Before you Call him a Man

He sits on the window sill, looking love at his idiot darlings, and thinks, or remembers; the line is thin.

Hanazawa Rui is, allegedly, a sphinx. It is his nurse maid who first makes this discovery, confides it in a soft, delighted voice to the child, who raises barely-defined eyebrows in a gesture that will become characteristic but is still merely a testing of muscles, half involuntary. A sphinx, my little brave boy, with secrets too deep for the human heart to fathom. While this declaration makes preciously little sense, the child's mother is nevertheless pleased with the idea and promptly adopts her servant's phrasing, gushing about it to society friends who smile politely. His father scoffs, but it is not the family's reactions that matter, when you are important enough. Peace can always be bought. The sphinx child is quiet, dispassionate, a quick study and pleased enough with the solitude his parents, at a loss, have chosen for him. He stares at the world as though he knows it already, and maybe that is a blessing or perhaps it's curse; or just the adults' fanciful imagination.

(The Domyouji nursemaid declares in tears that her charge is "the worst little horror imaginable". Tsukasa, already spoiled, already hating it, gives her the fingers and laughs out of tune.)

A few weeks before his fourth birthday Rui is introduced to the flower boys, and his heart is beating, suddenly, a stark presence of desperation inside him. He has never met contemporary humans before, and here they are now, a boy that smells bitterly of tea, a boy with a lace handkerchief stuck in his pocket, and a last one, shorter than the others, with a sullen expression shadowed by his cap.

"Hello," says the boy with the lace handkerchief. "I'm Mimasaka Akira. Pleasure." His voice lilts over the syllables the way children's voices do, with a slight lisp slipping them past his lips.

"Mimasaka?" the boy with the cap repeats, snorting. "What a stupid name!" He throws his head back in a gesture that might have looked dismissive, if performed by a grown man or someone with charisma. He looks a little like a scared dog straining out of a leash. "I'm Domyouji-sama, and I don't want to meet you at all." Even so he is still staring, hungry wary eyes sweeping again and again over the strange faces.

The boy who smells of tea curves his mouth unpleasantly, and Rui decides to step in. Offers a smile, stunted, offers it to the dog boy, and says, "I'm Hanazawa Rui."

"Huh," says the boy with the cap (Domyouji Tsukasa, he's very important, Rui dear, I'm sure you'll make great friends with him), but he doesn't splutter insults.

"Nishikada Soujiro," the tea boy fills in, and for a few moments they are simply standing there, in the large marble-floored parlor, encircled by rows of immaculate nurses and elegant maids.

"Right," says Mimasaka Akira. "Should we…"

Giving the speaker a quelling stare, lashes flickering uncertainly, the Domjouyi heir interrupts. "Get lost!" he yells at the servants. "Leave us alone!"

With a certain distant amusement Rui notes that there is never truly any question of not obeying him. Domyouji Tsukasa, huh. Who impatiently brings them to his room, sneers syntax-defying insults and brags terribly about his toys (expensive one-of-a-kind toys that Rui can see the owner either hasn't touched or has demolished completely. A few appears to have been inexpertly repaired). Wordlessly Rui makes himself comfortable in a corner-chair, watching the spectacle. It is the first time he has found something more absorbing than picture books to study.

"Did you like them?" his mother asks that evening, nervously. His father, present at the dinner table for once, lays down his fork to listen.

"Yes," Rui says, looking away from the pleased surprise on their features. He is perceptive; isn't so sure he wants to be. "Yes, I did." Tsukasa is interesting. These boys might be a – place of belonging, of sorts. I am rather short of those. (He has also been made aware that this is not considered a normal thought for a person of his modest age. He replies, smiling, to his worried nurse, But I'm a sphinx.)

Faced with the very same inquiry, Tsukasa snorts, sneers, looks haughtily away. (Always stealing glances that tries and fails to be inconspicuous.) "None of your business," he tells the servants. "They're all right," he tells his mother and sister, when the former corners him and the latter comes to his rescue, saving Mother from Tsukasa throwing a wild tantrum over being classed as less important than business reports.

"So," she says, with a smile that unfists his hands, eager and careful. "You would like to see them again?"

He nods, cautious, caught off guard. "Yeah. I guess. If they – midwives are useful, right?"

"I," and she falls silent, startled, before she laughs. "I think the word you're looking for is minions, Tsukasa."

"Eh?" He huffs. "What are you, stupid? Don't you even speak Japanese?"

"Yes," she says, affectionate exasperation, rising to her feet, out of his reach (six years between births can make a considerable difference). "Which is getting to be a problem around you."

Her life reaches for her with greedy hands, pulling like the inexorable tide, waiting for no one, and Tsukasa is too little, can't come along. The girl to tend the Flower Four, the one to name them that, is Shizuka, instead. Two years their senior and beautiful already, a rare representative of the variety of beauty that permeates you completely, owning you up from the inside out, she steps into the third-storey parlor that has become the boys' playroom. It is Tsukasa's birthday, and she has been asked over. The real celebrations, which she attended briefly, are taking place in the mansion proper, but the main character of the event has been sent away with his friends. She was told this was where she'd find them, but the room is deserted; she is turning to leave when she glimpses movement through the window and steps forward to look out. They appear to be playing outside, having some sort of – well, they're throwing things at each other, so some sort of war game. Boys! She walks towards the correct exit, towards them, none the less.

Yes, memory changes. He is filling in, fictionalizing, interpreting – butchering? Isn't that the only way to handle it, to find (make) a truth you can deal with?

xxx

Earlier that day Hanazawa Rui is helped out of one of his family's private limousines and escorted onto the Domyouji premises. Inside, sour and impatient, Tsukasa has been standing guard since six o'clock in the morning, sharp nose pressed against the window-glass of the vestibule, keeping watch for his companions. …It's just he doesn't have anything better to do, you see, and who knows if they'd find the way on their own, the stupid idiots.

Rui has taken approximately nine steps over the Zen-strict gravel, feeling the attendant's well masked irritation (I know I can't walk as fast as a grown man), when he hears the yell, looks up to see Tsukasa come running, gesturing in annoyance, inadequately masking glee.

"Hi," says Rui, serene, smiling contained happiness, cutting through Tsukasa's unstructured babble of great presents but of course that's to be expected, me being the great me, and you are late you idiot, I was totally going to kick your ass if you didn't show. "You didn't have to worry," Rui says, mild as milk, feeling a dimple dig into his cheek. "You should know I'd come."

"I," and insert huff and snort. "Of course I knew! When the water flows it rains, you know!"

(Rui smiles more, saving that one for thorough contemplation at home, when he's alone in the very structured bedroom with the cold floor.)

"Come on," Tsukasa goes on, grabbing his wrist bossily, a little too hard. "Let's go! You," and he throws a haughty glance at the attendant. Insufferable little brat, oh my darling. "Go away."

Ignoring the dismissed man's polite bow, distracted by a sting of pain, Rui glances again at where Tsukasa's holding onto him. Ah, right. His nail has scratched me. Truthfully, during their seven months of acquaintance, Rui has never managed to puzzle out the disparity between Tsukasa's speech patterns, gesticulations and hobbies and his general appearance, taste and style. It is rare, Rui is fairly certain, to stumble across a pretty boy whose sister dresses him in bling and nail-polish and who curses like a dyslectic sailor and screams for joy when force-feeding his friends gravel and earth.

He is ushered into the fifth living room, the one adjourning to Tsukasa's suite, at speed, and pushed down into the couch. Apparently Tsubaki-san has awarded her younger sibling with the coolest movie ever, a cruel fairlytale (fairytale, Tsukasa) about lions, a Disunei (Disney, Tsukasa) renbition (rendition, Tsukasa) of Hamuretu (Hamlet, Tsukasa, my god, to say it is perfectly obvious when Tsukasa mimics his sister would be the understatement of the year). It is a fairly decent movie, but what sells it to Rui, who prefers books, is the way Tsukasa's face channels every one of the characters, half-open lips shaping replies, hands fisted hard around the sofa cushions. He is absorbed, completely spell-bound. Cute, in a retarded fashion. Fascinating, to someone who lives his life from the outside, by thought and not by feeling. Rui is very young, but these defining insights are with him already.

"Um," he says after the film is over. And I realize it now, and curiously reality is altered by the silly trivia – I realize he isn't a dog at all, he's a lion of course. My little lion king. But of course he does not consciously think this, not then. No, who are you to say, maybe I did.

"Yeah?"

"Um," Rui says again, distracted, caught up in Tsukasa's staring at him. It is easy for Rui to get caught up in things. Usually it is also easy to disengage. "This is for you." His parents will be downstairs with the other adults, will have had the servants bring the proper presents, the pricy selection purchased and eloquently wrapped weeks ago. This one isn't formal ("I just saw it and thought of you"). Rui was always aware he needed not bring anything personal, but he walked past the street vendor with the crazy jewelry, and the ring was tasteless and glittering and screaming for attention, and was there ever any choice about this, about Tsukasa?

"I'll take it, please," he told the stall owner, who bestowed an amused look on him but obediently showed how the ring could be adjusted to fit fingers of different sizes.

"Sure you can afford it, though?" the man asked, not unkindly. "It's real crystal, it doesn't come cheap, on a kid's allowance."

Well, I hadn't expected real gems here, but still, this might be to cross lines he is not ready for. "Do you not have it in diamond?"

"Are you kidding me?"

Rui shrugged. "All right. Here. Keep the change."

A large, adjustable crystal ring shaped like a skull. You in a nutshell, my friend.

Precocious, preoccupied, solitary by nature and nurture both, Rui wrapped it himself, secretly but not ostensibly so, tying present paper and ribbons in his room. The result doesn't look like much now, when he sneaks it from his largest pocket and hands the scruffy blue-grey bundle to Tsukasa. But the inkling is in him already that this is a gesture you are able to get away with only as a child, and the inclination for regret is set deeply into his psyche. I'm not a creature of instinct; I will not do, for fear of regret, and I will regret the million risks I did not take, the chances I let slip… (but hush, foolish seer, for you are small yet, and the future is a promise not a threat, or should be, and Tsukasa is taking the gift).

Fast, cruel lion pup claws tear up the carefully and rather inexpertly applied wrapping, baring the ring. Opening the present he stared at Rui, bewildered; now he lifts the gift, inspecting it in the light. "Ah!" he exclaims. "Cool! It's like one of those – those knuckle things, you know, the ones the yakuza use when they punch people!"

Rui, who has temporarily lost his grip of proper terminology as well, realizes that Tsukasa has a point (for once, I wouldn't say): eased onto his left index finger, the ring covers the digit almost in its entirety. Tsukasa will hardly be able to bend his fingers. Even so, Rui is suddenly vehemently certain no one will be allowed to remove it. I am a little startled, to be so pleased with the stupid, selfish thought. "You like it?"

"Yeah," Tsukasa admits, beaming. "It's neat." He sobers a moment later, slipping back into comfortable arrogance, still sprinkled with humor. "Of course, my neatness rubs off on all my stuff!"

"Your kanji books are neat, then?" Rui teases gently, needing to distract himself, get lost again in the abstract inside world. Mull things over, ponder implications he only half catches. "And your private tutors?"

"No!" Tsukasa looks briefly nauseous, whether at the idea of being associated with his teachers or at the concept of said teachers being perceived as in any way neat. Then he smiles, the softened version of his brash, honest grin, all teeth still; he hasn't been taught to smile only with his mouth closed, but he will, oh, I know you will, little lion. "You are, though."

And I am not certain if that's Tsukasa's way of claiming me, of saying: you're mine, so you're neat; you're neat, so you're mine.

"Of course," he says. He hadn't planned to say that. Regret hasn't made a home for itself inside him yet, though, so that's fine.

"Young master? It is time. Please come with me, both of you." Nishida-san has arrived, and after a grimace from Tsukasa they follow him downstairs, into the large banquet hall. Lights are bright and flashing, people are everywhere, he is lost in a sea of dark tuxedo-pants knees (how depressing, I am never wearing that, it is the color of the darkest dreams) the intense pastel hues flowing silken and voluminous over ladies' thighs. Having wandered leisurely through the magic labyrinth thus created for some indefinable stretch of time, he feels a hand on his shoulder and looks up into the carefully neutral features of his family's head butler. The man doesn't say anything, merely applies a smudge of pressure on the shoulder he holds, propelling Rui forward and to the left until he's beside his mother and Akira, facing the platform where Tsukasa's mother is standing, holding a glass of champagne and a sleek microphone. He has heard it said that the elegant little woman, feared already by the perceptive ones (and yes, perceptive I am), turned bitter when her husband died; others claim she merely dropped the mask, ended the charade, now the obstacle was out of the way and she could get her hands on what had been her true objective all along. Rui's disinterest shames him, but business is not engaging, he doesn't care for that, and he does not have to see her unguarded, so needs not worry for himself, on a personal level. (And Tsukasa is the little lion king – Tsukasa is unquenchable.)

Tsukasa is only forced into (given?) the briefest of public appearances, stands short and cocky in the absurd purple tuxedo, unruly head on a level with his mother's hip. "Thank you," he grunts out; and is immediately whisked away, Nishida-san guiding him out of reach of journalists and reporters who might catch any of his unflattering utterances. Glancing at Akira, seeing the message conveyed and agreed upon, Rui turns to follow him. Pauses momentarily when Akira touches his sleeve. "You go head; I'll just find Soujiro."

"Ah," says Rui, not sure Akira hears him, and continues on his way (to Tsukasa, huh). Always where I'm headed, in the end, or so it seemed then. Things change and don't change.

"Boring!" Tsukasa is yelling when Rui finally locates him in the flower garden outside the west wing. He is kicking at the stones circling the flowerbed, short sharp vicious spasms of aggression. "Boring!" Rui rather thinks he means: Don't ignore me.

"Tsukasa."

Rui looks behind his shoulder, finds Akira and Soujiro, the former in a rather striking pink smoking, the latter in traditional kimono. His own word was drowned out by Akira's louder rendition. For some reason that – for some reason I make note of it, when I shouldn't.

They have engaged in a mad flower war when the angel interrupts them. It was rather inevitable, needless to say: Tsukasa is in a temper, and Soujiro, the one least connected to their group, the one with a contemporary brother and outside friends, has never been slow to take him up on any challenge. Akira the Peacemaker is hardly ever fully successful, and sometimes you have to win the war before you can start the negotiations. Rui himself is rarely drawn in, anchored inside his own gravity, but there is something in the air today. He ducks where Soujiro charges, jumps forward where Akira avoids, throws a fistful of prize flowers into Tsukasa's face, feels his fingertips skitter over the other boy's upper lip, his palm smashing petals into Tsukasa's cheek.

"Hello," someone says then, and he turns, and there is a girl, rather tall, long hair, her smile a generous curve.

Is this when it happens? When Akira and Soujiro and even Tsukasa are bowing in return and introducing themselves and Rui is staring, is this when I fall in love with her? Are you even capable of falling in love, still shy of five, knowing so little about the world? Undeniably Todou Shizuka-san is the archetypical princess, breed through and through into brilliance, enchanting dragons and princes wherever she happens upon them – which am I, is this possible, what am I doing?

He feels dizzy, doesn't react properly until she stares at him in inquiry, and then instead of bowing he offers his hand, and her fingers are sleek and warm as a dream.

"What were you doing?" she asks, gesturing towards the mess they've made of the flowerbeds, the ruined blossoms strewn over the previously immaculate grass, and he has never seen grace before, not like she incarnates it now.

"We were having a flower war." He speaks to her because he must.

"Ah," she says, as though he has given her something precious, the answer to a mystery. Rui of Delphi, my dear stupid boy, you never learn, seeing the future in advance will only bring double pain because you cannot change it, can you? And this is when she makes them F4, and her charisma is such, and the brightness of her eyes and Rui's besotted staring such that even Tsukasa accepts the name after hardly any arguing at all. At the moment this seems to me perfectly natural, because Shizuka-san cannot be denied, cannot be resisted. Years later the strange behavior, so unlike headstrong Tsukasa, would chill me to the core. Rui likes to think it was at least in part due to his own obvious assent, the way Tsukasa tends to yield the exceptionally few times Rui speaks up. Trust, you know. Is that so different from truth, or need?

xxx

Years follow, years with the flower boys and Shizuka-san and Eitoku. Tsukasa is crazy violent, a whirlpool. Rui looks away. He's never hurt anyone outside of the group (them, when things explode). He's never helped an outsider, either. He realizes he is not enough for Tsukasa, and it hurts him deeply and desperately enough he has to withdraw a little, take shelter within his shell. Tsukasa still wears the ring, however, even in the worst times of distress; when his mother has to bribe high judges with spectacular sums after notorious and grave abuse of schoolmates, when they aren't on speaking terms because Rui is lost and in pain, less obvious but Tsukasa's but just as stark, and neither one of them knows what to say, how to form the words. Always an avid reader, Rui is careful with words because he knows their immense power, how miscalculation can ruin things, the subtlest shift of phrasing making or breaking a situation; a relationship. He watches Tsukasa always, feels the closeness that, perhaps, needs no vocalization. His friend, of course, is at savage war with language at the best and worst of times (and really, why is that, because Tsukasa can be bright, can be very bright, and no expenses were spared concerning his education). Over time, after Makino has made it clear to him he can hardly be understood, the way Rui, finding the misshapen idioms and mangled words rather sweet, never did, Tsukasa goes from claiming his grasp of Japanese is simply so good everyone else is just too stupid and undereducated to comprehend, to implicitly admitting his faults; they're only words, that's not so important, so there.

Rui is still firmly infatuated with Shizuka-san. They all crush on her, except possibly Tsukasa who doesn't understand the concept of loving things just because they are beautiful and not useful, but she's too important, too splendid, for any of their flower boy womanizers to be serious about it. You don't seduce your friends. If you take their hand or kiss their lips, it must be for love.

Rui doesn't.

He remembers seeing her that first time, in that garden, and she was so brilliant she was completely alien. His nursemaid had been reading him stories of the Fey People, fairies and elves swapping human infants for their own, and for a preposterous second he was convinced the tales had told truth, because Shizuka-san could not possibly be merely mortal. Wasn't on the same level, and I tried to reach hers, reach her. Sometimes their fingers brushed, when he was aiming to grab her hand, hold and keep.

I love Shizuka. And no, he doesn't call her Shizuka-san anymore. Did when they were – going steady, if you are liberal with your definition of the term. It was never spoken aloud. It never needed to be (or did it?). Shizuka-san treated him as men have treated their girlfriends for all time; yes, darling, it's sweet of you to care, and I like you and I'm curious and flattered and attracted, and yes, I do want you to love me, perhaps I even need you to love me, bur you're a second-class citizen, and that won't be changing. There are no compromises, no consultations. She does what she wants, goes where she wishes; he agrees, he follows, always running after her. You'll be waiting form me when I get back from the capital letter Life, right, baby? Buy yourself something pretty to amuse the dreary days of missing me, keeping the hearth warm in my absence. And if you don't want to wait around – well, too bad, I'll be sad. But in the end there are other pretty young things for me to pick up, if I need to. It's your choice, Rui dear. Except there was never a choice at all.

I wonder if she knew that. Whether it mattered to her, if she did, or if she decided not to understand.

Shizuka was a dream, impossible like all dreams are. He loves her, he will always love her, but he isn't sure he wants her, anymore. If she came asked now, Rui walk with me, come to me, would he go? No, probably not. Not if it meant leaving his darlings, his (other) loves. He's not making promises, though. He knows Life is a fickle bitch, and promises are made to be broken, and he doesn't want to hurt needlessly anymore.

xxx

So yes, he strayed from the inner circle of the flower boys. No, that's not true. He was the inner circle, one pole of the battery, the calm minus to Tsukasa's energetic plus, the kind plus to Tsukasa's aggressive minus. At ten, always the retarded little snot (and god, Rui loves him so he chokes on it, and chokes on shame, at the memory of what Tsukasa did, and of what Rui didn't do, chokes on shame because he remembers and he still loves Tsukasa, could never stop, never even want to try) Tsukasa announced his new Brilliant Plan Destined to End in Embarrassing Stupidity. Or should be destined to end like that, but this is Tsukasa, and if you can impose your own self-image on others to the extent your are accepted as manly and cool when you're wearing bling-rings (don't take it off, I'd beat you up, I really would, and those wounds would not heal) and making lame-ass puns about a shit-for-brains mispronunciation of Shakespeare, no one is going to argue about red notes. Particularly not when the curly-head flower boy beats up younger students by day and muscular strangers by night and the Domyouji Group pays the police not to notice.

So the officials might be wistfully blind, but all the amazing women in Tsukasa's life (and there are several, and amazing is an understatement – Shizuka-san the glorious, and strong-sweet Tsubaki-san, and good old Tama-san, and Tsukasa's mother, who might be a bitch but a damn efficient one) know, and disapprove – quietly, just like Rui. There is the silent agreement: let him play the aggressions out, yes? He's young, it's only natural, he'll calm down sooner or later. It was always understood, Rui thinks as he studies his hands and watches his loves, it was always understood that while unfortunate and mainly blameless, the victims were a lower form of life. For Rui, regarding life at a distance, filtered through thick webs of words (until she screamed herself in, broke the shell; there's no way! And Tsukasa was my life and Makino changed it forever and changed us) this was not unacceptable. Not pleasant, but then for the most part life is less than excruciatingly pleasant. Even the sweet parts come with sour undertones. Shizuka taught me that.

Akira, surrounded already by women five or six years his seniors, smiles at him kindly, meaningfully, when Shizuka-san is brought up. Soujiro, caught up still in his brother and girl friend but playing at being a Don Juan as well, repeating the part he will one day master, when it doesn't matter to him anymore; Soujiro shakes his head, stillborn snickers curving his mouth. Tsukasa says nothing.

Rui knows that he loved Shizuka. He was never quite certain whether he was in love with her – he exhibited the symptoms, but wasn't fully confident he had contracted the disease. He was treated like her mistress and I put up with it, didn't I, I waited on her and I always went to her, went after her, I obsessed and I wanted to touch and whisper to, I was jealous, I was broken apart over it. Her presence was his intoxication, always has been, and when it's good he's high on it, endorphins imitating an opium rush through his brain, crashing through the grey matter, exploding through the nerves, leaving him lost in satiation. When it's bad he's inconsolable, cut off from the world, going through every miserable detail of failure, staring out the window in the white room, playing mistakes on his violin until they can turn into something beautiful. He was born for this: a great artist, suffering silently, with the mysterious secrets of painful losses, delicately stunted, bitter in the pretty surface ways.

Was he in love? How are you supposed to know, anyway? If you are not a creature of instinct, how do you discern it? (Is there a mathematical definition you can consult? A logic formula through which the deduction can be executed?) He was certain it was forever, he'd have given her his life or his death in an instant. Did, in ways. She had his soul and his virginity, his first life and his home, anything he could offer and couldn't.

Rui doesn't forgive. When it concerns his precious ones he is sharp, and redemption isn't an option. He won't offer forgiveness to Umi, nor to Shizuka or himself. Tsukasa moves on from his misgivings as though they've never happened; Makino believes so strongly that stumbling will teach you to walk your path straighter that she forces her own perception upon reality. Rui etches everything into memory.

I was sure I loved Shizuka-san, the starlit evening. Was that him, though, properly? Identity is a concept, not an object; is applied to a process of self-creation, to an accumulation of moments of being, cannot be tied to a single terminally-same entity. Are we the same we were yesterday? (Does it matter?) Some things are scratched so firmly into the tabula rasa that they might as well be written in the stars like the destiny of the ancients, and his love for Shizuka, like for Tsukasa and Makino, is one such fact. The first time they kissed he was thirteen, she fifteen, an ageless creature of beauty and light.

Looking back, with the cruel, wry eyes of a writer, he'd liken himself to a spider, long-limbed and creepy-white, sneaking silently through a confused web, caught in it like a fly, sacrificing himself on his own altar, to be devoured by his confused, pre-pubertal passions.

Their going together to the fundraiser was so understood it needed not be official, was known in the sense that by far transcends formal agreements, like you know the sky is blue: you did not always have a word for it, but you have always known. Skinny, pimples lovingly shadowing the line of his jaw, dressed up in white and not uncomfortable, he stands among the flower boys but not with them, not properly. He is warm and smiling at them, but it is not for them. And then she comes, a vision of brilliance, silvery dress, angel eyes, escorted by an elder man, her father or uncle, from this distance he can't tell them apart. On the far side of the ocean Akira mumbles something, tone warmly amused, and Soujiro elbows him. Very close to his ear , trained now to listen for her voice, catch the sound of her heels and skirts meeting the floor, Tsukasa waves an arm. "Shizuka-san!"

"Hello," she says, smiles. Looks around the group, giving them each a brief hint of charm, but her eyes eventually fall on Rui and remain there, like a stray that's scavenged the streets and finally found a home; a precocious child, a picky customer, examining toys or expensive products, trying on and discarding before deciding on her favorite. Long-limbed lanky Rui, dark-haired still, sharp contrast against his pale clothes, is almost on a level with her despite the high heels. She stands here, right in front of me and very close, smiling teasing and gentle through her lashes, and the curve of her face, softened still by baby fat, mumbles that she'd like to dance. His eyebrow, crinkling with his answering smile, whispers, Yeah? And there's the merest movement of her head, not quite a nod, brown curls falling forward over her naked shoulders: Yes.

(Tsukasa mumbles something, there's a curse or two among the words; he's looking elsewhere.)

(Somewhere else Makino Tsukushi is helping her mother with a meager dinner.)

"You're so sweet," Shizuka-san says, her hand warm and dry in his cold, sweat-dewed one, her skirt whispering over his knees, her breasts brushing against his chest in rhythm with their steps. The utterance is sincere: loving, exceptionally cruel. A way of challenging, of asking you, do not to let yourself be put down, Rui.

He spins her under his arm (the only response: ah, my love, you are clever, but I am not childish enough to screech: I am not a child!), smooth suave skill in his teenage limbs, ungainly yet, and her body is pressed into his, abrupt as waking, hotly beautiful as dawn. It's oh yes wonderful, this sunlit angel taken shape in his arms ("God loved birds and created trees. Man loved birds and created cages"; "If I have to live in a cage I want it golden"; "I live in a cage, but at least it is yours"), solid flesh encasing heavenly reality, the abstract made concrete, and beautifully (soul becoming body, if you are platonically inclined). Speaking of flesh, it is – he is humiliatingly hard. Not quite sure whether he'd be entirely mortified if she discovers it.

Oh, Shizuka-san, why must you be Shizuka-san?

They are outside, stars and party lamps spreading light and chasing shadows over fey faces: fey as love, as features are when transcending the limitations of humanity, reaching into the soiled inner world of presumed divinity; love me, thy lord, and love thine neighbor also… Sweet as sin, our transgression into paradise.

"Rui," she says softly, contemplating (and it makes sense they must have talked, there ought to have been a conversation, but he cannot recall a single word past that breathe of his name). His face heats under her touch, silken palm and manicured nails caressing over jaw and cheek and forehead, taking the tangled path through his hair. Very close again (still) and all alone, isolated and insulated by their love. Raised correctly, he keeps his hand formally clasped around her hip, where the velvet of her dress is so exquisite he could swear he feels her skin through it; and I can hear my own heart thumping, staging a rebellion against confinement inside the ribcage. Her breasts are warm roundnesses just below his collar bones. (It is the East, he's in the Land of Dawn, and she is the sunbrilliantly fair (beautiful lawyer, righteous model babe) and color is rising in his cheek like his pulse is rising, and her light will kill the envious moon. Only I am the moon, am I not?) Hips to hips, lips to lips. Contained, controlled Rui, lost inside himself, alluringly untouchable, (my sun, my moon boy, little sphinx, lost inside the mysteries beyond the scope of this world) comes violently at the first curious, delighted touch of her fingers sneaking below his waistband, stroking daintily along the front of his underwear, soiling and embarrassing himself. Her face twitches to strangle a laugh, twisting a stillborn grin out of shape. For a second he is quiet, looking down; when he meets her gaze his eyes are dark, so much love, and he curves his mouth wryly, s'okay my lady, I am only your poor knight, never fear I will regret your touch. I am yours.

For a while he wears black pants, stain-immune ones that are loose enough to hide an erection. The message is clear enough, a smudged love letter, a sonnet written along his legs, compliments worn as adornment over his crotch. Her smile lasts him through days at a time; so long as he can drown himself in old English poetry and play anger into beauty on his violin he can deal with Tsukasa's violence and distance: I know I'm not enough, you're killing me Tsukasa, let me in, hit me if you must, hit on me, make me yours so you can be mine, if not I – I cannot stand it, I must flee what I cannot be given. The old truth, and the worst one: If I cannot have it…

xxx

It would make sense that he should practice. Soujiro and Akira keep a trail of girls, cutting swats through swarms of them; Soujiro flashes a lightning-sharp smile sometimes and says he's gathering expertise, waiting for the right time to woe the right one. Tsukasa isn't interested, sneers go away ugly hag or throws drinks at them. Rui too is less than mesmerized by the painted hostesses or giggling girls following them around the school; still, you have to sound your way through the learn-to-read books before you can handle and appreciate the great novels. Yes, it makes sense, impassioned movements of the flesh measured out by cold mental calculation. He discovers he likes kissing, the warm intimate feeling, tingling slug-trails over his lips, thick wet brushes along palate and teeth, but beyond that – no, I can think only of my sun, kill these envious moons with your splendor.

He knows now that Shizuka went out with others, she doesn't believe in limiting herself, in living to anything less than her full potential. Her goals are definite, and he might be the person she loves but he isn't the one she chooses. Makino, wonderful selfless Makino the soiled saint, said I believe in you!, she told him to do it and he obeyed his prophet, chased Shizuka-san to Paris, followed like the puppy he was. Was greeted by gigantic news advertisements broadcasting his sun-angel's engagement to an older French politician with connections in the juridical branch of the European Union. She could've told him herself, didn't.

"Shizuka-san," he said, his heart leaden, darkening, drowning, pulling him down with it into the dark waters inside. He wasn't angry, he was too sensible for anger: we're not exclusive, Rui dear, flings are flings, we're too young for true love… Playing around, yes? "I thought I'd come visit." Already then he knew she'd dump her fiancé, Shizuka is too passionately free, too entitled, to chain herself down by loving back fully. He lay that night with his face framed by her soft Western pillows, white silk and eiderdown, Parisian sounds and light sneaking through the window, etching patterns over her body close by his, engraving the tableau onto the inside of his closed eyelids. Next morning he shook hands with her fiancé, the man had stopped by to say good morning, share a pot of coffee and a kiss. Rui could tell she did not love him, there was no way Shizuka-san could ever love this man. It didn't appear to matter. With the servants dismissed because this is private, like matters of the heart, even broken ones, always are, they kissed too, over the toast, longer and slower and sweeter than the hasty peck for the Frenchman. Well raised, conveniently able to easily entertain himself with a book, he was brought around, shown off, introduced to people. He was happiest staying at home, reading by window-light in the lofty bedroom he shared with her, except that one horrible night when her fiancé stayed over and he wandered Parisian red light districts and libraries and church yards until morning, waiting for her like always he had.

("Good day, Messer. DuPont."

The began bow, scornfully light thought the Westerner will not know this, is intercepted by the clumsy outreach of a hand. Rui looks at the veins mapping the meaty red limb, horrified somewhere far away.

"Good day, er, Hanazawa-san – was it?")

He remembers the uncertain smile, stretched painfully across the square face, rippling over the forest of dark stubble, the light lashes circling deep-set eyes. He was not insulted, though he man should have known whom he was – his fiancée's best friend and lover, the heir of a minimalist empire, the dauphin of Oriental trading business. And of course Oriental is the term that will ring bells, pleasant tingling bells, the post-colonial mind retains delusions of grandeur, oh to be the danna-sama of beautiful art-person Shizuka-san. He probably thinks the honorific is part of her name. Rui notices she doesn't correct him, even when they're mumbling intimately, laboring under the delusion that Rui's too polite to spy from the adjourning living room, where he's hidden away with the antiques, beautiful worthless things that are no longer needed, kept for sentiment, to show off. Marble.

They say that hate and love are Siamese twins, that indifference is the true opposition. Rui doesn't think it's true, but he'd hate Shizuka before he hated the Frenchman. Oh dear, I can't even remember his name.

"I can't believe you sleep with him," he remarks over lunch, calm amused tone. Detachment is easier to pull off in a language not your own, upper lip stiff around the unfamiliar consonants. He's at ease speaking English, the words waiting eagerly, the syntax familiar as the coils and membranes inside his own body, forming his mind. French he can understand well enough, but he is aware he mangles the consonant clutters. Inevitable, probably, with a language so much the opposite of his mother tongue. What he loves about it is the subtle nuances; Japanese is subtle because the syntax is lax, you can jumble the words, rearrange them, whisper a syllable about something that should not be spelled out. French is stricter, but the detailed rules allow a different kind of precision, the way you chose to adjust your verbs dumps a dictionary-full of implications into the listener's lap. No one looks at him when or after he speaks the risqué sentence. Of course they don't. He's a young student in a trendy but not explicitly upper-class café, a foreigner yes but tall, black hair bleached a light brown, well dressed, white coat and a pretty young woman, his sister perhaps, he probably looks gay to them, fine boned and expensively groomed.

"And they say seeing is believing." She's wearing her ring, the sudden insight kicks him in the balls. The thin metal band with its discreet, hideously expensive diamonds contrasts against the coffee cup she clutches, long fingers looped tightly around it.

"Thank you for the invitation," he says, distantly, nastily so, voice absent and empty. I am thinking of Tsukasa, my lion king with the signet ring I offered him, cheap and flashy, false – the solidity of spontaneity. Honesty, just thought of you, sentimental kindness, souvenir from mutual love. Ah, Shizuka-san, you know… I went to France because I lost my footing, he thought then and thinks now, on a window ledge, in a hotel room in Tokyo, two thousand and seven years after the birth of a legend. I'd no idea where to go, I didn't even warn them about Sakurako, and I have an instinct about people, when they threaten my loved ones. Not about my loves ones, though – I didn't love Makino then, or didn't realize I did. But she told me to go after you, and it was worth it to hear Tsukasa scream my name.

He heard that again only hours earlier, and the experience was rendered no less thrilling by repetition.

But back to Paris, back in time to the café and the person who sits there, a boy in his late teens, vaguely pretty, one hand curving around his glass, the other's index finger keeping track of his page, he is reading Baudelaire, Les Fleurs des Mal, always the most alluring ones. He continues, "But I'll decline, if you don't mind. My voyeuristic tendencies are rather more limited."

She looks shocked and she doesn't. Pet dogs don't usually bite back. If you can call this biting, it's just barking, whining, growling, showing throat by exposing the fact it makes him upset, however inexplicitly. If he had rabies he'd bite.

"You're growing up naughty," she says, sounding empathically older and a little charmed by his rudeness. Well done, love. Forget modeling, you could be an actress. (Oh, I forget, you're going to be a lawyer. That was the same thing as con artist to him, until very recently, in a library with Makino.)

He isn't sure how he and Shizuka turned sour. Maybe we were from the beginning and I just didn't notice it for the sweetness, bitterness only underneath, core complement.

Thirteen, that's how old he was the first time she kissed him, first time he came in his pants. Last time he came in his pants. The following morning he was at the Domyouji mansion, in Tsukasa's room, seated spider-elegant and contracted on the window sill, sun-warmed glass against his back, chin and check resting contemplating against the inviting curve of his violin's body. Tsukasa was having music class, seated surly in front of the enormous antique piano, large enough to swallow them both, all of the flower boys and the teacher, a slightly stodgy man correcting Tsukasa's melodies. Rui wants to shake his head, Tsukasa's hands are too small, his fingers too short, he can't reach properly, has to move his wrists like race cars to keep up with the rhythm. There is no way around that. Nor around the fact he's perfect, a raging doll, framed for a second like in a painting, breaking through, too vivid to be paralyzed by art. I love you, Rui thinks. Blinks, a little startled, and picks at his violin strings, thinking about Shizuka-san.

"To hell with you!" Tsukasa finally explodes, a grand total of seven minutes after the belated commencement of his lesson. "I'm sick of this crap. C'mon, Rui!" Tsukasa grabs his wrist, grubby boy fingers encircling it hard enough to cut off the blood flow, and Rui willingly comes along, leaving his violin in the care of the exasperated teacher. He's the eighth tutor in a row, hired two weeks ago. Tsukasa has an ear for it, just not the patience: can play from memory, and beautifully, but notes are as incomprehensible to him as kanji. Rui, who specializes in violin, did a four-hand with him once, and it was astonishing: Tsukasa behaved, they were sitting hip-to-hip on the padded bench, fingers competing for the best keys, smiles curving towards each other.

xxx

Sitting back, resting his head against the cold surface of the wall, seeing Makino and Tsukasa through the haze of traffic lights fleeing the streets and braving the window glass to dance over his vision, Rui turns away from the simple-complex (as everything about you) memory of Tsukasa bringing him outside that day, away from the notes. They talked, brightly, chattily; and Tsukasa looking forward at the wall, and saying a few serious things, Shizuka's name rough in his mouth, not the smooth slide it became in Rui's. ("Yes," Rui said. He thinks he's always said yes to Tsukasa.)

I turn from that, and contemplate the darling girl. He knows his own childhood and youth, knows Tsukasa's, to such a large extent they are one and the same. If you have one you've got the other, cannot be untangled, yellowing lace, old yarn, a Gordian knot. He feels his own smile, wondering fingertips wandering wistful lips, grieves achingly for her tales.

He can picture it, of course. An avid reader, all his days, a quiet observer, a lover now as well. You made Yuki cry! You're the worst – don't be so full of yourself! Ah, brilliant Amazon princess, sweet prince! She tried so hard to be ordinary, to bleed out her colors and blend in, poor ghost in the echoing Eitoku halls. Just as hard as she tried to be special for them, later. Runner-up in the prestigious, super elitist Teen of Japan – only Makino Tsukushi, the only woman Tsukasa approves of; the only woman Rui loves? Is that how it is? (I guess I like you after all. I suppose I must like you.) The knowledge is carved into him beyond certainty, now. But exclusivity is another matter, and Shizuka treated him like crap, yes, but not hatefully so, and he let her because he loved her, because I love her.

He shakes his head, feels the slide of hair against the wall, the chillness sticking to his neck. She must've been brilliant always. Her family – isn't. Kind, stumbling, humiliatingly humble; he recalls the time when the flower four was preparing Makino for her entrance in the ToJ contest, when he put them up in a hardly-used wing of his family's mansion (don't ask, don't tell – was that how it was, mother? Yes, Rui dear, exactly); and the night in the hospital, when he held her hand. He'd never felt so closely connected to her as he did then, and he knew she wanted him, there and everywhere, knew she loved him.

That was during the absolutely horrible time. Tsukasa's absence had made many things starkly apparent, and – only my love could make me turn against my love, oh fool, life's bitch, and subserviently so. Lying in the gutter, staring at the stars. He reads Paul Auster and feels depressed. Kisses Makino, and twice she shrugs away but once she lets him, and every time her heart is (must be, I can tell, my love) beating his fast, so hard, struggling out towards him.

I returned from France not because Shizuka didn't need me but because you do: Rui was adrift, and Tsukasa has always been his loadstone, and I love you too, little lion king. Does he, though? Rui thinks that he will kill Tsukasa if he ever forgets about either one of them ever again. He can see how vulnerable that would make you, having no memories, and how hurt you would be too, not being recalled. Rui cannot forgive nor forget.

There comes a point, in that hospital by the sea (yes I am paying for it, don't worry sweet Makino, I won't tell you but I demanded that one inclusion) when most of his life is spent not making a move on Makino or Tsukasa. And he aches, stardust fading, falling dark and dreary, the inside labyrinth is lonely now.

Before you went here, he wanted to yell at Tsukasa in the hospital, when you stayed at my house and slept in my bed, oh so platonic, curly head on my shoulder, I gave you a cell phone. And really, there should be no way to misinterpret that. A faux-diamond ring, a red note, a handkerchief; a cell phone, a necklace, another cell. Apples. Given Tsukasa's rather regrettable lack of familiarity with even native religion, Rui is rather certain, and was amused at it, once upon a time, that Tsukasa probably has no idea he was tossing him the forbidden fruit, the symbol of equality and temptation.

Akira, Soujiro, from now on we're ignoring Rui. It didn't even hurt. Tsukasa had left them once already, and Makino he hadn't ever truly had, and Tsukasa couldn't even distance himself enough to use his last name. I knew it wasn't real. You can alienate yourself, curse and ignore and fight, if you are so inclined – Rui usually just folds, but he is aware of the possibilities, has seen Shizuka take them. You can do all that, and you still can't separate from yourself. They are Domyouji Tsukasa and Hanazawa Rui, best friends forever and since forever, flower boys. You can't make your emotional history not be part of you anymore. Shizuka is teaching him that right now, but he knew it then already, if not from personal experience or in explicit regards to himself. There is no way Tsukasa will ever untangle himself from Rui, nor Rui from him. Wasn't that, partially, why he beat up Junpei: Tsukasa has left us, my love, my darling, then can I be Tsukasa?

xxx

He looks at them again, really staring now, greedily sucking in the sight. It is Avarice and Desire, he must have them, looks and looks, her hair, his arm, her side, his cheek. The ear that gained such amusing reactions (thank you, Shigure-san; but I've paid my debt to you.)

A plane zooms by outside, he can feel the vibrations, they worm their way down through the cracks in the streets, past the man-made layer and into the earth, changeling child in Gaia's womb, sending tremors up her limbs, even the prosthesis ones, like this building, shaking the fine hairs on his body. (Rui hates airports: they are sorrow and betrayal and leaving love behind, or trying to. Failing.)

Oh yes, he hates airports. Some people can't stand graveyards, or morgues, or emergency rooms: Rui could not even enter the airport after giving Makino a ride, the evening Shigure gave Tsukasa his freedom and ran.

Giving freedom, huh. I could never want that, could not receive that, even when Makino tried, and her heart wasn't in that. Love's forever, or it's not love at all.

Ah, Makino. Their first – their only proper – date was such a wonderful failure. She was amusing and sweet, adorable entertainment, the best conceivable pet, and talking about Tsukasa, the most intriguing subject fathomable. Then she became real to me. Screaming on the balcony, returning a handkerchief, smiling how desperately she wanted him to have stayed with her all night in the hospital.

Tsukasa laughed and preened and boasted when retelling his first date with her, thought Soujiro and Akira both raised question about what boast-worthy material was to be found in getting soaked in the rain, being locked in an elevator, urinating too few feet from your ladyfriend and subsequently collapsing over her, pilfing her winter-warm clothes. Must've worked, though ("She couldn't stop talking about you, Tsukasa"). And accepting a beating that would have rushed a less stupid-stubborn person to serious medical care for the sake of his princess is a gesture grand enough to sweet most any damsel off her feet. Enough to make even Makino reconsider a little, give him a chance.

Rui's first date was something quite different from that. I take a deep breath, staring still at my darlings, and walk straight into it, eyes closed; looking through his eyelids.

He's fourteen, just barely; it's two weeks and three days after the dance when he embarrassed himself and smiled love at her, two weeks and two days since Tsukasa played truant and brought Rui along, away from the piano. Shizuka-san calls him unexpectedly; they've talked briefly over the phone a handful times, always on his initiative. She says, I want to see you, Rui. Oh, yes? Oh yes. Wants to see him alone, soon, will today be fine, this evening? Oh, yes.

She is in a spiffed-up version of a school uniform, crisp white blouse, exquisitely cut skirt ending just below her knees. (When a woman wears skirts to the date, Akira claims, it means she wants to fuck. Soujiro agreed, surprisingly: Yeah, much easier to get into than pants! Rui was raised a gentleman though he may not always act it, and Shizuka-san can never be compared to the cheap tramps his friends prefer. The idea hits him, all the same.) They go to a café, and it isn't awkward at all, now. I love you, and I know you. Childhood friends, have known each other all their days (or all our days as far as we remember them; all the days that matter, and maybe life started with this – but no, it was earlier than that that his heart thumped with desperation; flower four; Tsukasa…) and attraction admitted, not dominating, at present. Afterwards, when they are walking through the park, she brushes her palm against his, the briefest and most exquisite of touches, skin hot and coarse. His fingers close around hers on reflex. The making out works better this time, he's calmer, not so spooked, drugged into serenity with pleasure endorphins, she does like me. Long square musician's fingers trail with torturous slowness up her back, from waist along spine and sides, spreading over ribs, brushing shoulders and neck, and back down again, whispering along the line of her hips. He likes the idea he's creasing the snow white blouse, placing perspiration stains on it, a mark, however transitory and infantile. She has one hand curled around his face, teasing jaw and ear and neck, the other pressed to his chest; their mouths open for each other, lukewarm moistness, taste of skin and lipstick and a hint of sugar, and absolutely, impossibly wonderful.

"The Fall Dance," she murmurs in her hallway, when he's taken her home like he's supposed to, even though these chivalrous unnecessary traditions chafe against his ideals about equality and women's rights. "I've accepted an invitation. But in case that does not come to pass…" She tilts her face, beautiful and close. "Would you like to go with me?" Probably, he reflects dryly, thinking back on it, that utterance would fit excellently well as an example under the heading of rhetorical question in any dictionary. Then, right there, he could only breathe, "Yes," and they were kissing again, soft and sweet.

Two weeks later, give or take (Rui has the dates etched into his mind, digits inscribed in his cornea, but Shizuka-san spent a few days abroad during the span of time in question, and time differences complicate the finer mathematics), they make love. Unfortunately this is not an undivided success. They are in her room, golden tree-hues and purple ruffles, soft sounds. Her collarbones are miraculous, the gentle inviting sloop, the way the expensive-treatment-smooth skin tastes there, fresh sweat and one-of-a-kind perfume, salt as blood underneath. She stretches out on the bed, cat-comfortable, mermaid-enchanting, hair and limbs spilling with perfect artistry – no, that's later memories trying to retouch. At fifteen she could still blush, and smile with shy adorableness, not the coy perfection of later years. He's in his school uniform – doesn't have to wear it, also doesn't mind doing so, if it's the first clothes to hand in the morning. School uniforms are like that, a concept you only object to if you're forced into it. It's the forcing that's the problem, so if that doesn't apply to you you're at liberty to be conservative and shrug, shrug into the white shirt and the strict pants.

"I love your hair," Shizuka-san mumbles when he cautiously joins her on the bed, knees and hands making imprints in the mattress, prompting the subtlest squeaks. Oh, god. Good, good God.

"Yeah?" he whispers back, close to her cheek, feeding the word into her pores. (They are on their way from school, walking under the pear trees. Occupied closing his eyes against the caresses of the sun and obsessing over the brush of fingers against fingers, hips smudging into hips, he does not notice the advertisement that catches her fancy until she directs his attention to it: a poster boy in a hair dresser's display window, blond as an Aryan. "I'm sure you'd look darling in that, Rui." Is that so. Well, there's nothing to it. She flutters, giggles, while the hair dresser applies dye, sucking the color out of his hair, leaving a hazel-blond tone that startles him every time his reflection flashes at him from car-windows and store-fronts.)

Her breast swells in his hand, her touch skitters below his shirt, below, again, his waistband. Predictably, embarrassingly, he comes the moment he is inside. The fumble with the condom alone could have brought him off, had he not concentrated so feverishly on holding on, biting his lip almost clear through, tasting nerves and ecstasy: I am shuddering, helpless, a vessel and prophet for so much love. Trembling, lost in a different world, eyes squeezed involuntarily shut (I want to see you all the time), muscles spasming, head swimming. She strokes his neck, shoulders, back, smiles up at him; a little pleased, a tad testy, a smudge frustrated.

"I," he says, stutters. He's come to realize physical stimuli do not exercise great power over him. What matters is context; the brain is the greatest sex organ after all. Already, buried within her still, he can feel arousal curl in the pit of his stomach, hot along the line of his taut spine, born of the sights to feast on; her shoulders, her nose, her bosom, the curve of ear and mouth and breast. He brushes fingertips over her knee, worships the tentative shiver of her lashes. When eventually he disengages he is smiling, smiling as he retreats at little, resting between her still-spread legs. The lightest touch of a fingertip traversing her inner thigh is soon preceded by more confident touches, hands and mouth, laughter slipping inside her.

xxx

Yes, Rui reflects. Yes, I loved her. I loved her then, I love her now, I will always love her. Perhaps it was written in the stars (destiny of the ancients, barbarians before the rise and fall of the Tower, in Babylon of the suspended gardens, suspended disbelief), perhaps spelled out in a book of old; faded poetry tracing motions, characters the meaning of which have been lost echoing thoughts, emotions, the snapping of brain synapses.

Tsukasa too I have loved always (for always is a hypothetical concept, a subjective reality marker), and Makino also I will always love. Did you know, sweet my darling, that I settled a case, years ago? No, I don't believe anyone's mentioned it. Our little lion king had clawed someone badly, guy with broken bones and journalist parents; and I settled the business with them, paid for damages, swore us all to a secret pact. Isn't that right, Tsukasa?

He'd wanted to feel a part of something, lay a claim, however superficial, de jure and not de facto.

But it was de facto, it must've been, he did it after that day in the garden, when he'd drawn me from the music room, and we'd spoken of Shizuka-san…

Things are complicated, sometimes.

Complexity breeds simplicity, in endless circles. Circles like those his mind travels, trying for oblongs and squares but ending always in beginning, means to an end, rebirth from the ashes.

And tonight Tsukasa's mother had gone mad again, her son is firmly engaged to Makino, yes, but it's a filthy commoner girl and all the necessary contracts with the computer company are signed, it will never hold up, just bide your time Tsukasa, get what you're after, you'll see I'm right and move on… (She wouldn't be herself if she gave in an inch.)

And Rui has told Tsukasa before: it's not just about becoming a man, it's about what kind of man and why. Be yourself again, our stupid darling. Should be the kind of man you were with her brother (yes, Soujiro and Akira talk, stupid sweetheart), the honest strength, the potential you had, keeping promises forced upon you, going wherever your scarred heart led you.

Right into our arms.

Tsukasa is clumsy, trying to reassert balance in his life, and Makino is cautious, brunt child with fire, love does that to you. Rui has been inflamed so long (desperate, absently feverish, fire and dying, clogging my veins, he kisses strangers, steals glances at Tsukasa, thinks of Shizuka-san, feels Makino watching him) that he is no longer afraid, feels the pain as a numbing tingling. He found them fighting, cries and yells, large-scale gestures but no fists, and he did what he did and they came with him, and we love each other after all.

They couldn't go home, of course. Tsukasa was not by far ready to face his mother, nor Makino, and Rui won't go asking to be hated. The hate will find him in due time, no doubt, almost as merciless as love. Makino's home is out, provided she even has one, what with the moving around, dislocation. Rui felt the cold structure of his mansion was not an appropriate setting. Instead they are here, in a cheap hotel; or cheap by their standards, naturally Makino must not be allowed to see the bills, is not to contribute.

He smiles at himself, a tearing expression, pictures the events from Makino's point of view, see if I can:

It feels very strange, having a man easing into her. She has thought, lately, if she's thought about it, that it would be Domyouji, but it's not. The long-legged marble-eyed Prince Charming from her first discarded crush is wiping sweat off her brow, brushing back her bangs. But never mind about that, never mind about bangs-wiping and how he's whispering something very softly against her lips, his breath sneaking in between them – never mind that when those other things are occurring.

"Hey," comes Domyouji's hoarse, crackling voice. "You alright, Makino?"

Tilting her head further back, throat stretched taut (and I can feel Rui staring at it, my god, is he licking sweat from it? Yes, yes he is. And smiling, and it isn't half bad, really, except for the whole embarrassment bit) she glimpses unruly dark curls and a slightly bruised, broad face. Domyouji is very handsome if you like your men froggish. Would he turn into the fairytale prince, if I kissed him (again)?

"Ah," she says, and it's affirmation and a stutter and a moan.

She is honestly not at all certain how she ended up in this crazy, lovely mess. On her back in a bed the sheets of which are probably pricier than her family's rent, with two flower boys looking down into her face, heavy dark eyes on her, concerned words, lingering hands.

But I love Domyouji.

And I loved Rui first, and I never – quite stopped, I guess.

That much, theoretically, is fine, more than fine, because the concept of ceasing to love someone is terrible beyond words, but in practice double love tends to trip you up. Being in love with one person is more than complicated enough, thank you very much. I'm a weed, might be tough, but most of all I'm sensible. Dammit, I'm supposed to be sensible.

Hard to pull off frustration when Rui moves.

She gasps like a fish, lashes flittering uncontrollably, giving her blurry, context-less snapshots of something indefinable sweeping over Rui's face, something like contentment and anxiety and …pleasure? His eyes are closed, his lips open and wet, smeared still with brownish blood from where Domyouji's ring scratched him.

"Tsukasa!" he snaps, throatier than usual. "I wasn't ready."

"Oh," says Domyouji, only it's more a groan than a word. "Tsukushi…?"

"I'm fine," she says, laboriously, struggling for words past the weirdness. I think it's true, though. I'm really pretty sure I'm fine, better.

"Really?" asks Rui, gently, kindly, and her nod turns into wriggling, her begun sentence into shocked unintelligible noises, as his long deft fingers (piano-fingers) trail down her body, stroking, pressing, feather-light, warm and evocative. They travel slowly up the slope of her breast, linger, perched for a second over the swollen nipple, then descend in a single fluid movement, slipping across her stomach.

"Rui," Domyouji husks, in the extremely unpleasant tones he uses when he's uncertain, shy. Scared to go wrong, because it does matter (and you've never been a good liar, Domyouji, what is your mother thinking?), matters o much. "Can I move now?"

"Can he?" Rui asks her, gently still, with the layer of teasing to his voice that she is, for once, absolutely certain is not leveled at her.

"I think so?"

"Let's try, then."

And things get stranger. The sort of strange that would tempt her to shout, There's no way! Because she's in bed with her boyfriend and her…other boyfriend? Hanazawa Rui is taking her virginity. The first deeper push into her is careful, as Rui is always considerate, moderated; the next is harsher, irregular, and she hears a grunt that must be Domyouji. Rui plans, because if things are important they should not be left to chance; Domyouji storms in, wings it like mad, wins, in some strange incomprehensible way. My darling boys.

Much earlier, when they fight had only just stilled and her lips burned with the memory of Hanazawa Rui painted over Domyouji's touch, she did not feel uncertain. A little bit later, when they were in the hotel room, she did. Domyouji scratched the back of his head, barked aggressively about who has any clue. Rui offered that knowing, heartthrob smile that has always hinted at sacred mysteries, magic knowledge.

"Shizuka," he murmured, in explanation, perhaps in apology or penance, and proceeded to pedagogically demonstrate to a bewildered but determined Domyouji how to bring a girl off by using your mouth.

"But," Tsukushi muttered timidly. "Are you not in love with Shizuka-san, then?"

"Yes," said Rui. "I probably am. But I love you." And he turned that intense perfect gaze away from hers, looked over his shoulder at Domyouji. "Both of you."

"Yeah well," declared the latter, still obviously thrown. Obviously pleased, because he is never any good at hiding it, and truthfully she cannot claim surprise. He's loved Rui since he was a child, hasn't he? And Domyouji is always everything or nothing: if he loves he loves fully, when he has committed even death won't be allowed to part you from him. "Makino is the girl I approve of. See, even dumbass Rui can see that!"

"Hey," Tsukushi complained. "He isn't a–" but right then Rui did something with his tongue, and words were lost to her.

They were both pleased, almost laughing, proud like roosters parading around. Wanted more, she could tell, though they would never ask directly – Rui is too well raised, and Domyouji is at war with the Japanese language at the best of times, idiot sweetheart, kanji dyslectic.

Best of times? Aren't these the best of times? Have I ever been happier, than with both the people I love? No, she can't think of when that would have been, of what could compare to being able to take Domyouji's hand in one of hers, Rui's in the other, and have all of us smile, every one of us, no one excluded, everyone loved, and Rui reaching out wryly for Domyouji, and Domyouji grunting but letting Rui interlace their fingers as well, holding on bossily.

Brief converse, rather mumbled, and Rui laughing quietly at them when she blushed and Domyouji cursed or protested, pretending knowledge and mangling unfamiliar terms.

It is extremely important to her, the most important aspect of all, that no one be left out, and she believes they agree. The original idea, therefore, was that they both be with her, but Rui acted as the ever-embarrassing voice of reason ("that probably would not be very comfortable for Makino. Anal penetration can be tricky under the most benign circumstances, and the part that makes it most pleasurable for the receiving party is the presence of the prostate, which of course females lack…").

It melts her heart that Domyouji is so plainly innocent, even as she's relived behind the burning blush that Rui, that someone, knows what he's doing.

"Alright, then," she ventured, words stumbling clumsily over her tongue. "How do we – should we…?"

"Don't worry!" Domyouji immediately declared. "It's going to be perfect!" He looked so uncertain, and so determined, with that childish conviction that could move mountains like gravel.

"Ah," said Rui, and offered another idea. One that had Tsukushi staring at her knees with rare concentration, only darting a few fast, furtive glances at her companions. Unsurprisingly Domyouji, who has always reminded her of a character from a TV show with the catch phrase "if you must think, do it later", blustered and declared loudly he wasn't going to be anyone's girl.

"Alright," Rui smiled pleasantly. "Then I'll be yours, and Makino-chan can be mine."

First time he'd ever called her that. Shouldn't have made love throb through her quite so strongly, perhaps, but did.

The look dawning on Domyouji's face announced with all desirable clarity that he had not considered the full extent of the ramifications of his earlier declaration: but a man does not go back on his word (yes, we remember that, when you left us, oh darling, it was horrible. Rui never stayed away for so long, and he came back by himself, like a turtle returning to its place of belonging).

And Rui returns to himself with that thought, back into his own psyche and his own love.

Yes, my place of belonging.

They are turning in the bed, becoming alert. Soon, very soon, they will call for me.

He shakes his head, mutters under his breath, amused, heavy with the mono no aware that clings to him perpetually, happy from love and sad, drunk on it perhaps. A heady opiate. "If you get disinherited again, or you can't pay the rent, come live with me this time, yes?"

A modest fortune; togetherness. You might be able to live on love alone, but a bit of material comfort never goes amiss, greasing the wheels.

Tsukushi. Where's Rui?

He's here. Won't you come back to bed, Hanazawa Rui?

I go. And I will tear my hair, despair in gratitude; and we will have dreams together, and nightmares too, beginnings and ends and more beginnings, my little lion king, my darling steel-fisted princess on the white horse. Rescue me, blow me through the wind. Take my hand and hold. Let me take yours.

xxxxx