Written for my good friend slr2moons when she was very disappointed by the end of a certain books series. I don't know how well it helped, but here it is! This is a supernatural-themed AU. This comes sometime after the Hell's Maestro arc, so it will have Ryu spoilers. There will also eventually be Kyu x Ryu romance. Other pairings may be hinted at, but won't be given much screen time.

The entire story is finished and can be read in my livejournal, but I will be doing some cleaning up and additional editing on each chapter before posting here. If you would like to read the story all in one go you can either read the rough version there, or wait until this version is up to 9 chapters and marked 'complete.' I will be posting chapters at least once a week, more often if I can.

Warning: This fic is rated M for violence and a couple gory death scenes (it is a mystery manga, after all). If you may be bothered by such things here is your chance to turn back.

Additional warning: This Alternate Universe may not, in fact, be your brand of heroin.

It started with the call. Kyu had been the one to grab the phone out of Ryu's bag when it started ringing, unreasonably offended that Ryu had a cell and had never given the number to his classmates. Only it wasn't Ryu's phone, and it couldn't have been farther from a social call.

It was a challenge, a taunt from an unrecognizable voice, to track the caller down before he committed murder. The riddle he gave was so obvious that Kyu was hard pressed to remember the wording later, only the street number and the room number that it had led them to. There was no time limit given, no indication when they arrived if they were in time to save a life.

No matter how quickly they had tracked down the location, they were much too late. Kinta burst in first, expecting a fight, but there was no one living in the hotel room that they had been led to.

They found only the body of a young man in a crumpled suit suspended upside down from the ceiling. His collar had been unbuttoned, and his tie removed to serve as a blindfold. Blood marked trails from his chin to his temples, and into his hair, though his tie only had faint traces on it. His throat had been slashed open from ear to ear, cut so severely that his head was all but hanging off.

A message in garish red was splashed on the wall behind the corpse, 'Go home.'

Kinta rushed first to the window to check the fire escape for some sign that they had caught the perpetrator heading out, while Ryu stopped so suddenly at the sight that Kyu ran into his back. It wasn't a completely unfamiliar reaction. Megu had done the same thing, only she had taken herself half a step out of the way first. Her wide eyes were darting around the room with a familiar look of horror and determination. Her fingers were braced on Kazuma's shoulder, as if he might need to be held back from disturbing the scene. Kazuma didn't comment or pull away in offense as he might have a few months ago. He just stayed half-hidden behind his computer.

For the first minute the scene was too much input for him to even notice how still Ryu had gone. It wasn't until Ryu turned and stepped around Kyu to get back out of the room that Kyu's attention turned to the fact that something was wrong. He couldn't have said if he heard it or merely sensed it, but he knew Ryu's steps were unsteady.

Confusion caught Kyu's detective instincts, and he unthinkingly followed Ryu out into the hall, to find his friend all but leaning against the wall for support a few steps away. His whole body was visibly tense, and he had his face hidden in his hands, so that Kyu thought he might have been trying to avoid crying, or being sick.

The sight of Ryu, normally so calm and collected, looking on the verge of some sort of breakdown, was more terrifying than the corpse hanging from the ceiling. Kyu hesitated in the doorway, warring between the desire to try and comfort Ryu somehow and the idea that he should give his friend some privacy.

Before Kyu could make a move either way, Ryu became suddenly and inexplicably aware of his presence, his head snapping up and around to stare at Kyu. He didn't look tearful or nauseated, and Kyu couldn't quite place the expression on Ryu's face at first, only the fact that it didn't seem like it belonged there.

"Are you okay?" Privacy wasn't an option, now that Ryu knew he was here. Kyu approached him with the vague intention of putting an arm around Ryu's shoulders or something.

"I'll go show the police where we are," Ryu said quickly, backing away before Kyu could touch him. Not until he said that was Kyu aware of the sound of sirens wailing nearby. He knew that Kazuma had been on the phone with the police the whole time they were narrowing down the area to this street, this hotel, and finally the room. Finding out that they were too late had taken his attention off of that fact.

Kyu thought it was better to let Ryu be doing something, but he still watched Ryu turn and all but run down the hall, not taking his eyes off of that retreating back until Ryu had disappeared into the stairwell. He knew by now that Ryu rarely, if ever, offered information about himself, and he didn't think that would change any time soon, but he still wished that he could know what had shaken Ryu up so badly.

Once Ryu was out of sight, Kyu turned back to the scene in the hotel room. There were so many strange details to the scene, even his concern for Ryu couldn't successfully compete for his attention once Ryu wasn't directly in front of him.

First of all, there wasn't a single drop of blood on the floor. The room looked practically sterile, apart from the body and the message. It almost suggested that the man had been killed elsewhere, then hung here only to taunt them. Yet the blood on his face wasn't completely dry. The police coroner, once they had gotten the body down for him to examine, gave the estimate that the man had been killed less than thirty minutes ago, during or directly after the phone call.

The cause of death appeared to be exsanguination, yet there was not a drop of blood in the room. Even the message on the wall was obviously paint. And yet there didn't seem to have been time to drain the blood elsewhere and move the body.

The chains the body hung from had been installed by whomever had rented the hotel room that night. At least two people, it seemed. A man had checked in, but a woman had checked out. Neither had spoken a word. The man had worn a mask over his nose and mouth, and communicated via a chalk tablet that hung around his neck, so that the clerk had thought him ill or mute. The woman had only made noises of impatience and clicked her nails on the counter.

That was about as far as they got in examining the evidence before Hongou-sensei arrived. Not just him, but Nanami-sensei, two teachers Kyu recognized from lectures they had given at DDS, and one woman he wasn't sure he'd ever seen before. Having such an impressive show of backup wasn't nearly as startling as when Hongou-sensei put one hand on Kinta's shoulder and the other on Kyu's and announced that they were leaving the crime scene immediately.

Kyu tried to dig in his heels and protest, and found himself practically dragged out of the room and down the hall. Outside, Megu was describing something to Nanami-sensei in the wealth of detail only she could provide. Ryu seemed to be giving out similar information to a man who Kyu eventually recognized as one of their guest lecturers. Tanaka-sensei, who had a face as forgettable as his name.

"What are you doing, we're in the middle of a case!" Kyu protested, his face craned around to see the other two 'interlopers' going in to examine the hotel room.

"No, they are in the middle of a case. This is not your assignment."

Kyu looked around for support, sure his classmates had to be as shocked as he was at that. He caught the expression on Kazuma's face, the one practically saying, 'bad idea, don't do that,' and knew from that warning look Kinta was about to lose his temper, about half a second before he did.

"What do you mean, not our assignment! Someone was killed in there, and now you're saying we need permission to do our jobs and catch the criminal!"

"Lower your voice, Tooyama-kun," Hongou-sensei ground out between clenched teeth.

Kyu took advantage of the sudden outburst to squirm out of his sensei's grip. He didn't want to be between the two of them if they finally came to blows.

They probably would have, or something close to it, if Nanami-sensei hadn't intervened. He stepped up between the two of them, giving each a hearty slap on the back to distract them, and turning a frighteningly disarming grin on the whole class.

"You kids should know how it is when you're dealing with serial killers. It's much better to have the same team continue investigating each case." And that sounded to Kyu like as much of an explanation as they were going to get. Convenient. It didn't matter that they were first on the scene if the case had already been 'claimed' by someone else who presumably had more information, and more experience, on their side.

Kyu didn't like it, but he also recognized that arguing the point wouldn't get them back in on the scene. He looked over to where Tanaka-sensei was still questioning Ryu. Neither of them seemed to have noticed Kinta's outburst.

Ryu had gone tense again. His shoulders were hunched slightly together, his arms tight at his sides. Kyu was surprised that Tanaka-sensei didn't even seem to notice, that he seemed more intent on trying to quiz Ryu about the message on the wall, about the angle of the words, and the size of the letters in relation to each other. He could go and look at the wall himself, they would let him in! More than his irrational irritation, Kyu felt suddenly protective of his friend.

Without a second thought, Kyu stepped up and grabbed Ryu by the hand, effectively grabbing his attention. He tried to give Ryu an encouraging smile.

"Come on," Kyu insisted, tugging determinedly on Ryu's arm. "Let's go."

Tanaka-sensei took off his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief, looking vaguely at Kyu as he did so. Ryu seemed rooted on the spot, no matter how Kyu pulled at his hand. Kyu discovered there was no way he could surreptitiously shift Ryu, not if Ryu didn't want to budge.

It wasn't until Tanaka-sensei put his glasses back on and gave Ryu a brief, "Thank you, Amakusa-kun," that Ryu allowed himself to be pulled away. Kyu looked back over his shoulder at Tanaka-sensei, his curiosity about the entire exchange practically eating him alive, and found the older man still watching Ryu's back.

Kyu put one arm protectively around Ryu as they left. He wasn't sure what he was trying to do, only that he needed to do something. Ryu made no move to shrug him off, but remained tense under Kyu's arm. Kyu gave him a half-hug once they were out of the building, then let Ryu go. He let his hand brush Ryu's almost carelessly as he brought his arm down, trying to silently tell Ryu that if he wanted contact, he could still have it. To his surprise, Ryu's fingers curled hesitantly around his in response.

There didn't seem to be anything they could do but take Ryu home. Hongou-sensei certainly wasn't letting them back in, and he didn't seem about to take them back to the school to do work there, either. As much as it should have disturbed Kyu that they were doing exactly as the message on the wall had said, he had other things to think about.

Ryu's reaction bothered him. Not just his reaction, but the whole case was setting off alarm bells in Kyu's head. The phone (now left with the invading investigators as evidence) had been in Ryu's bag. Tanaka-sensei had singled Ryu out to interrogate. And Ryu had reacted to some powerful, private horror at the scene they had found. Kyu didn't know what it all pointed to yet, but he couldn't put it all down as mere coincidence.

What if the killer was targeting Ryu? That was the first, most disturbing, thought that Kyu had. He kept looking around, trying to tell if someone was following them, maybe stalking Ryu. In this situation, it would be up to him to do what he could to protect his friend.

"It's only Nanami-sensei following us," Ryu said, after several minutes of Kyu's hyper-vigilant act. Kyu hadn't even managed to confirm that someone was following them, but he trusted Ryu's judgement.

"Ryu, do you think something's wrong?" It didn't even occur to Kyu to keep his thoughts on Ryu's safety to himself. "It can't have been a coincidence that you got that call." And now Nanami-sensei was shadowing them on their way home. That did make Kyu feel a little better about Ryu's immediate safety, but it more importantly confirmed his feeling of some dangerous intent aimed directly at Ryu.

Ryu was silent for a long minute, and Kyu had no idea what he might be thinking, since he was sure Ryu had already had time to consider the same dangerous hints that he had noticed.

When he finally spoke, Kyu could tell he was phrasing his words with care, "It's not a secret that we're from DDS. We can't assume anything is a coincidence."

The way Ryu said it suggested other answers, their teachers' sudden appearance and complete lack of patience among them. If the killer knew who was involved in that case, and decided to send their innocent students directly to the scene of the next crime. . . that explained how suddenly they were barred from the scene, as well as Nanami-sensei keeping them in sight the whole way home.

The one thing it didn't explain was Ryu's reaction. Kyu gave Ryu's hand a reassuring squeeze, even as he didn't completely accept the solution Ryu was implying. He couldn't forget the way Ryu had looked in that moment when his head snapped up to stare at Kyu.

That expression hadn't been fear, or horror, or fury, but there had been shades of all three, along with a wild-eyed intensity that Kyu had only seen on Ryu's face once before. That was why it took him so long to place the expression, picturing it in his mind as he walked. Ryu had looked like a wild thing forced into a corner.

Kyu still didn't have any idea what about that scene had cornered Ryu, he only knew that the simple explanation Ryu had tried to give him was not enough. There was more to the truth, and he was determined to uncover it, for Ryu's sake.

Hongou-sensei did not want his students getting involved with that case, so they had no way to pry even a scrap of extra information out of him. Nanami-sensei was nowhere to be found, though Kyu had the idea that someone was shadowing them, and he certainly hoped it was their friendly man of many faces.

The only word they'd had so far had only confirmed what Ryu had suggested. Katagiri-sensei had basically 'debriefed' them, explaining that they must have been targeted because their teacher was involved with that case, and that it wouldn't be allowed to happen again.

After a week of absolutely no new information, Kyu was all but resigned to never being allowed to find answers. It was like they were expected to forget that anything had happened at all. That left Kyu with only his decision to never let Ryu out of his sight again.

The fact that it seemed to annoy Ryu, and that Ryu wasn't willing to admit that he wanted to skulk off somewhere without Kyu following, only strengthened his determination. If Ryu had only admitted that he wanted privacy for something, Kyu might have left him to it. However, he would soon find out that someone had Ryu firmly in their sights, and that no one would be allowed to forget it.

Ryu finally managed to slip away from Kyu one afternoon on their way home from school. One moment he was there, and the next Kyu turned to ask him something and found only empty air where he was sure Ryu had been only seconds before.

Kyu retraced his steps, trying to think, if he was Ryu, where would he have slipped off to? It would have helped if he'd had any idea what Ryu was up to. Even as he was thinking that there were an awful lot of places that Ryu could have disappeared to, Kyu could guess from where and how quickly he had disappeared that Ryu had slipped into a particular nearby building.

Almost as if Ryu were a lodestone that Kyu couldn't help orienting to, Kyu found that if he simply didn't think too hard about it, he felt an impression of where to go. Kyu had been aware of this feeling leading him to Ryu or Ryu to him before, but each time one of them had wanted, even needed, to be found by the other. That alone added a sense of urgency to his desire to find Ryu. Ryu might not have disappeared willingly, and if that was the case, it really was Kyu's fault for taking his eyes off of his friend for even a second.

It didn't make perfectly logical sense, slipping into the empty foyer of an apartment building looking for Ryu. Kyu felt so sure he would find Ryu there that he wondered if had seen something, just out of the corner of his eye, without realizing it. Trying not to over think things, to the point where he had no idea what he would do when he actually found Ryu, Kyu simply let himself orient to where he felt like Ryu should have gone.

The small corner of a mail room was empty, and the only other place Ryu could have disappeared quickly enough for Kyu not to see him through the glass doors was a nearby staircase. The reasoning supported Kyu's instinct to explore upstairs. The fact that there was no one to ask if they had seen Ryu come through also meant there was no one to stop Kyu and ask him if he belonged there. Kyu took that as a bit of good fortune.

At each landing Kyu paused, listening intently for Ryu's voice. He trusted the feeling that Ryu was somehow somewhere nearby, but he would still have preferred a bit more solid evidence.

On the fourth floor, Kyu heard the indistinct sound of a woman's voice. He was about to dismiss it, when he could have sworn he heard her say, "Ryu-san." Kyu paused in indecision. That couldn't be his Ryu she was referring to, could it?

A moment later he heard Ryu respond, and it was definitely Ryu's voice he was hearing, even if he couldn't make out all of the words. He was able to hear the tail end of what Ryu was saying, ". . . unnecessary to call me out like this."

Kyu crept closer, listening intently. The female voice was laughing, a strange, bubbly sound. Kyu wondered if she might be Ryu's girlfriend or. . . something. That didn't completely fit with the 'Ryu-san' comment, but Kyu was coming up blank for who Ryu would feel the need to sneak off to be with. Particularly someone who only laughed at Ryu when Kyu would have guessed from the sound of his voice that he was irritated.

"But you don't even know how much I have wanted to see you again. How can you be so cold?"

"I had no interest in seeing you," Ryu shot back. Even Kyu, who didn't really know the situation, privately agreed that the tone of his voice was rather cold.

By now Kyu was crouching beside the half-open door to the apartment Ryu seemed to have slipped into with his back to the wall. He was sorely tempted to peek inside, to get a look at the person he was hearing, but he resisted, just in case Ryu saw him.

"Now, now. You don't mean that."

"Get off of me." If his earlier words had been cold, they were nothing compared to the chill in Ryu's voice now.

Ryu's anger only prompted another bubbly, girlish giggle. "But I told you, I missed you. I'm sure you missed me too."

There was the sound of a sudden, breathless gasp, that Kyu was fairly sure came from Ryu.

Kyu felt the first spark of embarrassment for listening in like this. He had simply been irritated that Ryu was hiding something from him and worried that the something was dangerous. He hadn't expected to sneak in on something intimate. Even as he told himself that the idea of something intimate happening inside was only his imagination going overtime, Kyu felt an uncomfortable heat rising in his chest. As much as he wanted to know more about Ryu, Kyu wasn't sure he should be hearing this.

"I would prefer if you stopped that."

Stopped what? It was all Kyu could do not to peek. No matter how much he thought he didn't want to know, not knowing was still eating him alive with curiosity.

The next thing he heard was a loud crash, which startled Kyu into jumping to his feet. He heard more feminine laughter, but this time it sent an uncanny chill up Kyu's spine.

"How can I help it if you never fight back?" the girl laughed.

Something was definitely wrong with that last statement. Kyu moved to look inside, to make sure Ryu was all right, but he froze when he heard footsteps coming closer to the doorway. Kyu didn't think he'd made a sound, but he suddenly realized he would be able to avoid being seen if one of them decided to leave.

"And all this time you've been leaving me alone, you've been playing with some silly boy, haven't you?"

Kyu wasn't sure if that last comment was aimed at himself or at Ryu, since the female speaker he had been hearing chose that moment to step around the corner and glance down at him.

"Hi," was all Kyu could think to say. He was obviously busted.

His first impression of the girl was that she was almost as beautiful as Ryu. Her features were delicate, pointed, and almost elfin. Thick masses of blonde ringlets framed her face, taking a little of the sharpness out of her features. She looked very much like a fragile china doll, albeit one furious enough that Kyu expected her to vent her rage at finding him lurking there.

"You must be Ryu-san's friend," she cooed, and held one delicate hand out to him. She smiled, and Kyu suddenly couldn't remember where he'd gotten the impression that she was furiously angry with him.

"Yeah. Um. . . sorry to intrude."

Kyu found himself being led inside, though he didn't remember accepting the girl's proffered hand. He looked at his hand in hers, confused at himself for not being aware of taking it, and further confused by the feeling that she was strong enough to pull him no matter how he dragged his feet, even though she looked so delicate.

Then, Kyu's eyes fell on Ryu, and he felt as if he had snapped out of some sort of stupor. Ryu looked as if he had just picked himself up off of the floor, and there were a pair of chairs knocked over behind him, one broken into several pieces. Kyu was hard pressed to decide if the broken chair was a result of a recent scuffle. The entire room was a mess, as if someone had started to rearrange or repair things, but had gotten to the point of flinging furniture around and finally left in a huff without straightening up.

"Sorry," Kyu said quickly. Whatever Ryu had gotten himself into here, he didn't look hurt, at least. "I don't mean to interrupt the two of you." He tried to turn and leave, because it was preferable to finding out first hand what Ryu would do if he didn't.

"Oh, no. You should stay. I know Ryu-san would love for me to get to know his friends."

Either she didn't know Ryu all that well, or he had lost his mind, Kyu decided. The only impression he was getting from the look on Ryu's face that he didn't want Kyu here at all, let alone socializing.

"Don't you want to get to know me?" she asked. She cocked her head at Kyu, and he found the bird-like gesture was strangely disarming. At the same time, Ryu obviously didn't want him to stay, and that swayed Kyu more than any endearing gesture.

"Alyssia-san," Ryu's voice seemed to resonate through Kyu's bones, getting into his head, even though he knew the words weren't aimed at him. "Let go of him."

"Yeah," Kyu agreed quickly. "I'll just leave you alone."

"Now that's no fun." Alyssia seemed to be ignoring Ryu as she reached up to cup the back of Kyu's neck. "Ryu-san doesn't want to play with me, but you will, ne?"

The next thing Kyu knew, Ryu was at his side, calmly removing Alzssia's hands from him. Kyu hadn't even seen him move. All he knew was that Ryu had been on the other side of the room, and then suddenly he was right there.

"Kyu, you go on ahead without me," Ryu instructed. The seriousness in his voice was doing its best to smother the part of Kyu that still wanted to ask that he be introduced to Ryu's girlfriend, or whatever she was. The more Kyu became aware of the feeling that he was being coerced to leave, the more he wanted to fight it.

"So you can just sneak off again? I don't think so!" Kyu argued, even though he knew he would probably do as Ryu asked. He just hated the feeling that Ryu wanted to get rid of him.

Alyssia responded to the barb before Ryu could. She struck Kyu across the face so hard that he lost his footing, stumbled into the wall behind him, and slid bonelessly down to sprawl on the floor. Kyu stared up at her in shock, his whole head ringing from the blow. Alyssia looked so delicate, and her hands were so tiny. Kyu distantly wondered if Ryu had been the one who really hit him and he had missed it somehow.

Ryu was saying something, but Kyu couldn't make out the words over the ringing in his ears. Whatever it was, it seemed to irritate Alyssia, because she calmly backhanded him. That single blow was enough to knock even Ryu off his feet, sending him crashing into a metal table that had been left haphazardly in the middle of the room.

If he hadn't hurt so much, Kyu would have wondered if he was dreaming. This was somewhere outside of his experience, the idea of that much brute strength in such tiny hands. Kyu had thought Megu could do a surprising amount of damage when she was really angry, but she had never sent anyone flying across the room for a single comment.

Alyssia grabbed Kyu by one wrist, pulling him halfway to his feet. Her grip was so strong that Kyu was sure he could feel the bones in his wrist grinding together. And with the look of smug superiority that came into her face, Kyu was no longer completely sure how he could have thought of those features as delicate. Pretty, yes, but in a rather terrifying way that Kyu didn't want to consider.

"Let go of him," Kyu heard Ryu demand.

Alyssia acted as if she hadn't heard him. She cupped Kyu's face in one hand, her long, elegant nails digging into his cheek, and tilted his face to one side to study him. Kyu got the feeling that she could injure him very easily, and she probably wouldn't care, or even notice.

"You have been so very rude to my Ryu," she scolded. Her sweet, girlish voice belied the painful grip on Kyu's wrist.

Yet again, Kyu didn't even see Ryu move. All he knew was in the next instant a piece of metal pipe had bloomed through Alyssia's chest, its jagged end only a few centimeters from Kyu's face. Blood seeped out around the pipe, spreading in a pool of crimson across the front of her dress.

Ryu was standing behind her shoulder, his head down so that Kyu couldn't see his eyes. It seemed to take Kyu's brain an unnaturally long time to grasp the fact that Ryu was holding the other end of the pipe. It seemed easier for his brain to place the 'pipe' as one of the legs of the table Ryu had crashed into a moment ago, then to place the sight of Ryu's hands on it. Kyu couldn't seem to process the sight of Ryu stabbing someone.

"I told you to let go of him," Ryu hissed, and Kyu felt the grip on his wrist release, letting him fall back against the wall.

"Ryu," Kyu managed to gasp hoarsely. Even if she had been hurting him a little, that was no reason for Ryu to come up and stab someone.

Yet, Alyssia didn't seem at all affected by the attack. She reached up and calmly pushed the pipe back out of her chest, letting it fall to the floor behind her before turning to face Ryu. The last expression Kyu caught on her face as she turned was a strangely satisfied smile.

"I always wondered what it would take to make you fight back. Well, now you have my full attention."

Ryu retreated a few steps. His head lifted, and his eyes found Kyu's over Alyssia's shoulder. He didn't need to say a word, Kyu got a strong enough impression from the look on his face alone. He might as well have screamed at Kyu, 'Get out of here!'

Kyu scrambled to his feet, keeping his eyes fixed on Ryu's as he slid out the door. He wasn't entirely sure he wasn't dreaming, no matter how much the twinges of pain in his wrist and back and face were insisting otherwise. Ryu had stabbed someone right in front of him, and the person he had stabbed didn't even seem to care.

The minute he was a few steps down the hall and could no longer see Ryu, Kyu stopped. He didn't know what he was doing any more. There were sounds of a scuffle inside, but before Kyu's curiosity could override Ryu's command to get out, Ryu came shooting out of the door. He collided with Kyu, sweeping him off of his feet.

Kyu found himself suddenly scooped up in Ryu's arms, balanced against his chest. The hallway was a blur around them, Ryu was running so fast.

"Hold on to me," Ryu instructed, even though Kyu was already clinging for dear life.

Kyu hardly had time to see the window at the end of the hallway, and to realize that Ryu wasn't going to stop, before Ryu dove at it, taking Kyu with him. He curled himself around Kyu in midair, in the second before they crashed, creating a shield over Kyu out of his shoulders and head.

Clinging to Ryu with all of his strength, Kyu wasn't sure at first if they were flying or falling. For one breathless second they seemed to simply hang suspended in midair. Kyu only had the single, powerful impression of Ryu's face above his, surrounded by the sparkle and glare of thousands of tiny glass shards.

Falling might have won, but Ryu's momentum was enough that he was able to catch hold of the fire escape of the building opposite with one hand, halting their fall. He was still holding Kyu with his other hand, which might not have been necessary at that point. Kyu was clinging so hard that he didn't think Ryu could have dislodged him even if he'd wanted to.

Kyu thought he head Ryu murmur his name, but the sound of it was lost as they dropped another level, and then another. Ryu swung them down in stages, halting their fall at each floor, until they finally landed safely on the ground. Then Kyu was being swept along in Ryu's arms again.

Kyu buried his face in Ryu's shoulder. He was trusting that Ryu wouldn't crash into anything, but mostly Kyu didn't want to see it coming if they did crash.

It wasn't long before Ryu slowed, and finally stopped, but Kyu didn't lift his head. He felt dizzy from the wind rushing in his ears, and was halfway convinced that if he did lift his head, Ryu would take it as an invitation to begin another round of dangerous gymnastics.

"Are you all right?"

The concern in Ryu's voice made gave Kyu enough courage to peer up at his face. Ryu was standing stalk still, holding him solidly, but Kyu didn't trust that to be any indication that he was done racing around.

"I'm fine," Kyu managed. He took a second to survey his own body, trying to double-check. As far as he knew, he was fine.

"Can you stand? I'll put you down."

"No way. As soon as you put me down, you're going to run off again, aren't you?" If Ryu decided to leave without him, Kyu knew there was no way he would be able to keep up. His best chance seemed to be to hang on to Ryu and not give him the chance to escape.

"I promise I won't run away without you. I'm taking you home." Ryu tried to set Kyu on his feet while he soothed him, but Kyu stubbornly held on.

"Not until you explain what's going on with you. What were you doing back there!"

"Kyu, I can't. . . Not yet."

"Tell me," Kyu insisted. "You can't hide everything from me, not after that."

Ryu was silent for a few seconds, sifting through Kyu's hair with his fingers and removing bits of broken glass. Kyu allowed it, since reaching up to stop or encourage Ryu would have meant breaking his grip on Ryu's shoulders.

"Not now. Not here."

Kyu opened his mouth to protest, but Ryu cut him off, "At least let me talk to you somewhere private."

"Okay," Kyu agreed easily, "When we get home, then." As long as Ryu told Kyu what was going on, there was no need for him to shout his secrets out to the whole world.

Reluctantly, Ryu nodded his agreement. Kyu finally loosened his grip, waiting a few heartbeats to see if Ryu would bolt anyway. Ryu didn't move an inch. He was waiting for Kyu to take the first step.

The rest of their walk home was made in silence.