Someday, Somewhere, Somehow

Someday, Somewhere, Somehow....

Disclaimer: I don’t own Fushigi Yuugi, it’s characters, its franchises, or the creator’s likeness. I do, however, own this story, its plot, its storyline, and its reincarnations through which the series characters (whom I do not own) will speak, live, and think during the course of this work of fiction (which is mine, so don’t anyone dare steal it). Did I cover everything?

Notes: I think I say this at least once a fic, but I’ll say it one more time to drive it home for my readers and for the sake of those who have not read the other works I’ve written. I DO NOT tolerate flames of any sort other than those emitted during a Rekka Shinen or other copyrighted manga/anime attack. Constructive criticism will be tolerated, even welcomed, so long as it consists of friendly suggestions and reasonable, courteous corrections of grammar, spelling, or something related to the series. No swearing, berating, insults, or reviews wherein the reviewer has no grasp of proper grammar or other linguistic skills will be accepted, acknowledged, or responded to in any way. And please, keep in mind that if you act as though you are still three years old, you shouldn’t presume to tell me how to write.

I swear I'm not a hardass. XD I just don't like being flamed at by internet trolls. Please enjoy the fic.

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Morning, for him, was not the time when people woke up, ate breakfast or skipped it according to preference, got in their cars or on their bikes, and rushed off to work or school to launch a day full of measured insanity. It was not the restart button for the hectic, fast-paced, progress driven, get-me-there-and-do-it-now-now-now mass of color and noise and jumbled notions that made up the human race.

To him, morning was something entirely different. It was a whisper in his subconscious, a hint of gray on the horizon, a cool, predawn draft creeping through the screen of the window someone had forgotten to close again the night before. It was a hush that was more than a lack of sound but also a feeling that beckoned quiet, a reminder to a small number of very late or very early goers that the city was still fast asleep, and that a single crack in the stillness would set everything off again. It was a reverent calm, a hallowed tranquility, a manifestation of the concept of peace on Earth, good will toward the sleeping ones and good morning to the ones who couldn’t sleep for one reason or another. It was the blessed cloak of Zen to be banished in only a few hours by the first alarm clock pealing in its owner’s ear.

It was the only time when Ri Houjun did not feel as though it would be better if the whole neighborhood went up in flames.

He slipped out the back door of his house as silently as the coming sunrise, and began walking. He could be back before the sleepers upstairs even knew that he had been gone, with enough time to make sure everything was in order for the coming disaster that would be his day. Until then, he would immerse himself in the blanket of smoky serenity that he called morning.

It was cold, and his breath frosting in the air heralded the coming of autumn. He did not bother to retrieve a coat; it would waste time, and he wanted to enjoy every last second of this god-given quiet before the city awoke and began anew its scurrying and bustling about. So he just jammed his hands into his jeans pockets for warmth and strode briskly down the sidewalk.

Overhead, a bird twittered its clandestine tribute to the hidden sun, and fell silent. No other creatures joined the ringing tones that swiftly faded. The others were all asleep. Only that one bird seemed to understand the sacred nature of this time, and that short burst of song, quickly hushed, was as an offering.

An offering to whom, I wonder? Houjun thought, and decided it didn’t matter.

The sky slowly turned a lighter shade of gray, and soon the somber hue gave way to a faint, orange-pink blush that deepened gradually to rose. He leaned against a street lamp and watched the sun make its appearance, looking away only when the rising orb became bright enough to sting his eyes and make them water. It was the signal to turn around and head back, and he took it as he always did, reluctantly.

The house was still quiet when he returned, and he was able to slip upstairs to his room with as little notice as he had left. If his parents knew of his morning ritual, they would most likely put a stop to it out of “concern.”

He frowned. Was it his fault that they didn’t trust him? Maybe. But that didn’t give them the right to watch his every move as though he were a convicted criminal. He had a life and he intended to live it, with or without their consent. Besides, they were only two strange adults he happened to live with. They weren’t the people he called his family.

Later that morning, after about an hour and a half of sleep to make up for the time he had given up to watch the morning break, Houjun found himself being shaken awake. He grunted his annoyance into his pillow and ignored the insistent hand on his shoulder, ignored the body it was attached to and the authoritive voice telling him to “up and at ‘em.” An exasperated sigh somewhere above his head indicated to him that he had won—for now—and footsteps muffled by his bedroom carpet receded until he was certain he was alone. He dragged himself up out of the dazed, crusty-eyed, cotton-mouthed state he had only just fallen into, and after clearing the sleep from his eyes he rose and trudged to the bathroom to begin again his daily routine. He too was part of the never-ending circle of the world’s mundane, he just refused to let it pull him into its frenzy and tear him to bits as it did so many others. He enjoyed doing things at his own pace, and woe unto any who tried to rush him.

Breakfast was the usual lackluster affair. He poured himself a bowl of cereal and milk, and knelt at the traditional Japanese table in the room next to the kitchen to eat it. His father was already there, drinking a mug of his customary black coffee and staring uninterestedly at the paper. Houjun was nearly through with his breakfast when, right on schedule, his mother entered and stood watching “her boys” get ready to start their day. Her smile was wide and bright, but her son thought it looked a bit strained. It always did, whether from an argument the previous night or the anticipation of another to come. Houjun resisted the urge to snort at that thought. It wouldn’t happen so often if she displayed a little less acid and a little more actual spine, or if her husband were not so overbearing.

As though on cue, his father spoke, piercing the invisible tension with casual words of interrogation. “How’s school been going?”

Houjun considered not answering, but it was too early for confrontation. “The same as always, I suppose.”

“Been staying in your classes, son?”

“None of your damn business.” It was out before he could stop himself, and though he wished he hadn’t said it, there was no going back now that his mouth had once again gotten the best of him. He saw his father’s eyes narrow slightly behind the good ol’ Tokyo Times, and heard his mother’s sharp intake of breath that meant she was ready to start sobbing if the opportunity presented itself.

“Houjun—”

He was on his feet and out the door before the rest of the angry scolding could emerge, barely stopping long enough to grab his schoolbag and shove his feet into his shoes (always tied to provide a quick escape). He swung his leg over the seat of his motorcycle, noting it would need more gas soon. Just as he finished pulling his helmet down over his head and was turning on the ignition, his father exited the house with the obvious intention of continuing where he had been cut off. Houjun did ignore him this time, pretending he couldn’t hear anything through the full-coverage helmet that hid his face from view. He pushed the kickstand up with his foot and sped away, paying the stern shouts behind him no heed whatsoever. He would deal with it when he got home, whenever that was.

To his credit, he did indeed arrive at school. He was even there on time. He parked his bike near the building as always, where it would be close at hand if he needed it. No teacher had ever succeeded in capturing him yet when he was intent on evasion. Not even his best friend Kou Shun’u was as adept at fleeing the long arm of the Educational System.

“Oi! Houjun!” Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

He turned and offered a dazzling grin. “Genrou, no da! Good morning, such as it is, no da!”

The greeting smile immediately fled the redhead’s face. “Christ, man, you never pull that ‘no da’ shit unless you’re in a really bad mood. What happened?”

“My dad asked about my classes again,” Houjun admitted, “You know I hate that.”

“Yeah, I know.” Kou Shun’u, called Genrou by his friends and anyone else who wanted to live, suddenly brightened again. “Say, there’s this girl who just moved here, and I hear she’s hot.”

The taller boy raised a sky-blue eyebrow. “I thought you hated women, no da.”

“Yetch,” Genrou replied, his amber eyes widening in disgust, “I do hate ‘em. I only mentioned it ‘cause I know you’re a lonely sonovabitch. Always mopin’ and stuff. You could use a good lay.”

Houjun grimaced, a familiar yet implacable feeling of queasiness sinking into his stomach. “You should know by now, Genrou, I don’t care for women much myself, no da.”

Recognizing the quirky add-on words as the warning they were, Genrou did not press further. “Ah the hell with it,” he said instead. “Let’s go before the teachers start hollerin’ at us. Again.”

First period was math (and Houjun cursed with every fiber of his being the ignoramus who had come up with his schedule), and today they would be working on some rather complex geometric equations. It wasn’t as though he was not good at the subject. He did reasonably well in all of his classes, save for his sometimes lack of attendance. It was only that boredom was to him what kryptonite was to Superman. It ate away at him until he felt nearly dead inside, and desired nothing more than to jump up and scream at the teacher to say something—anything—that mattered. None of this mattered to him. He knew the logical reasons why having an education was a “good thing,” but none of them seemed to apply to him personally. All he wanted, all he needed, was to start walking and keep on until his feet found a place where they could take root. Then, when he felt restless again, he could just dig himself up, shake himself off, and continue his journey. Maybe he would find a purpose if he walked far enough. It sounded perfectly reasonable to him. Yet here he was in a classroom, surrounded by the slack, weary faces of other adolescents with just as little to be here for as he. The drone of the educator’s voice as he covered the intricacies of a particular equation soon dimmed to mere white noise buzzing in Houjun’s ears. There had to be something more than this to life. There just had to.

He knew before he was even on his feet and heading for the door that today was going to be one of his “bad days.” He tuned out the indignant protest of the teacher, slid the door shut behind him, and stalked out of the school building. The other students had not so much as blinked; they were used to the strange, taciturn young man with the light-blue hair getting up and leaving without so much as a word of excuse. They were used to him, but that didn’t mean they understood him in the least. Houjun often wondered if he understood himself.

A hand fell gently on his shoulder just as he reached his bike. “Are you leaving already?”

The deep, rumbling baritone told him who it was, as if the large hand with its surprisingly delicate touch had not already done the job. Still, Houjun did not turn. He leaned tiredly over his motorcycle, splaying both hands across the leather seat to brace himself up. “I’m not having a good day, Juan.”

Myou Juan sighed, running a hand through his short-cropped black hair in a gesture vaguely reminiscent of an exasperated older brother. In a way, that was exactly what he was to the other young man. Including, more often than not, the exasperated part. “Houjun, if you miss too much school the police will start bothering you again. Haven’t you had enough of that kind of trouble?”

The blue-haired teenager couldn’t look at him. He knew his attitude caused his friend a good amount of pain, and he didn’t want to see it reflected in the other’s warm eyes. He answered, though, feeling he at least owed Juan that much. “I can’t take this. It’s like being in a cage, and I just want out for a while. Is that too much to ask?”

Instead of heeding the rhetorical question, Juan asked another. “What am I going to do with you? No, what are you planning on doing with you? You can’t go on like this forever, Houjun. You need to plan for your future.”

“What makes you think I have a future?” Houjun replied, his tone bitter. “I’m a junior now, and I’ll be a senior before I know it. I don’t have the time to start over at the rate I’m going.” He looked up, staring into something distant, something he couldn’t quite see or remember. “There must be more to this. There must be more to me, but I don’t know what it is or where I’m supposed to look for it. I feel like I’ve forgotten something, and it’s tearing me up inside, little by little. Have you ever felt that way, Juan?”

“Sometimes,” the other said quietly. “When I’m alone in my room, and I don’t hear anything but my own breathing. At times like those, I feel that way too.”

They stood there without speaking for a long while after that, feeling the familiar vibes pass between them. They were perhaps the two most similar people either of them knew, both somber, both somewhat withdrawn, both with unvoiced demons in their hearts. Neither knew for certain what it was that troubled the other so deeply, but both had the impression it was not something the other could name. Unlike Houjun, however, Juan knew what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to be a doctor, a goal that seemed natural and well within reach for this young man with his kind heart and sensitive hands. That was the gap that yawned constant and huge between them, and prevented true empathy. Ri Houjun was at a loss for how his future should be, or even how he wanted it to be. He just wandered, and hoped he would someday find what he was looking for.

Houjun shifted uncomfortably under the weight of his large friend’s gaze, and finally changed the subject. “Gen mentioned a new girl. I haven’t seen her yet, have you?”

“Well, yes,” Juan replied, a small smile tugging at his lips, “But I’m afraid the rumors are incorrect. The new student is a boy, though he’s pretty enough to be otherwise. His name is Chou Ryuuen, and he’s in my first class. When your teacher came in and asked me if I could please go and talk you into coming back, Ryuuen offered to help. He seems nice, if he’s willing to seek out a delinquent like you.”

“Ha ha, no da,” Houjun muttered. “I hope you told him to mind his own business.”

“In not so harsh words, but yes. I know how shy you are about strangers.”

Houjun glared at him, his mahogany eyes flashing. “I’m not shy. I just don’t like people.”

“Antisocial, then,” Juan said indulgently. Then he frowned softly, the concerned sort of frown only good friends can do. “Are you going to go back?”

Resisting the urge to sigh again, Houjun straightened and began messing with the sleeve of his jacket, a habit which displayed indecision, and that he had picked up as a child and never lost. Only when it was exactly the way he wanted it would he answer the question, because that was when he would have his answer. He didn’t know why it worked. It just did. After about five minutes of fiddling with his uniform (the teachers should be grateful he even wore the stifling thing!), he knew he would indeed go back to the classroom, face the scolding undoubtedly waiting for him, and sit through the rest of his classes as well. And once he had made up his mind about something, there was no force on Earth that could change it. He nodded, not trusting his mouth to not snap at his wisest friend, and let Juan lead him back inside like he was still in kindergarten and needed an escort. He almost laughed at that thought. Maybe he was still a little kid, if he needed the hand on his shoulder at all.

He got that scolding he had expected, and even let himself feel a little remorseful for the trouble he had caused. He didn’t show it, though. They would never get that out of him, no matter how many times this occurred.

Genrou met him outside after school ended. “You wanna hang out or something? Maybe we could hit that place I told you about the other day.”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I should go back to my house. I’m not sure if I want to see my folks or not, though.” His mind drifted back to that morning, to his mother’s anxious face and his father’s narrowed eyes over the top of the newspaper.

Genrou shook his head, his flame-colored hair waving despite the gel he used to keep it back. “Why do ya even torture yerself with that? It’s not like they’re yer real parents. Ya don’t owe them nothin.’”

It was true, to a point. The man and woman he lived with were foster parents, strangers who had adopted him when he was still in middle school. His real mother and father had died in a flashflood. He had been at a friend’s house when it had happened, and though he and his friend’s family had made it to high ground, his parents had drowned, unable to escape in time. He had rushed home once the danger passed to find them amongst the debris and slowly draining water, cold and still with desperate, fearful expressions on their pale faces. Neighbors, people who had gotten away and were only then returning to assess the damage, had heard his anguished howls and had found him there, cradling his mother’s head against his chest and damning the gods with everything he had. He could hardly remember the faces of those who had dragged him, screaming and struggling, out of his house, but he remembered their words, telling him that he was going to be all right, that someone would take him in, and not to look, don’t look at them. He had been too lost in his rage and grief at the time to tell them the obvious, that it was too late and he had already imprinted the horrible image onto his mind.

A few months later, a man and a woman had come and adopted him, and he hadn’t even had the strength to resist as they led him away, promising a new life and new friends in a new place where he would be happy....

He had been numb inside, as he had been ever since that day when the tears had run dry and he couldn’t cry anymore, unspeaking, unhearing, unbelieving of their optimistic views. What was there to be happy about? His parents were dead; his life was turned upside down. These strangers could not know how he felt, so why should he believe them? He hadn’t cared then. He’d just wanted to be left in his corner of the orphanage to diminish and turn gray, and finally turn to dust and blow away in the wind. They hadn’t let him, of course. They had taken him away, to their home in Tokyo, and had enrolled him in a strange school with strange people who had thought him even stranger. Over time he had learned to speak again, how to fake that he was happy, how to be a “good son” and be grateful to the two who had taken him in. Soon after that, however, he had stopped caring as much about what the world thought and expected of him. He had stopped faking he was happy as much, had stopped speaking when he didn’t need to as much, and had even stopped pretending he was grateful as much. He wasn’t a charity case and he didn’t need the pity of the man and woman who had adopted him. Because that was why they had adopted him in the first place; they had pitied the skinny, blue-haired boy huddling in the corner of the orphanage room, staring listlessly at the wall across from him.

So he wasn’t as grateful as he should be, but that didn’t mean he didn’t owe them something. He at least owed them his second chance, the chance to meet his new family, his real family, people like Genrou and Juan who didn’t care that he was an orphan. They were the people who hadn’t turned away, the people who hadn’t thought of him as strange but rather as lonely, and had reached out to him despite his abrasive nature. That was why he smiled wryly and shook his head, and told Genrou he would meet him later at the place they had talked about, if things worked out okay. That was why, despite all his sensibilities telling him it was a bad idea, he got on his motorcycle and went back to the house he could never call home.

His father was sitting in the living room, watching the History Channel, and seemed surprised that his adopted son had actually come straight home from school. Houjun eased himself down on the couch, carefully sitting on the opposite end from his father, and as far away as he could get. The two had come to an unspoken agreement ages ago that no physical contact, least of all the affectionate type, should pass between them, ever. That way, Houjun would never have to think of this man as his true father, and the older man would never be tempted to try to make him. It also prevented the rather more unpleasant scenario of physical violence erupting during their frequent arguments. They could yell at each other all they liked, but neither would ever strike the other with anything but words. It was not the normal arrangement for a father and son, but it worked for them, and they were not inclined to change it.

Houjun was first to speak. “I’m sorry about this morning. I didn’t sleep well, and I spoke without thinking.”

His father nodded, the gesture stating that he understood how much it took out of his son to be this mature. “I’m glad you decided to do the right thing. I think you owe your mother an apology as well.”

Houjun nodded back, trying not to clench his jaw visibly. It was not as though he found it hard to apologize. He could admit when he was wrong. It was only that his father was always so condescending without meaning to be, it made the apologies seem more like admissions of defeat. Defeat was something Houjun hated with what passion he still possessed. Still, he went and sought out his mother, knowing that she had likely cried after he was gone, and feeling a pang of guilt that at the same time was almost déjà vu. The sight of a woman’s tears somehow never failed to bring that feeling of guilt, even if he was not the person responsible for their appearance.

She took it better than he had thought she would. His stiff apology was received with—big surprise—more tears. She hugged him so tightly he thought his spine would need realigning, telling him over and over that it was all right, she wasn’t angry, she loved him. It made him feel even guiltier, as well as a little nauseous. She didn’t mean it. She might think she did, but he knew better. In truth, she hated having him for a son, hated herself for taking in such a rotten child, and for keeping him when it would have been so much easier to shunt him off on someone else. She couldn’t possibly love him, because if she did she wouldn’t have to tell him that she did so often, and she wouldn’t say it in that quavering, desperate tone that meant she was trying to convince herself. It made him want to throw up. How could she lie to herself and to him when it was obvious he made her miserable? Soon, he told himself, soon he would be out of high school and off to college, assuming he could get into one, and he would no longer be a blight upon her life. Then she could stop pretending to be happy and start living again. Maybe she would even have her own child. She and her husband were both still fairly young, and children were not out of their reach. Then again, maybe he had ruined the experience for them.

He gently pried her arms from around him and stepped back, allowing her the space she needed to compose herself. She took it gladly, unaware of the stark relief in her eyes as she dried her tears. He told her he had planned on meeting a friend somewhere that evening, and asked if it would be all right for him to go. She said yes, of course. Whereas any other parent might have forbidden the outing in light of recent events, she eagerly acquiesced to his request. She didn’t know how happy she was to have an excuse to be rid of him for a while. Feeling as though someone had poured hot lead into his soul, Houjun offered her a faint smile and left, not even sparing the living room and his father a glance on his way out.

The motorcycle vibrating between his thighs and the roar of the engine in his ears were some of the most comforting things he could imagine. He wished he were old enough to legally ride without a helmet, because he would have enjoyed the wind in his face. As a small boy, he had enjoyed being in his birth parents’ car, with the window rolled down all the way and the wind rushing over him, whipping his cheeks into a apple hue and mussing his hair. It had felt like flying. It had been ages since he had been able to do that; he almost never rode in his adopted parents’ car now that he had his own mode of transportation, and on the rare occasions that he did the windows were kept firmly closed, the window button unresponsive to his touch as a result of the child-lock mechanism activated by the driver, be it mother or father. What did they think he was going to do, jump? Or maybe they expected him to play with the button, opening and closing the window again and again. Whatever the reason, he never enjoyed car rides anymore.

When he was twenty-one he would be able to do just about anything he wanted on his bike, except speed or do wheelies (aw, what the hell, he did both anyway when no one was looking). He would be able to go without the stuffy helmet and feel the highway wind pushing against his face and making his eyes teary if he went too fast. Perhaps he would wear sunglasses to prevent that last problem. It seemed to work for other bikers, so why not him?

He should not have been able to hear anything above the sound of the bike itself, but somehow, when the sound came, he heard it almost as though it was right in his ear.

It was almost like a flute of sorts, but more organic in nature. It was a high, sweet trill that wafted past his ears like a midnight breeze, warm and barely tangible, and gone before he was even sure it was there. He thought he might have heard that sound before, might have felt that brief, glowing warmth that tingled along his nerves and made the back of his neck prickle. A fleeting image passed through his mind, of broad, red wings and a long, golden tail. A bird? Possibly, but it was certainly no bird he had ever seen in his life. He wished the image had come more slowly and lingered longer, that he might have seen the vision in its entirety.

Something he saw out of the corner of one eye as he sped along made him slow, and look back over his shoulder. Walking up and down the sidewalk to his right were people, and among them was a man in his twenties with black hair. That man was the something that had caught his eye. In the brief instant Houjun passed him on his bike, the man glanced toward him. Lavender eyes somehow met mahogany through the black, reflective visor of the motorcycle helmet, and Houjun received a sharp sense of nostalgia. Then a car horn blared, and he was forced to look away in order to swerve his bike around a car that had snuck into his lane. The spell was broken, and when Houjun dared look again, the man was gone, swallowed by the crowd.

I know him, was the first thought that came to the boy’s mind. Or I did know him, once. Where have I seen him before?

He was still puzzling over it when he reached his destination. It was a new club, a place called The Warehouse. It was so named because the building actually had been a warehouse at one time, and was later converted into an entertainment facility for people sixteen and up. The Warehouse was like a nightclub geared toward younger patrons as well as those of drinking age and beyond. Strict rules were in place to keep the law happy, such as the ID requirement at the door and the “all minors out at midnight” policy. As long as you presented your ID on command, stayed away from the alcohol at the bar, and hightailed it when you were told, any adolescent could have a good time there. Or so he and Genrou had heard. They were checking the place out tonight for the first time. It had sounded so wishy-washy for a club that they had to see it for themselves.

He waited for any sign of his friend for a good ten minutes, able to keep his patience only based on the knowledge that Genrou had been late before, and there was no use getting worked up over it since he himself was late more often than not. Sure enough, the firehair arrived just as ten minutes was going on eleven.

“Sorry about that,” Genrou grumbled, tossing his own motorcycle helmet onto the seat of his ride, “My ma wouldn’t let me out from under her evil thumb until I finished the damn dishes. Fat old harpy. I hate women, Houjun, I really do.”

Houjun merely smiled. Genrou was the only male prisoner in a house full of girls. He was the youngest of six children too, which made matters even worse. His five older sisters had used every opportunity to torture him while he was growing up, dressing him in frills, messing with his hair, make-upping him nearly to death, and on the complete opposite side of the scale, blaming him for everything, picking on him, and doing everything in their power to drive him insane. The dress-up and make-up part had stopped when he had turned thirteen, but the rest had yet to go away. His single mother (his parents were divorced and had been since a couple months before he was even born) either babied him or scolded him endlessly, depending on the situation. As a result, her rambunctious only son had grown into a loud, rude, foul-mouthed, women-hating young man who still somehow managed to have an ego, mainly (Houjun assumed) because his battered self-esteem had needed some defense against his siblings’ evil. Despite all of that, however, there were still times when Genrou was quite a sensitive individual. He was the only guy Houjun knew who cried. Not over just anything, mind, but he cried. He showed how he felt, and he never backed down. He was passionate, something far too few people were anymore. He had a leader-type personality; that was why he was “the boss-man,” as another friend, Koji, called him. Of course, Genrou’s being “the boss” had a somewhat more literal meaning behind it as well....

“Are the others coming?” Houjun asked, his tone casual.

“Well, Koji said he’d be here, but the rest of the guys didn’t want ta waste their time ‘til they knew if this place was any good or not.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

It wasn’t long before Koji showed. He was never far away from Genrou. The navy-haired, green-eyed boy hadn’t had the patience to save up for a motorcycle yet, so he either rode with Gen or drove his small car, a gently used, old-style Mustang that his parents had helped him buy from a car auction. It worked well and it looked cool for an old car, so Koji drove it proudly. The only problem with it was that the driver’s side door was stuck, so every time he used it he had to hop out of the window like the racecar drivers did.

“Koji,” Genrou asked, raising an eyebrow, “when are ya gonna get a decent car? That clunker is gonna die on ya one of these days.”

“She ain’t a clunker, boss,” the other teen protested. “She’s just a little less modern. And she still purrs like a kitten, so I don’t think I’ve got anything ta worry about.”

Both Koji and Genrou had always had that rough, charmingly uncultured accent since as far back as Houjun could remember. He had never heard anything quite like it, and if anyone had asked him where it came from, he wouldn’t have been able to tell them. It was just part of what made them who they were, he supposed, and it sounded natural coming from them. His own way of speaking was strange enough too; he usually spoke in formal Japanese rather than the slang most teenagers used, and sometimes he would tack a “no da” onto the ends of his sentences. The latter was an automatic defense mechanism. With strangers, it fooled them into thinking he was actually in a good mood, so they wouldn’t question or bother him out of concern. With people who knew him, it was a warning that he was struggling internally, and that they shouldn’t mess with him until he felt better. All of that just meant that he had no room to judge others for the way they talked, so he didn’t.

“Well, gents,” Koji announced cheerfully, “let’s hit this place and hit it hard. You’d better enjoy yourself this time, ‘Jun.” That was what he told Houjun every time they went out: “you’d better enjoy yourself this time.” It had failed as of yet to make any lasting impression. He enjoyed himself when, and only when, he felt like it. Still, he favored his green-eyed friend with a dry smile and followed him and Genrou inside.

The inside of The Warehouse was noisy, crowded, and loud on the eyes. Some jerk had actually decided a giant disco ball was a cool thing to have in a club, and the obnoxious thing reflected spots of sparkling color all over the enormous room from racks of multicolored lights fixed to the ceiling. The effect was a bit like what Houjun thought being inside an exploding sugarplum fairy might be like. The speakers at one end of the club pounded out new-age techno so loudly that it had to be deafening everyone not at least twenty feet away. Laughter, conversations shouted above the ‘music,’ bar-jokes yelled in much the same manner, and the occasional catcall or shout of encouragement to this or that dancer blurred into a cacophony of human sound. It was annoying, it was invasive, and it was oddly satisfying.

Houjun turned to Genrou and Koji with a smirk. “I like it. Let’s tell the others.”

“Sure,” the redhead replied with a grin that displayed his prominent canines, “but we’ll do it some other time. Right now, let’s show these people how ta really cut loose.”

Houjun let the other two go ahead and do that. He considered himself to be something of a wallflower, preferring to hang around the edges of a party rather than to be in the thick of things. He could enjoy himself perfectly well without being swamped in activity. His friends looked disappointed when he shook his head and gestured toward the bar end of the room, indicating that was where he would be, but they got over it quickly in light of the break-dancing contest that had broken out on the dance floor. Such a spectacle would be a shame to miss.

Leaving the more socially oriented people to themselves, Houjun wandered over to the bar and sat down on one of the high, padded leather stools. Naturally the bartender wouldn’t let him order anything stronger than a soda, but it was okay for him to just sit there as long as he behaved. He was just contemplating ordering that soda after all when, rather unexpectedly, someone spoke to him.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.”

He glanced to his left, thinking perhaps he was mistaken and he was not actually the one being addressed. No such luck; those rose-colored eyes were definitely looking at him. He braced himself for the inevitable conversation that would take place before this stranger left him alone. “This is my first time, no da,” he answered brightly, even offering a smile to back up the illusion.

His addresser snickered. “No da?”

Houjun shrugged noncommittally, signaling that he wasn’t going to explain. The person who had spoken to him accepted that and moved on. “You look about my age. Where do you go to school, or have you graduated?”

“Fushichou High. I’m a junior.”

The stranger’s eyes widened. “No way! You look like a senior. I just turned eighteen, so I’ll be hitting college soon. It’s a really bad time to move to a new place.”

Something clicked, and Houjun thought he might know who he was talking to. “Do you go to Fushichou too?”

The stranger grinned broadly and nodded, violet hair falling around his face. Houjun had only just now realized it must be a ‘he.’ “I just started there!”

The blue-haired teen held out a hand. “I’m Ri Houjun, and you must be Chou Ryuuen, the new ‘girl’ everyone is talking about.”

“Bingo, got it in one,” Ryuuen answered with a laugh. “Does everyone really think I’m a girl?”

“Genrou heard you were hot. I’m not sure who said it, though.”

Houjun’s new acquaintance burst out in hearty guffaws over this information. Chou Ryuuen was apparently the sort of person who didn’t ruffle easily. Somehow, that made sense.

“Hoo, that’s priceless,” Ryuuen chuckled. “Does this Genrou know the truth yet?”

“No,” Houjun replied with a sly smile. “But he’s right over there. Perhaps you should set him straight on the matter.”

Rose-colored eyes twinkled mischievously, and Ryuuen hopped down off his barstool and sashayed over to the edge of the dance floor, where Genrou and Koji stood cheering on the latest break-dancing competitor. Houjun was almost afraid to watch; he thought he knew what was coming, and he was sure Genrou wouldn’t take it well.

He did not actually hear what was said, but he got the gist of it. Basically, Ryuuen flirted, Genrou scowled, Koji flirted back, Ryuuen announced his true gender in some subtle and humorous way, and both of the unwary young men were left with their jaws hanging somewhere in the vicinity of their shoes as the violet-haired youth sauntered away, hips swaying to the music. Houjun did hear when Koji let out a howl of laughter at Genrou’s and his own expense, and he caught most of it when Genrou started swearing at the top of his lungs about queers and how they should leave straight guys the hell alone. This, of course, only made Koji laugh harder, as well as made Ryuuen start all but giggling as he sat down next to Houjun again.

“That was great,” he crowed. “I need to exploit my androgynous nature more often!”

“Oh, I don’t think you need to exploit it,” Houjun said mildly. “I think it does well enough on its own.”

His words set off another round of snickering, to his surprise. It was sort of nice to be funny for a change, he mused. He wasn’t even trying that hard to be nice, like he usually had to around new people. He was finding that being himself worked rather well. He was at ease with this boisterous young man with his bright eyes and ready laugh. It almost felt as though he and Ryuuen were old friends.

A chill ran up his spine all of a sudden, and a brief image of red snow flashed through his head, along with an impression of bitter cold and bitter sadness. A whisper of death caressed his senses, like a snake’s scales rasping delicately over his skin. He shuddered, his mahogany eyes widening to an impossible size.

An effeminate hand touched his arm, and he started from his waking nightmare to find himself staring into rose eyes brimming with concern. His own eyes still large, he gazed hard at the jewel-like orbs. They were still bright, still alive. But why shouldn’t they be, he asked himself; after all, Ryuuen wasn’t dead. So why did the sight of the older boy make his heart cry out in grief?

“Are you okay?” Ryuuen asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Maybe I have, Houjun thought, aware that even his mental voice was shaking. He was tempted to reach out and poke the girlish young man, just to make sure he was really there. In light of the very solid hand still on his arm, however, that would have been redundant, and stupid besides. The awful feeling passed, and he was able to take a deep breath and calm down. “I’m all right. Thank you for your concern.”

Ryuuen said nothing, but he had seen the way the taller boy’s face had become suddenly distant, as though he were experiencing something from a time long ago. He had seen the expression of pure anguish on that face, and had witnessed the way those mahogany eyes had dilated nearly to black, as whatever was happening took Houjun to someplace far away. People did not simply look like that for no reason. Something had happened just now, and Ryuuen ached to know what, and why it had somehow involved him. Because it had; he could tell from the way Houjun had stared at him like he was going to disappear any moment.

There was no more time for questions, unfortunately. Genrou and Koji came over to check on their friend, and soon the four were caught up in normal conversation. Well, normal for them. The loud redhead came off as extremely rude at first, but as they all got to know each other his attitude smoothed out and he and Ryuuen got along famously. In what seemed like no time at all they were all talking like life-long buddies, and the strange incident of before was forgotten.

Much later that night, Houjun parked his bike in the driveway of his house. Rather than dismounting immediately, he sat and thought about his day. It was not something he did often; usually his days were too stuffed full of boredom or angst to bother with remembering them, so instead he would just trudge to his room and flop face-first onto his bed, to wake the next day with only a hazy recollection of the previous one if he was lucky. Today had actually been interesting. It wasn’t everyday he made a new friend (and Ryuuen definitely counted as one of those), and it was extremely rare that he found a hang-out spot he liked. It had been a good day, and he was shocked to recall how few of those he’d had since the flood and his consequential adoption. He would have to remember what had been best about this one, so that he could replay those fond memories at a later date. He grinned a little behind his helmet. He’d thought today would be one of his worse days, but it had turned out all right in the end. I suppose that means I’m not a psychic.

The inside of his house was quiet, his parents long-since having gone to bed. They never waited up for him unless he was in trouble, and he wasn’t that tonight, at least not to his knowledge. He made his way up the stairs to his room, careful not to tread on the top step that always creaked and risk waking anyone. He and the house had an understanding of sorts. He knew everything about it, and it knew everything about him. It would never be home to him, but it suited his purposes, and it would never spring anything new on him at an inopportune moment, such as a new squeak or creak when he was attempting an unnoticed escape. If walls could speak, these would keep his secrets just the same.

He slumped tiredly onto his bed once he reached it, unaware until that exact moment how exhausted he truly was. Interacting with other people always drained him, whether he actually enjoyed the interaction or not. It took a great deal of energy to smile and laugh and hold a decent conversation for as long as he had earlier. That, coupled with the series of strange events that had befallen him, made for a night of very deep slumber. He looked forward to it with a sort of somnolent eagerness, and hoped tomorrow would be as normal as anything in his life ever was.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The next morning, Houjun greeted the sun as usual, caught a little more sleep, and skipped breakfast in favor of being out of the house before his parents could talk to him. He was determined that today would start out better than yesterday had, and maybe end just as good. That was his hope as he drove to school.

Alas, Murphy’s Law (which states that anything that can go wrong inevitably will, and always at the moment when one is expecting exactly the opposite) was in full effect that morning. It likely had something to do with it being the last school day of the week, because as everyone knew, the last school day of the week will always begin badly and drag on and on until a person is likely to go insane before the last bell.

The first thing that happened was that Houjun was pulled over halfway to school for going five miles above the speed limit, something which had never happened before and seemed perfectly ridiculous in light of the fact that everyone else on that rode was going at least ten over the limit anyway. As it so happened, his license had only two points left on it due to a previous incident in which he had been nailed for going 80 mph in a 35 mph zone. He had not been able to explain himself due to certain circumstances, and the officer had been quite unforgiving with him. This newest incident was much the same, save for the fact that he had not been going nearly as fast. He lost his temper with the policewoman who ticketed him, and narrowly avoided earning a blast of pepper spray to the face. It took an unwarranted amount of time to calm things down, and by the time she let him go, he was late for school.

The next bit of unpleasantness occurred during his English class. There was a test, and he had forgotten to study for it. On top of that, at one point his pencil slipped out of his hand and rolled off his desk, forcing him to retrieve it. The student next to him yelled that he was cheating, and as bad luck would have it, the teacher believed the stupid nit. A shouting match ensued between him and the teacher, with him loudly declaring his innocence and the man in charge refuting his claim on the grounds that he was never innocent and therefore not to be taken at his word. This frustrated him greatly, to say the very least, because it just wasn’t true. He then began yelling at the top of his lungs about the injustices of the school system, which in turn got him two after-school detentions and a trip to the office. He stormed out of the classroom in a red-hot rage, with no intention whatsoever of obeying the teacher’s command to go and see the principal. His only consolation was that he had only one class left that day, and that was gym. He had made it through most of school despite his bad start, and there had to be a way to handle his detentions, pay his speeding ticket and attend the predictable court summons without alerting his parents. He had managed similar incidents before, so why not again?

The third and final thing, and the straw that slaughtered that poor camel, was the note Genrou passed him in the hall just as Houjun was heading for the parking lot. There was only one reason why the redhead would not simply stop him and talk to him, and that understanding caused his stomach to sink into his shoes. The message written on the scrap of paper in his hand was simple. It read: Meeting at the usual place, 5:00. Bring something.

He knew he could make it out of detention by four, get dinner, make an excuse to his folks, and be at the ‘usual place’ well before 5:00, but he dearly wished otherwise. It was bad enough being marked as a juvenile delinquent by his parents and teachers, but it would be much, much worse if they knew they were at least partially right. Still, he could not refuse. He owed Genrou and Koji that much and more.

He rounded a corner in the hall, and abruptly found his path to the front doors blocked. At first he mistook the person with which he had almost collided for a student, and attempted to continue on by. Then the warning bells went off, and he realized that the person he was about to become truant in front of was not only an adult, but one carrying the distinctive clipboard and whistle of a physical educator. A gym teacher.

Goddammit, he thought, and the sinking feeling in his stomach returned.

He was expecting the stern hand on his shoulder that spun him to face the man. What he was not expecting was the pair of brilliant lavender eyes that bored into his own mahogany ones. Nor was he expecting the way those jewel-like orbs widened with surprise—and familiarity. And he certainly wasn’t expecting the first thing that came out of the unknown man’s mouth.

“Chichiri!?”

He leveled a blank stare at the new teacher (he had to be new, because Houjun had never seen him at this school before in his life, had never seen him at all before yesterday, when he had passed the man on his motorcycle). “What?” He wasn’t sure what the man had called him, or if he’d even called him anything at all. The word was unfamiliar to him, and he could only assume it must be Chinese.

Seeing his confusion, the man quickly withdrew his hand. “I’m sorry. You look an awful lot like someone I used to know. For a moment I thought you might be him.”

“Really,” Houjun answered dryly. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve never seen you before yesterday, when I passed you on my bike.”

“You’re a student here?”

The azure-haired boy rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m not the school nurse, am I? I’m Ri Houjun, junior year. You are?”

Again there was that slight flicker of recognition. “I’m Sukunami Taka. I’ll be the gym teacher here temporarily. Are you sure we’ve never met?”

“I’m sure,” Houjun replied, his demeanor freezing up a little as it did when he felt he was being interrogated.

Taka seemed taken aback at his suddenly chilly attitude. A chance look down at his clipboard changed the subject, however. “Say, aren’t you supposed to be in my class? What are you doing by the front doors?”

Double goddammit! Houjun swore inwardly.

He decided to Hell with it and bolted. He didn’t make it three feet before the new teacher got hold of his arm and twisted it behind his back, preventing his escape but not hurting him unless he struggled. Naturally, he did not figure this out until after he tried struggling. “OW, no da!” He wasn’t sure where the “no da” came from that time. Normally it didn’t just slip out like that.

He stopped fighting almost immediately once he realized it hurt, ‘almost’ because his pride would not let him surrender so easily. After that, he just glared sullenly over his shoulder at his captor. “Let go of me,” he growled.

To his shock and fury, Taka grinned. “You still say ‘no da.’”

“Still? What the hell are you talking about? Don’t you have a class to teach?”

The black-haired man nodded in a way that indicated he had temporarily lost track of his original objective. “That’s right, and you’re one of my students. Come on.”

Houjun couldn’t help but notice how amused his new educator seemed about the idea of teaching him. He grumbled to himself as he was dragged off to class, thinking that this Sukunami Taka had to be nuts to consider this situation funny.

By the time he arrived at class (under protest), he had completely forgotten the strange feeling the sight of the man had induced that first time, and the image that had flashed through his head, the image of an enormous red bird.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The sounds of several motorcycles revving impatiently greeted Houjun when he pulled up in the ‘usual place’ later that night, at precisely 5:00. Dangerous scowls quickly turned to smiles and friendly hails when he removed his helmet and those present recognized him. Genrou was the first to saunter over and slap him on the back in a comradely way.

“Right on time, ‘Jun,” the firehair praised. “But you’re never late ta these, are ya? Did ya bring somethin’ like I said in the note?”

Houjun smirked and held up a three foot length of steel pipe. “There was a construction site on my way here. I presumed they wouldn’t notice the loss of one little pipe. So, are we ready to go?”

“Details first,” Genrou decided. “We don’t want ta run headfirst into somethin’ we ain’t ready for.” As he illuminated the plan for everyone, people half listened and half polished weapons or talked about what they were going to do tonight.

The group of about thirty young men led by Genrou called themselves the Redbirds. The Redbirds were, in short, a gang. They were also the largest gang in Tokyo at the moment, which made them a little cockier than most groups. They recruited a little differently than other gangs, too. They didn’t just step up to somebody and bully him into joining; they followed him around for months before deciding that he was “good,” and then broached the subject in a civil manner when the moment seemed right. The fact that they did the last part by carefully cornering the intended new member and surrounding him was dampened a mite by how friendly they actually were. Houjun had joined not only because he had found them very convincing, but also because he had known Genrou and Koji for a long time before he even knew about the Redbirds. He had been surprised, but more than a little intrigued by the proposition, and had accepted the invitation readily enough. Had he thought about it harder, he would have made the decision anyway out of his loyalty to his new friends. The ‘Birds gave him a direction in life, and even if he found some of their antics childish, they were family, and one just didn’t walk away from family. Besides, other gangs notwithstanding, the Redbirds never hurt anyone. They didn’t kill civilians in careless shootings (very few members even owned a gun at all), they didn’t harass young girls walking late at night, and they had a healthy respect for police officers, if not a liking of them. Genrou led his people with a measure of level-headedness, honor, and restraint that most outside his gang never knew he was capable of.

Of course, Houjun’s parents would not understand any of that. All they would see in Genrou and the Redbirds was a motley assembly of ragamuffin lawbreakers, who happened to have a very bad influence on their son’s thus far less-than-pristine record. The gang would be viewed as a dark stain on the already soiled fabric of his life, and his guardians would forbid him from seeing any of them ever again in an attempt to scrub him clean.

What they don’t know, Houjun thought, is that I’m already as clean as I’m ever going to get. They can’t make me pure white again because I never was to begin with. Meeting Genrou and the others washed my spirit of a great deal of bitterness and pain, and now I’m simply content to be off-white forever.

“So,” Genrou stated, interrupting Houjun’s thoughts, “that’s pretty much it. We hit ‘em and hit ‘em hard, got it?”

A roar of approval from the whole of the gang was his answer, and then Koji, with a toothy grin, yelled, “Let’s fly!”

People mounted their motorcycles by ones and twos, depending on who owned a ride and who didn’t. Houjun replaced his helmet and did the same. No one ever rode with him. Everyone knew he rode alone at all times, and nobody had questioned it yet.

They swarmed out into the city like a nest of whooping, yelling demons, making nearly enough of a ruckus to raise the dead and a sufficient amount to keep innocent bystanders indoors where they belonged. The noise, if one considered things, was actually a drawback where strategy was concerned. It let other gangs know they were coming long before they arrived, and it identified which gang they were for anyone who recognized their voices. And it usually attracted the unwanted attentions of the local police. The only reason the ‘Birds made such a cacophony at all was to keep people they didn’t want involved inside and out of the way. Genrou didn’t like civilians to get hurt. Hurting enemies was fine, on the other hand, and even strongly encouraged.

Sure enough, due to the Redbirds’ significant contribution to noise pollution in the city, the rivals of the evening were already alert and waiting by the time Genrou and his group rode into the very-far-down downtown area of Tokyo, the most ideal place for gangs, drug dealers, and Yakuza thugs in all of Japan. Houjun, who had not contributed to the noise in light of his quiet nature, smirked to himself as he thought of his adopted parents’ reaction if they knew where he was right now. Then his expression grew serious behind the visor of his helmet, and his mind slipped into the cool, calculating state required for the coming battle (and there would be one. There always was with these particular rivals).

The Redbirds stopped their bikes and glared open hostility at the only other gang in the city that ever gave them serious trouble: the Serpents. With other gangs, the worst things usually got were a lot of insults thrown back and forth, the threatening gunning of motorcycles engines, and the occasional brawl. Most gangs were too cowed by the sheer number of Redbirds to even think about starting a real fight. The Serpents were different. With them, it wasn’t territorial. It wasn’t racial. It wasn’t even business. With the Serpents, it was war. Always had been, always would be. That wasn’t what made them the ultimate nemeses, though. It was their leader.

Shin Ayuru was a tall, imposing blond who did not consider his group to be a gang so much as a faction. He was, to put it lightly and in layman’s terms, “friggin’ scary,” and his followers were no less intimidating. Most were just faceless entities with a penchant for violence, but two were especially worthy of note. One was a young, auburn-haired woman by the name of Haku Kaen. She had a nasty temper, an acidic tongue, and the most hazardous weapon anywhere: sex appeal. The other was a sandy-blond-haired boy named Bu Koutoku. He was the complete opposite of Kaen with his calm attitude and usual habit of not speaking unless directly addressed. He was also far more dangerous than she was, because one never knew what to expect from him.

Genrou dismounted from his bike and stalked a few paces forward, seeming to bristle like an aggressive canine of some sort. It was tradition for the leaders of the two groups to try to daunt each other for a minute or so before any actual bloodshed occurred. Neither had ever succeeded in this endeavor, but they tried nonetheless. Ayuru came forward with near-gliding strides that, while quite graceful, were no less frightening for it. The Serpents’ leader radiated power, and in that at least he had Genrou outmatched. Still, his cold menace had nothing on the redhead’s sheer ferocity. Gen was a sight to behold when he was genuinely angry, and the sight of Ayuru never failed to trigger that emotional reaction.

“You’re lookin’ a little tussled today, jerk,” Genrou taunted. “Did yer mommy forget ta make ya comb your lustrous locks before ya went out?”

Ayuru grimaced slightly in the way that a learned man might if a small child had just made an ignorant remark in his presence. “Am I supposed to dignify that with a response? Very well; you and your entire gang are a disgrace to the human population as a whole, and on top of that, you, their leader, are the ugliest woman I have ever seen.”

It was a well-known fact that Genrou hated women more than anything on the planet (except for Ayuru). Unfortunately, Ayuru was one of the people who knew. Genrou’s amber eyes widened with shock at his enemy’s audacity, and his face contorted with rage. “You really wanna die tonight?” he snarled. “All right! Let’s do this!”

The street exploded. With just that small cue, every Serpent and Redbird there attacked someone else of the opposite gang, punching, bashing with various heavy, blunt objects, screaming insults and taking no prisoners. Ayuru and Genrou clashed like a pair of enraged titans, and no one doubted their injuries would be the worst that night. Koji got paired off against Kaen, and Houjun wound up facing Koutoku. Lucky him.

He eyed the sandy-haired youth. Koutoku had to be at least a year younger than him, but that did not mean much out here. He and the boy circled each other slowly, not rushing right in like the fighters on all sides of them, but rather taking one another’s measure first. Houjun had never personally fought Koutoku before, and had very little idea of what the boy could do. That put him at a disadvantage. Fortunately, he had a disadvantage for the other young man as well. Whenever he went out with the ‘Birds like this, he was careful never to lose his helmet. It leant him a sense of protection, as well as making it nearly impossible for his opponent to figure out what he was thinking. It gave him some anonymity as well, which was to him quite important. He happened to know that Ayuru himself lived only a block away from his house, and he had no intention of letting the Serpents’ leader know where one of his enemies slept at night. The Redbirds might not shoot up peoples’ homes, but the Serpents were less discerning where enemies were concerned.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Koutoku mentioned, surprising Houjun by speaking first.

He did not answer. The helmet hid his face, but it might not muffle his voice enough to make it unrecognizable. If the Serpents wanted to know who he was, they’d have to work harder than that. Instead of talking to his opponent, he hefted the pipe his hands and feinted a swing at the other’s shoulder. It was hard to stop such a heavy weapon and withdraw it, but hopefully Koutoku wouldn’t realize that in time to do anything about it. As he had hoped, Koutoku dodged, and circled around out of the way, trying to get behind Houjun. He swung again, the length of steel making a ‘swish’ sound as it cut through the air. In this manner he attempted to herd the sandy-blond up against a wall, the surest way to defeat someone who was lighter on his feet than you. Koutoku caught on just before Houjun would have had him cornered, and bolted for the rapidly diminishing opening. Houjun blocked with the pipe and rushed the other boy, slamming him into the brick wall behind the blond. The impact drove the air out of both of them, but hopefully more so out of Koutoku than him.

Dropping the pipe (it was only a hindrance at this range), he started punching. His intention was mostly to knock the other unconscious, rather than cause permanent damage. Mostly. He was mad now, though about what he didn’t know. All of his angry feelings seemed to be coming out with each solid strike to the swiftly weakening boy between him and the wall. Koutoku did a marvelous job of defending himself considering the position he was in, punching and kicking back viciously, but the young man he faced was taller, had better leverage and more room to work, and was just plain more incensed. He didn’t have a hairy yeti’s chance in Hell of winning, and after about two minutes of being pummeled, he knew it. He gave up fighting back and merely started trying to shield himself. This worked about as well as throwing a paper bag at an oncoming steamroller and expecting it to stop. Eventually, he slid down the wall and onto the dirty pavement, his eyes rolling up into his head as he went out like a light. Ding-ding, down for the count.

Koji wasn’t fairing as well as his blue-haired friend. He shared Genrou’s views about women (to an extent), but there was just something not right about hitting a girl. Even an evil, not-entirely-convinced-she’s-not-right-out-of-a mental-hospital girl like Kaen. It wasn’t just that she was a girl that was causing him problems, either. It was the fact that she was carrying a whip with her that really took the edge off his fighting. What kind of psychotic female carried a whip into battle these days? And furthermore, what kind of psychotic female knew how to use one?

Koji dodged a scarily well-aimed snap of said whip, narrowly avoiding getting a new scar on his cheek to match the one she’d given him months ago with that thing. Sure, he wore the one with pride, but any more of them and it would stop being cool and start being kinda ugly.

Kaen snickered, poised to strike again. “What’s the matter? Don’t want another love-mark to match the last one? Maybe I should aim for the other side this time, hm?”

“And mess up this gorgeous face?” Koji snapped back. “As if I’d let you, you bitch.”

Another lightning-fast snap of her weapon nearly caught him off guard, and again he just barely missed getting hit by it. The whip seemed to be everywhere at once, and he was never sure which way it was coming from. If he could just get close enough to clock her, then the rules about not hitting girls be damned, he would put her down for the rest of this thing!

Now, Koji was a prodigious fighter in his own right, but he stood hardly a chance against such a devious opponent. Kaen never let him get within punching range, perhaps aware of his line of thought and determined to thwart it. Regardless, he soon found himself cut up pretty badly, though no more of her strikes hit him in the face. He was rather glad of that, not because of vanity, but because he didn’t fancy losing an eye.

Had Genrou not been occupied, he might have noted his comrade’s peril and called a retreat. He valued his friends more than his pride, after all. He was occupied, however, in the worst way. It’s kind of hard to notice what your pals are doing when there’s a great big fist in your eye.

The fight roared on, and soon everyone was tiring, making mistakes, and getting more hurt than was strictly necessary. Someone had better call a retreat soon, each side was thinking, or someone was going to get killed. Such an event was both very likely and almost expected in a gang war, but that didn’t mean anyone wanted to be responsible for the first time it happened. Well, anyone but Ayuru, maybe. He always seemed ready to really kill whomever he was fighting, but that might have just been his lack of emotion during the whole thing. His face gave no indication that he would give the slightest damn if he murdered somebody, and his eyes were hard like diamonds and cold like ice. He was like a statue, pitiless and merciless. It was like he hadn’t a trace of human compassion in him, and no one who faced him had ever discerned anything different.

Currently, he was slaughtering his opponent. Genrou was the only one of the ‘Birds who had ever given Ayuru a decent fight, but even he was only still standing out of pure stubbornness right then. His punches lacked force more and more, and the chilly smirk on the tall blond’s face indicated he knew it was almost over. What would happen when Genrou finally fell was anyone’s guess. The leader of the Serpents closed in for the final blow—

—And Genrou got his second wind.

It was something the Redbirds had only witnessed a couple of times, including now. At the moment when it seemed he would most certainly be defeated, Gen shocked them with an unexpected burst of energy. He had been quick before, but during times like these he was blinding. He soon had Ayuru actually losing ground, and receiving more bruises than he was dealing out. Seeing their leader back in the game rallied the Redbirds, and they managed to gain a little as well. Koji finally gritted his teeth and held his ground, and the next time the whip lashed out his arm came up and intercepted it. The length of braided leather wrapped tightly around the limb, and he yanked it clean out of the young woman’s hand. While she stood there looking gob-smacked, he dashed in and connected with a heavy punch to her left temple. She crumpled; she might have been sharp with her tongue and her whip, but she was still a woman underneath it all.

They might have fought all night until they were all too exhausted to go on, but Genrou had taken stock of the condition his gang was in. The redhead called a tactical retreat. Getting out was harder than getting in had been, seeing as the Serpents weren’t as keen to let them go, but they managed. They all jumped back on their bikes and motored for all they were worth, putting as much distance between them and the bloody pavement and their enemies as possible. The Serpents did not pursue. They were tired too, and Ayuru instructed them to go home and recuperate. They would win next time, perhaps, and if not, then the time after that. Taking out a rival gang was a long, tricky affair, and Shin Ayuru could afford to wait.

~*~*~*~*~*~

“You’re home late.” It was an imperious statement of fact, not an observation. “Again.”

Icy blue eyes locked briefly, dangerously, with deep-hazel ones. “And your point is?”

The speaker, who was lying on his side on the couch staring absently at the TV, sat up and glared. “Are you determined to drive mother and father to insanity before they reach fifty, or do you simply enjoy being an ass? They were worried ill about your whereabouts, you insufferable brat!”

Ayuru’s hackles rose at being addressed so. He was the elder of the two of them, blast it, and he deserved respect! “I would shut my damned mouth if I were you, Saihitei,” he hissed.

His younger brother did not even bat an eyelash at the implied threat. He raised his chin slightly and straightened his back, and suddenly he was no longer a teenager sitting on a tartan couch, but a lord residing on his throne. Ayuru despised him for his authoritive attitude, mainly because he too had such an air about him, and thus they clashed, badly. They were too similar to get along, yet too different to acknowledge even that and leave each other alone.

The atmosphere between them at that moment might have been likened unto the tense face-off between two tigers, before they charge each other and begin rending with teeth and claws. Had either of them claws in reality, they might have been flexing them in preparation to lash out.

Then a light clicked on in the upstairs hallway, and a woman’s voice called out, “Ayuru? Is that you?”

The pre-battle tension oozed out of both young men, replaced by a different kind. No adolescent wishes to be caught returning home at such a late hour, least of all by his mother. No adolescent wishes to be present during the inevitable scolding that occurs at such times, either, even if the reprimand is not aimed at him.

Mrs. Seishuku came all but running down the stairs, a mixed expression of relief and anger on her fair face. “Where have you been!? Don’t you know I’ve been worried sick? I called everyone I could think of short of the police, and you weren’t anywhere! I thought you might have been mugged!”

“I wasn’t—” he began, but she cut him off, taking his face carefully between her hands and staring at him in the dim light.

“You’re hurt,” she said, dismayed. “You’ve been fighting, haven’t you?”

He opened his mouth, a lie resting easily on his tongue, but then he saw the glittering wetness beginning to form in the woman’s eyes. He nearly choked on the untruths his mind had so readily conjured. If there was one thing on Earth that affected him, it was his mother’s tears. Nothing else could faze him, nothing else could change the expression on his face from coldly indifferent to lost and confused. He truly did not know how to respond when she did this. Unfortunately, she knew exactly what to do in such a situation.

When her son did not deny her accusation, she took it to mean that yes, he had been fighting, and thus it was her duty to scold him with all of her hen-like might. She reached up (she was 5’ 4’ and her son was 6’ 2’) and whacked him soundly across the back of the head. Ayuru hissed in pained protest, but had no chance to recover before she laid into him with the entirety of her motherly wrath.

“SHIN AYURU!” she bellowed, “YOU HAD ME WORRIED TO DEATH! YOU GO OUT AND I DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE AND THEN YOU COME HOME AT UNGODLY HOURS OF THE NIGHT AND YOU’VE BEEN BRAWLING IN THE STREET! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT KNOWING THAT DOES TO ME!? YOU COULD HAVE BEEN SERIOUSLY HURT! DON’T YOU EVER DO THIS AGAIN OR SO HELP ME I’LL GROUND YOU FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE—” Here she paused for breath. “—WHICH WON’T BE VERY LONG IF THIS HAPPENS ONE MORE TIME!”

The shouting died down, the walls stopped quivering in fright, the neighborhood dogs ceased howling, and the neighbors were able to go back to sleep. And everyone from there to China now knew that Shin Ayuru had just been chewed out by a woman barely half his size. Cold indifference was not an option, having been blasted clear out of his mind, so he settled for looking vaguely chagrined. This seemed to placate her somewhat, because the tomato shade of her face drained away, and she began fussing over his clothes.

“You’re a mess,” she muttered. “An absolute mess. What would your father say? This is not going to mend.” She went on like that for a few minutes, until Ayuru was almost sure he was forgiven from the way her voice went all quivery and tight, like she was trying not to cry. She was, if he knew anything about her, and if so then they were tears of relief she was trying not to shed, relief that her son was home and in one piece. For the life of him, he could not understand why she bothered to care so much about him.

Meanwhile, Saihitei felt distinctly uncomfortable being present for all of that. He had not been able to muster the will to slip away, fearful perhaps that she would start fussing over him as well. She loved her sons more than anything in the world, and was fiercely protective of them, even though they were both nearly grown and quite capable of taking care of themselves. He coughed politely when his mother was finished, just to get her attention. “I’m going to bed,” he announced quietly. “I’ll see you in the morning, mother.”

“Yes,” she answered wearily. “Goodnight. Off to bed with you, too, Ayuru. Goodnight.”

Now came the difficult part for the two boys. They shared a room at their father’s insistence (he had claimed it would help them to bond, but they rather thought it just made them both hate each other more than ever), and now they would have to endure one another’s company for the few minutes it would take them to get settled in and fall asleep. Simple as such a thing might sound, it always proved more difficult than was probably needed.

“After you, brother,” Saihitei offered graciously, if more than a little stiffly, when they reached the stairs.

Ayuru resisted the urge to snort derisively while their mother was present. It would only upset her again to remember the dissension between her offspring. He took great care to avoid touching his brother as he went by him, loathing even as he did so the childishness of the action, but unable to be more mature in light of the humiliation he had just suffered. He would not resent her for it; no, he had a much better target for his wounded pride in Saihitei. He just had to wait until his parents went back to sleep.

He entered his room, his brother a few steps behind him. Once the door closed after the brown-haired teen, the two stood and glared at each other. Both were listening for the sound of their father’s deep snores to resume, because they knew the man could never fall asleep until his wife did. Five minutes passed with the brothers staring each other down, only blinking when it became a necessity. Ten minutes passed, and they began to grow edgy. At last, fifteen minutes went by and the first buzzing snore filtered through the walls.

“Go to sleep,” Saihitei ordered in a whisper.

“You first.”

“Why, so you may strangle me while I dream?”

Ayuru’s blue eyes narrowed slightly. “I had considered it.”

Hazel eyes glared right back at him. “I’m going to bed, but I refuse to sleep until I am certain that you are no longer conscious. I don’t care how long it takes.”

The blond smirked. “Oh? I can stay awake longer than you can. You will drift off before I do, and then....” He let himself trail off, delighting in the wary look that flitted over the younger male’s countenance. What good was having a brother you hated, unless you got to torture him? That made some of the nonsense Ayuru put up with worth it, in his opinion, though he would just as soon not have a brother at all as have one he was able to torment.

Saihitei cautiously went around the blond and to his bed, keeping an eye on Ayuru at all times. He did not think his brother would really strangle him in his sleep, but he wouldn’t put it past the older boy to do something nasty to him. Like maybe drop him out the window into the bushes below. It had happened once before, and he worried the rhododendrons might not be able to take a hit like that again.

Once they were both in bed, they lay and glared at each other some more. Well, Saihitei glared, suspicion dancing in his eyes, and Ayuru continued to smirk in what he knew was a god-awful way. By the time the younger brother fell asleep (and he did, in fact, drift off first), the blond was too sleepy to bother with revenge. He had not realized how drop-dead tired he was from the fight. So he closed his eyes and let go of consciousness, deciding to save the evil stuff for tomorrow.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. A couple of his friends had told him about this party, and at the time, it had sounded like a sweet setup. No adults, no rules, no problems that couldn’t be remedied with one distraction or another (and there were plenty of those). When he had first walked in it had still seemed like a good idea. By the time he had found a place to sit at that wasn’t occupied by people or trash, he had begun to feel a shadow of a doubt. By the end of the first hour he had realized he had probably made a huge mistake. By then, however, he was fairly certain someone had slipped a mind-altering substance into his soda, and he was in no condition to seriously consider getting up and walking out under his own power. Then the girl had claimed a seat next to him on the torn-up sofa in one corner of the room, and he had known for a fact that he should never have come. Even though the girl was pretty under all the makeup, and even though she had a soft, sweet voice that didn’t grate on his ears, and even though she was one of the few people in the whole room who did not smell of alcohol or neglected hygiene. She made him nervous, and when she reached over and touched his arm in a suggestive manner he shivered and pulled away.

What she was offering, Bu Shunkaku did not want. Sure, it might have made him feel better for a while. It might have distracted him from the terrible, gnawing void in the pit of his stomach that had nothing to do with hunger and had persisted for as long as he could remember. It might have clouded his thinking just for a few minutes, and taken away the deep sorrow that threatened to swallow his soul every waking day of his existence. But in the end it would have been hollow, and the sorrow and pain would have returned.

The girl kept at him, reaching out and grabbing his arm and pulling him closer despite his obvious unhappiness with the action. “Come on,” she wheedled. “I can put a smile on that gloomy face of yours.”

He felt sick, and not just because of what she wanted from him, but also because his mood had been so noticeable. “Le’mealone,” he mumbled, trying to extricate his arm from the she-python grip the girl had on it.

She pouted and tugged on him, trying to get him to stand up and follow her, most likely to one of the rooms upstairs. He resisted, his head spinning every time he moved, his stomach rolling and bucking in protest. He really was going to be sick, he thought, and were the lights supposed to be that bright and blurry? The whole world was out of focus, and he staggered, only just then realizing that he was on his feet. He dimly registered that someone besides the girl was talking to him, asking him if he was okay, because he looked like hell. He clutched the sides of his head in an attempt to stop the onset of vertigo, to no avail. His arm was free; where had the girl gone?

“God,” he moaned, stumbling as he tried to sit back down on the couch, ending up on the floor instead. His innards roiled in rebellion, making one last, nearly audible attempt at exploding and ending his misery, and then he was violently ill.

An indeterminable number of minutes and several heaves later, he went limp with his back against the couch and waited for his wet gasps to become normal breathing again. He felt hot tears on his face and remembered with bitter clarity a time long ago, when he had been only seven years old, and had come down with a nasty case of stomach flu. He had never been sick to the point of throwing up before then, and the experience had scared the living daylights out of him. His parents had been out, and he recalled sobbing between bouts of retching, and thinking in some distant, detached part of his mind that someone should have been there, comforting him and telling him he was going to be all right. It had not even been his parents he had been thinking of. An image in the corner of his mind, like looking in a mirror, had come to him then. The face of that mirror image had been shadowy, and the feeling coming from it had been too calm, too steady to be him; other than that it might have been his carbon copy. Instinctively he had reached out, but the mirror figure had been out of his reach, and it had drawn further and further away when he had tried to focus on it. Sometimes, he still dreamed about that hazy figure, and he just knew it was important that he somehow remember who it was.

“Hey,” the voice from a minute ago said again, “are you okay, man?” It was one of his friends, standing next to him with a look of concern tinted just a bit with amusement on his face, and a can of something undoubtedly alcoholic in his hand. “Seriously, I told you to watch your drink, didn’t I? Somebody definitely spiked it when you weren’t looking.”

“I think I want to go home, Ken,” Shunkaku murmured weakly.

“Right. Wait here for a sec while I round up Reji. Then we’ll split, I swear.”

The blond boy on the floor nodded, but he had no illusions about how long it would take to ‘round up’ his other friend. Reji was a wild man who loved parties like bees loved flowers, and he was probably too smashed already to pay Shunkaku’s condition much heed. Shun resigned himself to sitting on the litter-strewn floor for a few more hours at least, and then having to work up enough energy to call a cab and drag his wayward pals out to the curb to wait for it. He didn’t have a license yet, and he wouldn’t have dared try to drive in his condition in any case. Trusting Ken to drive when he’d had a few wasn’t looking good either, and Reji was right out. He sighed. Why was he always taking care of other people? Couldn’t someone take care of him for once?

Later, much later, he climbed out of the inevitably summoned taxi and trudged the few yards up his driveway. He was glad to find the house dark, having not looked forward to explaining to his parents why he was coming home at three in the morning smelling like beer and nicotine smoke. “I’m never taking Reji’s word on anything ever again,” he vowed. His only consolation was that at least no one had slipped him rufenol or something equally as dangerous. That would have officially ruined his life, he was sure.

When he tumbled into bed at last, he still couldn’t believe he’d let himself be talked into going to a rave. Technically, he hadn’t known it was going to be a rave, but he should have suspected something when he saw that mischievous glint in the eyes of his friends. Those two lived for dangerous fun, and he ought to have remembered that.

Why am I even friends with them? Oh yeah, ‘cause I can’t get any better friends than that. They only like me because I’m nuts.

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t really ‘nuts,’ per say, but the school counselor was always telling him he had deep-rooted, psychological anger issues. His friends found his violent streak funny for some reason, and occasionally got him into fights just so they could egg him on. He couldn’t really bring himself to resent them for it, because they were all he had.

He could never shake the feeling that if that missing place were filled, if that void inside him were made whole again, he wouldn’t need them anymore. He wouldn’t need anything or anyone else ever again.

~*~*~*~*~*~

“Man,” Genrou complained, “Why are we getting’ all these new kids? Don’t we have a cramped enough school budget without addin’ ta the problem?”

The redhead and Houjun were at lunch Monday afternoon, a few days after the fight with the Serpents. A sudden influx of new students had occurred recently, quite a rare phenomenon in the middle of the school year. Ryuuen had taken to life at Fushichou High like a fish to water, as much at ease there as anywhere, and had been assigned the lucky duty of showing the new kids around. This was also unusual, but the staff all agreed that the violet-haired boy knew his way around well enough already, and would do a good job. They reasoned that since Ryuuen was an older student, newbies would likely trust him and learn from him readily.

Also given this task were Genrou and Houjun, both juniors and quite familiar with the school. Neither of them had been pleased with this news, as neither was very social and neither liked dealing with people who didn’t know what was going on (new students definitely fell into that category). Of course, that was probably why they’d been given this assignment. The teachers at their school hated them both with a cruel vengeance.

Houjun sighed and pushed his lunch around his tray with his chopsticks. “I hope none of the new people are freshmen. I despise freshmen on principle. They’re loud, annoying, gossipy, and rude, no da. And their level of immaturity never fails to boggle the mind, no da.”

“Oh, come on,” said a cheery voice. “They aren’t that bad.”

“Hey, Ryuuen,” Genrou greeted dryly. “Been enjoyin’ yerself? And yeah, they are that bad. Freshmen suck.”

“I think they’re cute.”

“You would.”

“Hey,” Houjun interrupted, “Look, it’s Juan.” He waved, and the tall young man waved back and wandered over.

“Genrou, Houjun, you’re still here, I see,” he rumbled amicably.

Genrou snorted. “Not for lack of tryin.’ The teachers are out in force today, keepin’ an eye on us ‘cause we’re supposed ta show some new kids around school.”

His blue-haired friend smirked. “We’ve been meticulously avoiding this duty all day. They may be able to prevent us from leaving, but they can’t make us follow orders.”

Juan glanced at Ryuuen, who grinned and shrugged helplessly. The matter was out of both of their hands, it seemed. Juan gave in and sat down at the table with his friends.

They were busily discussing the pros and cons of adding to the number of students at Fushichou when someone tapped Houjun on the shoulder. The azure-haired youth turned to scowl at the offender who dared invade his personal space, then grimaced when he realized whom it was.

“May I help you, Taka-sensei?” he ground out. Taka Sukunami had earned a place on Houjun’s black list for dragging him to class against his will, and he was not about to forget it anytime soon.

The gym teacher merely smiled, not noticing (or perhaps blatantly ignoring) the hostility being directed at him. “Actually, I was wondering if I could sit down. The Teacher’s Lounge is a little stuffy, and all the other tables here are crowded.”

All four teenagers stared incredulously at him. Didn’t he know the rules? If a group of high school kids formed a clique, other kids didn’t dare try to enter it, let alone adults. For this man, a teacher no less, to request a place in their circle was unethical, unheard of, and just plain wrong. Yet Taka did not seem to realize this, or else he didn’t care. Without waiting for an official invitation, he settled himself on the bench next to Juan, brought out a box lunch, and without further ado began eating. Every now and then he would skim through a book he had brought with him, or jot little reminders to himself on his ever present clipboard.

The younger men at the table with him shot dubious looks at each other that seemed to say, “What now?” Gradually, though, Taka’s presence no longer made them uneasy. They were able to shake off the oddity of the situation with surprising ease, and they discovered that they took a vague comfort in the man’s company despite themselves. It felt…natural to have him there, like he had been part of the group all along. Houjun, for one, still did not entirely trust him (he was a teacher, after all), but he felt that strange ease as well, and wondered at it.

And the man seemed to enjoy their company, a first for an adult. He would glance at them from time to time, take in their features as though fascinated, and then smile to himself. He gave the impression of all being right with the world.

“So,” Houjun whispered to Genrou, “what do you think? Is he for real, or is he waiting for us to drop our guards completely? You know the teachers here want to know everyone’s business. He could be a spy for the principal.”

The redhead snorted softly. “Naw, he’s kosher. I can tell; he’s too dumb ta be a spy.”

“He does look a little stupid,” Houjun mused. “I’ll bet he played ‘Superman’ when he was little.”

“He seems nice,” Ryuuen added, his tone disapproving. “You two should give him a chance.”

“Look, Ryuuen, just ‘cause you like everybody doesn’t mean the rest of us do,” Genrou shot back.

“I don’t like everyone. For instance; I’m starting to not like you.”

“Guys, come on….”

“Butt out, Juan!”

Houjun smacked the bristling redhead across the back of the head. “Don’t get angry at Juan, Genrou. We were all fine a minute ago; let’s not lose our heads now.” He glanced at their table guest, who was looking at them in surprise. “Besides, you’re getting loud. I think you’re disturbing Superman.”

Taka raised an eyebrow. “Superman?”

The four teenagers sweatdropped. “Er, just an inside joke, sensei,” Houjun offered.

That eyebrow stayed in the air for a moment or two, and then Taka went back to his lunch. Things quieted down after that, at least until the lunch period was over. Then a different teacher approached the students and proceeded to scold Genrou and Houjun for not attending to their “babysitting” duties. Neither young man paid much attention, which only served to infuriate the teacher more.

“You two are headed down a bad path,” the middle-aged woman snapped at them, shaking her finger like a soldier’s bayonet. “Your delinquent behavior is going to get you into real trouble some day!”

“Aw, blow it out yer ears, ya old harpy,” Genrou snarled. “You ain’t the boss of us.”

“Kiss off,” Houjun added helpfully.

Taka, observing them out of the corner of his eye, was not sure who was more shocked at such blatant malice towards authority, him or the other teacher. It was wonderful to meet the reincarnations of some of his oldest and best friends (because they were; they had to be!), but these were not the celestial warriors he remembered. Tasuki was mostly the same, if even more immature if that was possible for him, but the others were less like themselves. Nuriko and Mitsukake were pale reflections of their past personalities, and Chichiri…just wasn’t Chichiri anymore, at least not on the surface. Something had gone wrong when they had been brought to this world and this time, and it had changed them, maybe for the worse.

He had not told Miaka about his discovery yet, and now he thought perhaps he should not. He hated to imagine how she would react if she discovered what had become of her beloved friends in this life. At best she would seek them out and try to fix things, and at worst she would be heartbroken. No, he decided, he would keep this to himself. At least until he figured out why the Suzaku Seishi were so different now.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Review, or so help me there will be no more fic for you lot! None I say!

On an different note, the next few chapters probably won't be as long as this one. I was having a hard time figuring out where was a good place to stop this one, which is why it's so heinously long. n_n; Sorry to those of you with short attention spans.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it, and there's a whole lot more where this came from.