Warning: This story is rated M, and from this point on, it will include graphic depictions of violence and scenes of a sexual nature. I know you're not going to listen to me, but I'll say it anyways, if you're under 18, please refrain from reading. Even without those scenes, this story is thought out to be for mature audiences, because of the plot itself.

Also, this is only half of this chapter, I just really wanted to post this today, read the AN at the end to know why.

A response to an anonymous reviewer: Oh my god… your review almost made me cry. I'm so glad that this story touched you like that. I drew from my own experience to write this, so I understand what you went through, what you're probably still going through, as am I. I love reading and writing fun and light fics in this fandom, but I thought it was necessary to take things a bit more seriously for a moment, and actually address Yuuri's process, having been raised in a homophobic society and coming out. I hope you reviewed with a user so we could talk more, but I hope you'll let me know if you're still there, and if the story meets your expectations in the following chapters. Really, thank you so much for what you said, you made me pick this story back up.

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Conviction. Part one

It was sunday morning and Wolfram was sitting in the living room, reading one of Miko-san's light romance novels, with a dictionary also in hand. They had already been on Earth for three weeks, and Yuuri was at his school, attending a game of his former baseball team. It was actually the last time he would step inside the school grounds, even though the actual graduation was not for another two weeks. Yuuri had decided to skip the ceremony now that he had taken all of his exams, knowing his absence in Shin Makoku had been already too long. They were to depart on tuesday, after taking care of some paperwork on monday, and having a last good meal with the family, for what would probably be a long time, for them at least.

Wolfram was wearing cargo shorts and a white t-shirt with a band logo, he didn't know the band, but the design had caught his eye when shopping with Miko-san. There really wasn't any kind of clothing that resembled the ones people worn on Earth, back in Shin Makoku. Wolfram was starting to worry he was getting used to the lightness of the fabrics, and, being honest, even though he loved his uniform, this was so much comfortable, specially considering the heat of summer. Not to mention the shoes, sneakers were so easy to move in. But overall, this kind of outfit lacked a certain aesthetic quality, in his opinion.

"Wolf-chan, I was thinking we could go out to the mall, I have a hair appointment at noon. If you come with me, afterwards we could go pick Yuuri up from school and eat out" Miko-san said from the kitchen. She had been absentmindedly looking through a magazine for a good twenty minutes.

Wolfram remembered how his mother had felt when he graduated from the academy. She had been happy, of course. But when she thought he wasn't looking, she had shown this really forlorn expression. After becoming a parent to Greta himself, he had come to understand the reason for that, it was hard to see your kids growing, and maybe not needing you as much anymore.

"I'd love to" he answered, getting up from the couch and showing her a kind smile.

The past couple of weeks had been, somewhat enlightening, and also, somewhat confusing for Wolfram. He was beginning to understand Yuuri's concerns a little better, but he was still very puzzled by the earthen way of thinking about what they called homosexuality. Yuuri had been attending school and taking exams for the entire time they had been there, so he had either been out of studying, most of the time. Wolfram didn't really mind, he was used to that, their schedules didn't really match up all that much back home either, so the only constant was the fact that they were the first person they saw in the morning, and the last at night.

But because of this, the person with whom he had spent the most time had been Miko-san, and thus, he had asked her about his newly found doubts. He didn't remember just how he had phrased the question at the time, but the image of the usually cheerful woman's expression darkening, was definitely stuck on his head.

Miko-san told him about homosexuals, lesbians and also bisexuals, which apparently he was, to his surprise. And also said there were a lot more words used to describe other types of attraction between people of different genders, she even said there were people who identified as the opposite sex to which they were born, and that they were called transexuals. Wolfram had to take a moment at that point, to digest the information. It wasn't any new information, back in Shin Makoku there were people who would fall into any of those categories, but there weren't any names for them, people just were who they were, and loved who they loved. That was it, they didn't need a label.

It was really hard for him to understand the need to classify people in such a way, and it was even harder to hear that all of those people were usually rejected by society for just… being who they were. When he asked the reason for this, Miko-san hadn't been able to answer fully, she had told him that there were many factors, one of them being religion, which was also a bit of a foreign concept for him as a mazoku.

He knew humans back home also practiced religion in a very similar way to humans on Earth, but he had never liked the whole concept. In his opinion, it was only a system designed to subdue people. He didn't consider himself heretic, he had a deep respect for the gods, but the way humans organized around religion was usually, in his experience, no more than a facade to hide the true intentions of those humans who placed themselves at the top of the piramide.

Miko-san had introduced him to an entirely new world of terms and concepts he never knew existed, and found himself wondering why hadn't Yuuri explained them to him sooner. Maybe if he had, Wolfram wouldn't have been so insensitive about it, and also, he wouldn't have had to suffer so much, believing he was in a hopeless relationship all those years.

After a few days pondering over it, he realized Yuuri had hid this information from him, probably for his own good. In his own wimpy way, Yuuri had been trying to protect him from a harsh reality. And not only him, being the kind hearted man that he was, he probably hadn't wanted for this kind of mindset to travel across the dimensions with him, because, deep down, all Yuuri ever wants is to see the people he cares about smile. If it became known that the Maou had this sort of beliefs, it wouldn't have been long before they spread across the land.

Becoming aware of this had made Wolfram happy for two reasons; the first, he was moved by Yuuri's desire to protect him; the second, he wasn't so proud of. Being honest, he had never, for one second, stopped loving Yuuri, but that didn't mean he didn't resent him a little until that point. Even if his intentions were good, even if he now understood his reasons, that didn't erase the fact of Wolfram's pain still being there, and Yuuri being the culprit. It had been almost six years! Six years of waiting, six years of insecurities, six years of rejection, six years of humiliation. Even if it was petty on his part, knowing that Yuuri had his own share of pain, made him feel a tiny bit better, in a dark, deep place inside his heart.

It was just a little though, he mainly just wanted to be able to erase that pain from Yuuri's heart, and protect him in the same way that Yuuri had wanted to protect him, so because of that, he didn't tell Yuuri about his new knowledge on the lgbt community, he figured he probably didn't really understand enough of the subject anyway.

Once they got to the mall, a place to which Wolfram just could not get used to, no matter how many times they went, he let himself be dragged from store to store by Miko-san, while they waited for the time for her appointment. She bought several things for him and Yuuri to take back home, a plush panda for Gwendal, an ink pen for Günter with several recharges, a book in english for Conrart, a beautiful sundress for Greta, a bottle of perfume for Wolfram's mother, and finally two packages for him and Yuuri, that she didn't let him see.

Wolfram was so happy that this woman was going to be his mother in law, she had a certain something about her, a kind of magic, which made him feel loved and safe. He was ashamed of the way he had spoken of her, without even knowing her, but he didn't regret it, if it hadn't been for that idiotic remark he once made about her, he would have never become Yuuri's fiance, and he probably would have never come to love him.

"Wolf-chan, dear, I'm gonna go inside the hair salon now, would you keep an eye on the bags for me? I won't be long" She said. They hadn't actually been in the mall for even an hour, but she had managed to buy so much stuff so fast, it amazed Wolfram, who generally took about an hour to pick out a single suit, not because he enjoyed shopping all that much, but because he was a bit picky, maybe more than a bit.

"Sure, Mother" he answered, taking all the bags from her hand, adding them to the ones he was already carrying.

"Call me mama, Wolf-chan! And don't peak at the presents for you and Yuuri!" She said and merrily entered the hairdresser's shop, that had a big sign in the form of giant scissors on the front entrance.

Wolfram took a seat on one of the resting tables in the middle of the big aisle, surrounded by shops, next to an artificial waterfall in the center of it, that was illuminated by moving lights of several colors. He put the packages and bags on the table and let himself fall on the chair. Women had a lot of energy when it came to shopping, for some reason he didn't really understand. His mother and Greta were the same, they would always drag him from shop to shop when they went shopping in town, and when the tailor came to the castle, they would try on a hundred different things before maybe choosing one or two of them. Well, he couldn't say they weren't thrifty that way though.

Then he noticed there was a little newspaper stand with free copies for the people on the resting area to read. He picked one up and thought he might as well give it a try, he didn't have Yuuri's dictionary with him, but it was better than doing nothing while waiting.

There wasn't anything too interesting or too complicated in the first couple of pages, although there was still a lot of words he couldn't understand. There was something about a woman, a celebrity of sorts, having been discovered either coming out or going into the apartment of another celebrity, he couldn't really make up which one it was. Then there was a story about a politician, and his opinion regarding the decrease of natality of the country, it said that japan had the largest amount of citizens over the age of one hundred in the world, if he wasn't reading it wrong. He thought that was definitely an accomplishment, for humans, and made a mental note to ask Yuuri about it later.

He kept flipping through the pages, he could understand most of it, but whenever a person would come up, he would have absolutely no idea of who they were, or their significance, so he didn't really know if he was reading anything of actual importance or not.

And then, he found a headline that made his blood run cold, The worst massacre of USA since 11-S. At approximately two am. today, terrorist irrupts into homosexual nightclub and kills at least fifty people, injuring another fifty, before being gunned down by police.(1)

Words such as gunned, massacre and kill were amongst the first he learned how to read, because some of his practice material had been history books, the thing that surprised him was the word he had learned just recently, homosexual. He continue reading and found that the author of the crime had sworn his allegiance to what he assumed was some sort of terrorist organization, before performing his massacre. The president of the country had apparently classified the act as a crime of hate. Crime of hate… he had hear Yuuri say those words before, referring to the conflicts between mazoku and humans, just because of their race, which he had come to understand was nonsensical over the years, but was sexuality even an equivalent of race?

Had this man really just gone and killed fifty innocent people, just because they were homosexuals? There were pictures of people crying outside the building that was surrounded by police cars, and also of some of the victims. Yuuri had always told him than Earth wasn't like Shin Makoku, that there was peace, and people didn't carry swords or guns with them because it was safe. How had this happened then? Was it normal for people to get killed like this, because of who they loved?

He felt his heart aching at the thought. He had been naive, he had underestimated Yuuri's fear, and his struggle to come to love him.

The story was two pages long, and it talked about a lot of things Wolfram didn't understand, a lot of words written in katakana, meaning they came from a different language. There were a lot of names, most of the victims that had already been identified. That made it all the more horrible. Wolfram wasn't a stranger to death and tragedy, he had lived through a war, but knowing the names of the people that died, putting an identity to the lifeless bodies, made it seem much more real, even though he was just peacefully sitting down in a mall, with no sense of danger near him, those people were dead. They were dead because of a characteristic that he shared with them, because they were men who loved other men.

Did that man really believe he was doing something good by killing these people?

"Of course he did" An old man had answered to the thought, he then realized, he had voiced out loud. He was sitting on the table next to his, with another man of approximately the same age. They were both reading the paper as well.

"What do you mean?" Wolfram asked, intrigued by the man's comment.

"You were talking about the guy who killed the fags, right?" he retorted, fixing his posture to face Wolfram, and putting down the paper in his hands.

"The fags?" Wolfram asked, he had never heard that word before, but by the tone the man had used, he guessed it was an insult.

"Yeah, the fags, the gays, the homos, you know what I mean" The man was a little overweight, and was wearing a plaid shirt, which had just came out of his pants on one side, because of the vivid hand gestures he was making to illustrate Wolfram of his meaning.

"You say that he thought he was doing the right thing?" Wolfram asked in disbelief. As he did, the other man also faced in his direction and put down his paper. He was wearing a suit and seemed like a pretty neat person, in contrast with his companion.

"I'm saying that he did the right thing, kid" Wolfram's eyes widened, as a surge of anger started to fill his stomach and chest. "We're better off with all those dick suckers gone to hell, where they belong" he said proudly, and confidently, as if what he was speaking was nothing less than the absolute truth.

"What gives you the right to say that!?" Wolfram asked, raising his voice, but still fighting the urge to get up and punch the lights out of the old fart.

"It's not a matter of having the right or not" The other man finally spoke. "It's a matter of common sense. They're abnormal and corrupt society with their ways. Just look at where they were, a nightclub of all places. They were probably taking drugs and fornicating within themselves." he said, adjusting his thick glasses, that were falling down the bridge of his nose, because of the downright angle in which he was looking at Wolfram.

In that moment Wolfram felt something snap inside of him, he couldn't remember the last time he had been so angry. Who were these men to speak so lowly of people they had never even met. What had the victims of this atrocity done wrong to deserve to be judged by these strangers, even in death?

But although he was angry, so much that his skin burned, he found himself feeling incredibly sad, and helpless. There was something about the way these men expressed themselves that made him feel small. They were not just talking about the people who died, they were also talking about him. They were judging him.

"How can you speak in such a way! What about their mothers, their fathers!? How can you insult the memory of the deceased with such arrogance!?" He said while standing up, knowing his last bit of self control was about to leave him, he felt he was about to cry, and also, about to kill them.

"If they raised a freak like that, then they had it coming" The fat man said, flatly.

That was it. Oh Shinou, That. Was. It. He was going to kill them, he might not have his fire but he could still beat them to death.

"You…" he said menacingly, as he approached the men slowly, but then…

"Wolf-chan"

Wolfram's head jolted back, hearing the familiar voice. Miko-san was behind him, right behind him, he hadn't even noticed her approaching him because of how mad he was.

"Wolf-chan, this ignorant pigs don't deserve your attention, sweetie" She said softly, smiling in a way that was somehow really scary. "Go get our bags honey, or we'll be late to pick up Yuu-chan"

Wolfram felt all the energy in his body was drained out by those words, he had been about to do something he was surely going to bring them a whole lot of problems. His sanity was slowly returning, but the feelings of anger and sadness wouldn't disappear that easily. Once he had grabbed all the bags and packages he turned to Miko-san, who was still facing the two men.

"Now, listen you two, because I will only say this once" She said, walking over to the table, as calmly as if she was asking them the time. "I may not want my beautiful son in law to dirty his hands with scum like you, but trust me, you do not want to anger Hamano Jennifer. So before that happens, how about you get your heads out of the fifteenth century and maybe also learn the valuable lesson of just shutting up, if you have nothing intelligent to say. My son andhis fiance, are both my children…" She leaned closer to the fat man, who looked like he had just seen a ghost. "And nobody messes with my children"

She turned around to face Wolfram, her smile still impeccably placed. Wolfram was so stunned he momentarily forgot how to walk.

"Bye bye gentlemen" She tilted her head to the side innocently as she said that, and then grabbed Wolfram's arm to lead the way out of the mall.

To be continued...

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I got this from an actual headline of the day after the massacre at Pulse, before the body count was confirmed (50 dead, one of them being the shooter, and 53 seriously injured)

AN: Okay guys, so, here's the deal, I'm gonna be talking from my own experience here, so bear with me for a while. I've encountered that coming out, for those of us who are lucky, is a bittersweet experience, you encounter rejection and acceptance alternately, whether it comes from your family, your friends, your classmates, your co-workers, or even complete strangers on the streets. For those who are unlucky, it is only bitter. Living as an openly gay man or lesbian woman (or any other in the lgbtq spectre) is hard in this society still, and I wanted for Wolfram in this story to understand that, and for Yuuri to live through it.

When something like the massacre at Pulse happens, I think it is necessary to take a moment and realize the gravity of the situation, and not forget it easily. That is why I started this story last year, and also why I included it here, exactly one year after that horrible tragedy. I know you came to the site looking for an entertaining story, and not a sermon about LGBTQ rights, so I'll make this short:

I don't know you, but if you enjoy my stories it means that you don't have a problem with same sex relationships, in fact, it means that you probably support them, so I hope each and every one of you takes that into actual action, and if you're faced with a situation like the one Wolfram was faced in this chapter, or the ones that will come in future chapters, you'll act as an ally, speak up, lend your shoulder to the victim at least, you never know when a LGBTQ youth is listening, and their self esteem is being undermined. This is Pride month, so everything LGBTQ related get a bit more attention, but let's stand together with pride all year long, as "members" of the community or as allies :)

Thank you those of you who took the time to read my not so little author's note here, even though I kinda got a bit heavy.

PS: I do realize I just outed myself, I don't really mind. I also realize that, because of the time difference between Orlando and Japan, the timeline is a bit messed up here, it was just too much of a hazzle to explain that in the story, so I eliminated the time difference altogether, sorry for that.