helped her to realize a talent for painting she had never known she possessed. Ayaka had lent—given[/i]—her money to buy paints and canvas even though she couldn’t afford to, and by some incredible luck Natsumi had become an artist, struggling, but somehow able to support herself.
   It was not long after this that Natsumi had found her second love in Ayaka.
   “Ahhh,” Yue—Kaoru’s second daughter, an extremely Gothic girl who refused to wear any color other than black—said with great satisfaction. “Sunset ramen.”
   “What a lovely name,” Chihiro said dreamily, licking her spoon reflectively. “You’d think they’d make something with that name...I’d buy it.”
   It was astonishing what the fall of the sun and a couple bowls of ramen could do to Chihiro’s mood.
   “Gochisosama[/i],” Fuma said to his mom. “It was great.”
   “Scrumptious,” Yue added.
   “Delicious,” Haruna supplied.
   “Wonderful,” Yuna contributed.
   “Tasty,” Kaii recommended.
   “SILENCE,” Shiho suggested. “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t see anymore, it’s too dark—”
   “Too dark[/i]!” Chihiro cried, scandalized.
   “—so I suggest adjourning inside for cards,” Shiho continued.
   “And tea,” Yue said.
   “And anpan[/i],” Natsumi said.
   “And blankets,” Ietsuna said.
   “Well, if you’d button up your shirt for once in your life,” Maki said.
   “And you’d probably better check on Jin,” Ayaka said to Nijiiro.
   “Why?” Nijiiro demanded.
   “To make sure he didn’t die from everything Chihiro did to him,” Kaoru said.
   “I’ll check him,” Hiroji volunteered. “He’s hot.”
   “How can you say that?” Kaii demanded. “He’s the enemy. Remember second grade?”
   Kaii and Hiroji started arguing, but Nijiiro wasn’t listening. His brother’s words had struck a chord deep in Nijiiro. A chord that reminded him of Jin’s state of dress—or in this case, his lack of it.
   “All right, all right!” Nijiiro said, pretending to be irritated but getting to his feet a little too quickly. “I’ll go check on him. If I leave it to you guys, he’ll stay on my bed until he rots...”
   “Take your time!” Shiho said.
   I shouldn’t[/i], Nijiiro thought to himself as he went inside.
 
*   *   *
 
   “Hey,” Jin said when Nijiiro walked in. “That girl’s a demon. She should join VG, she’d flatten everybody she came up against.”
   “You’re awake!” Nijiiro said, surprised.
   “And naked,” Jin added dryly. “Just my luck to get stuck in your[/i] house, in the buff.”
   “You looked worse a few hours ago, believe me,” Nijiiro informed him. “It’s pretty late—how long have you been conscious?”
   “Maybe half an hour,” Jin shrugged.
   “That long? What did Chihiro do to you? How’re you feeling?”
   “Still alive, somehow. Chihiro, huh? She clawed me to pieces, pummeled me a couple few times, threw me into the grass, and kicked me in the balls for good measure.”
   “I see. Oh God. The idiot guy across the street woke her up today, so she was out for blood.”
   “She got that,” Jin said ruefully.
   “You should have said something if you’ve been awake for—”
   “It’s been an interesting half an hour,” Jin waved. “I’ve been looking. This’ your room?”
   Nijiiro looked around.
   It was not technically his[/i] room, since he shared it with his siblings Shiho, Hiroji, and Haruna. Already not the largest of rooms, it had been divided up into quarters, giving each inhabitant a very small space to live in that somehow turned out to be enough to convey a slice of their four different lives. There were two tables in the room, one between Shiho’s immaculate navy-blue futon and Hiroji’s rumpled lavender one, the other between Haruna’s completely unmade red futon and Nijiiro’s Jin-supporting white one. On Shiho’s side of her table was a small, ancient jewelry box containing her most precious possessions—a pair of tiny diamond earrings that had once belonged to her grandmother, Nanami-obâ. They were so precious to Shiho that she rarely even wore them, but kept them locked in the jewelry box and wore the key around her neck on an old shoelace.
   Aside from the jewelry box, Shiho kept a few pictures of various family members, each framed on a different one of Shiho’s birthdays. Recurring among most of the photos was the closeness of Shiho and Fuma, climaxing in a large charcoal sketch Natsumi had drawn of the two of them, depicting Shiho sitting on Fuma’s lap in the backyard. This was almost on the same level to Shiho as her diamond earrings, and she had it pinned next to her futon so that she could look at it whenever she wanted. (Ayaka was planning on framing it for Shiho’s next birthday.)
   Hiroji’s side of the table held most of the things he needed to make he[/i] a she[/i]—a brush, a comb, some cotton, his scarf when he wasn’t wearing it, even a tiny amount of makeup, which none of the Iis used on a regular basis because they couldn’t afford to—and also a small hodgepodge of carefully saved shojo[/i] manga. Hiroji was an avid manga reader, a trait he shared with Haruna, as her half a table also boasted a limited selection of titles beside a soccer ball and several large rocks. Most of the Iis collected things—Haruna collected rocks. She liked to throw them at people.
   Nijiiro’s tableside was mostly dominated by his own collection of bottles of hair dye, the more bizarre the better. The only things not dye-related around Nijiiro’s green futon were two antiquated Aqua CDs and a poster of Tsuyosa pinned to his wall.
   “This’ my room,” Nijiiro confirmed. “I share it with Shiho, Hiroji, and Haruna, but yeah, this is my room.”
   “Huh. It’s different than I expected.” Jin let his eyes roam over the ceiling from wall to wall. “I’ve never seen your room. I’ve never even been inside your house.”
   “That’s because we hate each other.”
   We do, don’t we? I know we do. I can’t really feel it right now, but we do.[/i]
   “Yeah, that’s right.”
   They sat quietly for a moment, then Nijiiro threw his hair back out of his face and said, “Um, so, do you hurt anywhere?”
   “Everywhere,” Jin said. “Pretty much.”
   “I’m really sorry about Chihiro almost killing you,” Nijiiro said. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
   As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized he probably should have offered to help Jin get dressed. No matter—Jin was certain to ask for that, first thing.
   But...
   “Yeah, could you lift me up a little?” Jin asked. “I’ve been trying to look at that picture over there, but my neck hurts when I try to turn it...”
   Nijiiro helped him up, and Jin studied Shiho’s prized sketch in silence.
   “They look nice,” he said awkwardly.
   “Natsumi drew it,” Nijiiro said. “My mom’s friend. It’s my sister Shiho and her...” he hesitated, “boyfriend, Fuma.”
   “Your mom’s friend’s a great artist,” Jin said as Nijiiro started to lower him back down. “Ow! God!”
   “Sorry,” Nijiiro said hastily.
   “It’s not you, it’s my balls,” Jin muttered. “I thought your cousin busted `em when she kicked `em. She didn’t, but...God damn[/i]...”
   Nijiiro paused. That little persuasive voice was back. But it wasn’t being little now. It was shouting at the top of its lungs, and for a brief moment Nijiiro tried to fight it. But that one little voice was stronger than a Titan and more tempting than the forbidden fruit of Eden, and before Nijiiro could really stop it, it had taken control of his mouth.
   “I...could...maybe help you,” Nijiiro said hesitantly.
   “Huh?” Jin asked, looking a little wary.
   “If you increase blood flow, bruises go down faster,” Nijiiro muttered, brushing pink streaks of hair out of his face. “So...maybe...that would make...you might feel better if...”
   “Why not?” Jin asked.
   Nijiiro blinked. “Huh?”
   “Go ahead. Try it.”
   The voice had stopped talking through Nijiiro, and immediately the rainbow-haired boy felt guilty. “You understand what I’m—?”
   “You’re gonna grope my nuts.” Jin shrugged. “You don’t join VG if you care about something like that. I’ve lost on Level 1, I’ve had to do it to myself before. Besides, if you think you can stop my balls aching, you can do whatever the hell you want.”
   Nijiiro opened his mouth, but couldn’t really think of anything to say, except, “I’m surprised you trust me.”
   “So`m I,” Jin sighed. He moved slightly, and winced. “But...I do. So do something.”
   Nijiiro swallowed, feeling the pounding, boiling feeling return from his stomach downwards. His pulse was slamming in his ears as he reached out jerkily, expecting Jin to stop him or slug him at any minute—but Jin just lay still, even when Nijiiro’s fingers finally touched him.
   The skin of Jin’s balls was silky to Nijiiro’s touch, but sore and throbbing to Jin’s, so when Nijiiro made a first, indelicate, massage-like motion, Jin yelped. Nijiiro jerked his hand away, blood rushing into his face, wondering what the hell had possessed him to suggest this.
   “Sorry,” Nijiiro said hastily. “I—”
   “Oh, God,” Jin muttered, “do that again.”
   Nijiiro blinked. “What?”
   “You’re right. It feels better. It hurts, but then it feels better. Do it again.”
   For one brief second, Nijiiro considered backing out. But the feeling of another boy’s skin thrilled his fingers to the marrow, and he knew it was way too late to stop. And what’s more, he knew he didn’t want to.
   More observant about their tenderness now, Nijiiro softly—softly, softly, ever so softly—kneaded Jin’s balls, focused absolutely on this unfamiliar skin. Every movement, every feeling, every centimeter of his body that touched Jin’s sent a tingling feeling like the preliminary stages of vomiting up Nijiiro’s chest, but vomiting just feels wrong[/i]. This tingling feeling just felt right[/i].
   Maybe a little too right. Without conscious control, Nijiiro’s fingers bit harder, the softness more fleeting with every breath Nijiiro took. Jin clung to the covers of Nijiiro’s futon, bunched arm muscles betraying his pain, but Nijiiro was beyond caring. Jin’s shuddering groans fed Nijiiro’s lust, making his movements harsher and stronger, which made Jin’s groans louder, which started the circle over again. Thirty seconds after Nijiiro had started, both of them were flagrantly aroused and rapidly losing control of themselves.
   “I should never have let you do this,” Jin gasped. “You’re getting off on touching my nuts.”
   “I’m [/i]getting off on this?!” Gold and silver strands of hair were falling into Nijiiro’s face, but he wasn’t about to raise his hands to push them away. “Look at you[/i]!!”
   “You’re kneading like I’m bread dough[/i]. Any[/i] guy grabs my nuts like this and I wanna know why he[/i] was expecting any different.”
   Nijiiro’s hand squeezed hard, knowing it would hurt Jin, not caring that it would hurt Jin, caring only for the growl dragged forth from deep in Jin’s throat. “I thought you were straight.”
   “Never,” Jin groaned. “You want my balls, Nijiiro, they are yours[/i].”
   This was more lust talking than Jin, but it made little difference to either of them. The words sent a clenching flame up Nijiiro’s chest, and dragged him forward and down, to lie across Jin’s chest, his hands having lost all of their former wariness. Jin arched against Nijiiro, drawing strength from the pain, and their faces came close. So close. Nijiiro’s eyes had turned to pure gold, and Jin held them with his brown ones, their mouths coming closer, breath hot on each other’s face. Nijiiro was this far from climbing on top of Jin and not getting off until fantasies he had never even dreamed about became reality, but the instant before Nijiiro had lost it enough to try and rape Jin (or get raped by Jin, they both had a certain appeal) there was a clanging, crashing clatter from just outside the door. Somebody had just dropped what sounded like a stack of plates and all of the chopsticks.
   Immediately Jin and Nijiiro ripped themselves apart and away. Nijiiro’s first thought was, Oh my God, Niou was carrying that stuff and he looked in and saw me grabbing Jin’s balls,[/i] but the door was still closed, and from the yells that were exploding just outside it had been Hikaru carrying the utensils, and now Maki was yelling at her.
   Jin, who had regained temporary if painful control over his muscles thanks to first Nijiiro and now Hikaru, dragged his knees up to his chin in a rather belated attempt to hide his full-blooded arousal and said, “Um.”
   That one syllable was enough to crash the full enormity of the situation down on Nijiiro’s head. With something between a gasp and a sob, Nijiiro shot to his feet.
   “I’m sorry!” Nijiiro wailed, and he ran out of the room through a startled Maki and Hikaru, away from his rival, his friend, and who he had just realized was incredibly more than that—not just his crush but his passion, his desire, the one who could even be his life.
 
*   *   *
 
   Nijiiro left his house and ran into the night towards the back alley of the nearby boarded-up building that had once been the florist’s Natsumi had worked at. It was the place he went to whenever there was too much in his house for him to deal with, and reflexively he went to it now, even though what he couldn’t deal with was not in his house, but in his mind.
   He knew he was gay, he knew he liked men, even deep down if he had chosen to admit it he knew he liked Jin more than any other man he had ever met, but Nijiiro’s greatest fear had always been that someday he—the only straight-out gay boy in his family—would succumb to the unique legacy that had been passed to him—the lust of a man with the commonly-seen promiscuity of a homosexual. Ever since Nijiiro had been ten years old he had been afraid that someday he would lose his better judgment and let lust push him into sex, or, eventually, even rape.
   Few people hated stereotypes more than Nijiiro. As long as he had had this fear he had also resolved that he would never let it become a reality. In a way, you could say that his fear was of becoming the stereotypical homosexual—amoral, indecent, oversexed, and ready to ravish any man in view. It was the antithesis to everything Nijiiro valued—his family, his ambitions, his plans for the prize money of VG, and most particularly his dream of a true, pure love with a strong, shining diamond core.
   A love maybe to share with Jin.
   Except he had just almost raped Jin.
   Nijiiro buried his face in his hands and let himself cry.
 
*   *   *
 
   “Hello, what have we here?”
   Nijiiro jumped, and the sudden fright in the middle of his muffled sobs gave him the hiccups. Hiccupping and trying not to—although at least he had stopped crying—he looked up at the people who had cornered him behind the old florist’s while he wasn’t paying attention.
   This was the second time in a single day that Nijiiro had found himself in exactly this situation, and this time he had a feeling that he wasn’t going to get off as easily as he had with Naoki. For a start, all five of them had variously blatant looks of anticipation on their faces.
   “Hey, babe,” said one of them, leering unpleasantly.
   Did I just happen to run into, like, the [/i]only marauding gay guys in this city, or do they just think I’m a girl?[/i] Nijiiro wondered, although he didn’t say anything.
   “Pretty girls shouldn’t cry,” another said, even more unpleasantly. “Lemme...cheer you up a bit.”
   Well, that answers [/i]that question.[/i]
   “There’s one easy way to cure hiccups,” said one of them, and before Nijiiro could react (hiccups slow your reaction time) he had grabbed Nijiiro’s chest in a place that, had Nijiiro really been a girl, probably would have sent the pervert into his element.
   As it was, it sent him somewhere else. A good fright is supposed to be able to both start and stop the hiccups, and in Nijiiro’s case it now stopped them. Nijiiro backhanded the guy to the ground, and only realized afterwards that his hand was blazing with his rainbow chi.
   “Don’t touch me, you jerks!” Nijiiro yelled, holding up his hand threateningly.
   “She’s in VG!” one of them yelped.
   “She’s not a she!” the one Nijiiro had backhanded informed the others. “It’s a guy!”
   “WHAT?![/i]”
   “Your loss,” Nijiiro said, adopting the teasing tone he often used with Jin. “Just think, you go looking for a girl and you get me instead. You’re lucky though. I feel like playing rough tonight.”
   “You wanna play rough?” another of them demanded. “I recognize your chi—you’re that VG pansy Nijiiro! My dogy little sister is practically in love[/i] with you! Bet your idea of ‘rough’ is sleeping with your—”
   Nijiiro flicked his fingers at this obnoxious loudmouth and sent a blast of concentrated chi at him. It knocked him down, and sent him skidding into the back wall of the florist’s.
   “If I’m a pansy,” Nijiiro mused, “and yet I can beat you up—what does that make you? A dandelion?”
   “Goddamn bastard!” roared the only guy who hadn’t spoken yet, a big, strong-looking young man. He rushed Nijiiro, swinging wildly, but Nijiiro breezed around his fists, brushing nonchalant aquamarine hair out of his face while he moved. Then his feet burst into colored flames, and Nijiiro launched a roundhouse Iridescent Wheel into his foe’s chest. The “big, strong-looking young man” was slammed into the ground and lay there, groaning.
   “A daisy?” Nijiiro continued as though nothing had happened.
   “Goddammit!” moaned the guy Nijiiro had just flattened.
   Nijiiro blew him a kiss and turned his attention to the other contenders. He threw blasts of chi-fire at one (usually he called it Aurora Rain, but these jerks didn’t deserve to hear the names of his attacks) and knocked the other two away from him with another Iridescent Wheel. To add injury to insult—because the one he had Aurora Rained was hopping around with his arms blazing non-hot rainbow fire, shrieking and trying to put it out—Nijiiro threw out a Starlight Rain, charged with much more power than the one he had used on Jin, catching the guy in the chest and the side of his head. He was slammed into the ground with Nijiiro standing on top of him, and did not move when Nijiiro jumped off his prone body.
   “Who’s next?” Nijiiro asked playfully, only the sparks in his orange eyes betraying his consuming fury. “Or is this enough ‘fun’ for one night, you cowardly, mealy-mouthed, sick, twisted—”
   His words escalated into a yelp.
   The one he had knocked down with his first Iridescent Wheel had gotten his breath back, and Nijiiro had backed just a step too close to him. Suddenly the small boy was grabbed from behind, his arms pinioned to his sides, one hard arm closing off his windpipe. Nijiiro choked, unable to breathe, and the flames wreathing his hands died away.
   “Not so smart anymore, pansy,” the guy gasped against Nijiiro’s neck. “You can give it but you can’t take it. Where’s your fancy fire now, huh? Huh?”
   “Fag,” spat out the guy who had mentioned his sister. “Homo. Wonder how my sister’ll take it when she finds out I beat up her precious queer VGer.”
   “Can’t act so tough now, can ya?” demanded another of them.
   “Hold him,” growled the one who had tried to feel Nijiiro up, and he landed two rapid-fire punches to Nijiiro’s stomach.
   Only the fact that his captor dropped him to the ground after this stopped Nijiiro from passing out. A flood of air into his ravenous lungs made him cough, almost choking on the air he was trying to breathe.
   A barrage of kicks totally knocked that choking, hard-won air out of him again. Being so small and light, Nijiiro was actually kicked from one to the other like a soccer ball, most of the kicks landing in his stomach, sides, and back. It was excruciating. Every few seconds his assailants paused, to let Nijiiro catch his breath just a bit and keep him conscious, and then laid back into him. This went on for a full minute, and by the time they finally stopped, Nijiiro was limp on the ground, racked by shuddering gasps for air, feeling like one huge, throbbing bruise.
   “Hold him down,” the strangler told his friends, cracking his knuckles.
   Between the four of them, they held Nijiiro down easily, one to each of his arms and legs. Nijiiro couldn’t have struggled beneath them even if he had had the breath to try, but he could still think, and all he could think was one phrase; I am so dead[/i].
   “Hold his legs apart,” the strangler said, looking at Nijiiro with a kind of sadistic fury in his eyes, fueled by an involuntary flinch from Nijiiro. “Yeah, that’s right, queer. I’m gonna break your balls—if you even got[/i] any—and then we’ll see how many bones we can break too. You’re gonna wish you never came near[/i] us, let alone messed with us.”
   Nijiiro was already wishing that. His eyes had lost all their fighting orange, and had darkened to a raw black. Some tiny, unflappable part of his mind observed that it was probably payment after what he had done to Jin’s balls—first setting Chihiro on him, then going all berserk on them himself—but still! Knowing he deserved it didn’t make it any less terrifying!
   The sound of footsteps caught the strangler’s attention, but before he could turn to look, a running black shape landed a crushing kick to the side of his head.
   Never in his entire life had Nijiiro felt more relief than he did then, seeing that single guy flying through the air, landing on the ground, not to get up any time soon.
   It was over in seconds. Nijiiro just closed his eyes and stayed perfectly still, and—THUNK! THWACK! SMASH! CRASH!—soon there were four goons slumped lifelessly over his arms and legs—but then his rescuer was shoving them off, and from the soft crack[/i]ing of knees, Nijiiro could tell that whoever it was, they were kneeling down beside him. He opened his eyes again to thank whichever relative had saved him.
   And froze.
   It was not one of his relatives. It was not even Naoki. In fact, it was not anybody Nijiiro had ever seen in his life. And for just a moment, Nijiiro wondered if he was any better off now than he was before. But for just a moment.
   This person was also male. He was tall, with forest-green hair that could probably touch his nipples, and dark, dark skin that clearly took up all the space available underneath his ripped tank top and faded jeans. The muscles of his legs, particularly in his kneeling position, strained the seams of his jeans—that kick that had taken out the strangler must have rivaled that of a horse.
   But it was his eyes that assured Nijiiro that yes, he was safe in this stranger’s company. His eyes were the very definition of Asian—beautiful, almond-shaped, blacker than the sky—and so clearly concerned that it was almost funny. Nijiiro felt like laughing, but had the uncomfortable feeling that if he started he might not be able to stop.
   “You okay?” Tall, Dark, and Handsome asked.
   “Y—yeah,” Nijiiro answered shakily.
   “Can you stand?”
   Nijiiro tried, but winced just trying to lift up his hand. Immediately his savior leaned over, grabbed his hands, and helped him gently to his feet. Nijiiro stood in front of him, looking at his dark, shadowed face, and felt the guilty urge to jump him, even bruised and aching as he was.
   This traitorous impulse on top of everything else that had just happened was too much. Nijiiro dropped against his rescuer’s chest and burst into tears—not the restrained, silent weeping of before, but miserable, desolate sobs. Knocked back a step physically and surely more than one step mentally under Nijiiro’s collapse, the poor rescuer had no idea of what to do except to awkwardly put his arms around Nijiiro in return. It was a kind, innocent, awkward gesture, and it just made Nijiiro cry even harder.
   “What’s wrong?” Tall, Dark, and Handsome asked finally, uncomfortably.
   “Oh my god, I’m sorry!” Nijiiro backed away from him, trying unsuccessfully to fight back his tears. “It’s just...just...”
   I am [/i]never going to see this guy again, will I? I can tell him everything and it doesn’t even matter...so...so...[/i]
   Nijiiro inhaled. “There’s this guy who I’ve known since elementary school and we’ve been fighting ever since we first met and I thought I hated him and I know he hates me except I just realized a little while ago that I actually really like[/i] him and might even love him but this afternoon he found out I joined VG and he challenged me and I beat him on Level 3 so I made him strip in front of everybody and then I tied his scarf around his head and kissed him and if he didn’t hate me before he definitely hates me now because even after that he came to my house to challenge me again and my cousin almost killed him `cause she scratched him and punched him and threw him and kicked him in the balls and then I was trying to take care of him except I stripped him instead and then when he woke up after dinner I groped him and now he’s got to REALLY hate me and I want to kiss him or jump him or something every time I see him or think about him and I think I’m going crazy or losing my mind or something because I can’t control myself and I got into that fight and those guys were going to...to castrate[/i] me, and I was so scared and...and...and...oh, GOD!!![/i]”
   Despite his best efforts, Nijiiro broke down further. Every sob sent shaking lances of pain throughout his body, and it hurt so much he couldn’t stand, but fell to the ground, still blurting out his feelings, because once the words had started coming they were impossible to stop.
   “Half of my relatives are either lesbians or bisexuals or transsexuals[/i] and switching identities, and my dad ran away and now my mom has a girlfriend[/i] and you have no idea how weird that[/i] is, and my aunt’s dying[/i] and my brother is going to marry my sister and...and I’m in VG! How can I participate in any more fights like this[/i]?! And I have to, `cause if I don’t win then we’re all gonna lose our home because we don’t have any money[/i]...and I don’t even like VG, everybody[/i] calls me a fruit just because I’m in it, and I am, but they don’t have to say[/i] it, and it hurts...and why does everybody have to hate me for it anyway?! It’s not like I asked[/i] for it! And I don’t want it until I think of Jin and then I want it more than anything in the world and I want it with him except there’s no way he’ll even VG me anymore after everything I did to him this time...”
   “My God,” the guy said bluntly. “That sounds even worse than my life.”
   “I’m just...I can’t take this,” Nijiiro confessed. “Having all of them depending on me, waiting for me, hoping that I’m going to win VG for them, needing[/i] me to win VG for them...I hate fighting, almost everybody else there has a reason for trying to win that’s at least as urgent as mine, but if I can’t win it for them then we can’t go on, and our...my whole family is depending on me and Ashootei, and it’s just...I just...I...God, thank you, thank you so much for rescuing me...”
   There was a silence, punctuated by Nijiiro’s shuddering tears. Then, finally, his savior asked quietly, “Do you...want me to...hold you again...or something?”
   Nijiiro looked up at him for a moment, his eyes dark, desolate navy blue, and with a choking cry, he fell back against him.
   They stayed there, kneeling in the florist’s alley, Nijiiro shedding tears into his rescuer’s shoulder, him waiting quietly for Nijiiro to cry himself out. The moon wept light down upon the two of them, casting their shadow across the alley and over the comatose bodies of Nijiiro’s attackers. Outside the alley, people walked and talked and went about their nightlives. Inside, behind the rows of buildings, the only audible sound was Nijiiro’s uncontrollable crying.
   Many minutes later, Nijiiro could finally pull himself together, and eventually lay, shuddering from the occasional, now-silent sob, in the warm, strong circle of the other boy’s arms.
   “Thank you,” he repeated very quietly.
   “No problem.”
   “I should go home,” Nijiiro said.
   “You should.”
   Even in the exhausted, listless state that follows excessive crying, Nijiiro felt that this was a strange reply—but he was too tired to think about that.
   “I...well...just...thank you, that’s all I can say. Over and over and over.”
   “I thank you for your thanks.” The reply was almost ironic. “Be careful.”
   “I don’t live far,” Nijiiro said. “I’ll be careful.”
 

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