Deal! Fortune!...in bed.

The Anime series “Shuffle” is brought to us by Funimation, not me. I do not profit financially from this. The line between dirty and naughty is drawn in the sand and sand can get hot in the sun. Cold water reviews welcome.

[Title:] Deal! Fortune! The boy who could become either a god or a devil…in bed.

[Side Note:] See ‘On Shuffle.’

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Chapter 6: Flat. Out.
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*Rin had never watched another man re-*

Sorry. We’re a little less ahead of ourselves than we were last time. This description of time has never occurred to Rin before, but it will soon. He’s average when it comes to planning ahead, but as he made his way out of Sia’s garden, and set upon the shortest route to Itsuki’s house, he did try to rehearse things.

“Rin, what a nice surprise. How are you today?”

“Oh I’m fine, Itsuki’s-mom, how are you?”

Rin hadn’t called Mrs. Midoriba ‘Itsuki’s-mom’ since he’d moved up from tricycle to training wheels, but he’d also never tried to imitate her voice before, so let’s say he was 0 for 0 again.

“Oh you know me, ever since the sun rose I’ve been trying to squeeze every last drop of love out of my husband while at the same time trying to keep my perverted son from violating every curved surface in the house. Do you know what that’s like?”

“That’s nice. Speaking of whom, can he come out and play today?”

“I suppose, but if he’s still at home, that means he’s at least not out in public, right?”

“Yes. Yes that’s exactly what that means.”

“So it’s a pretty stupid question, isn’t it?”

“Yes it is m’am.”

“You’re pretty stupid, aren’t you?”

“Yes I most certainly am.”

“You should just ask if he’s at home. You’re not little kids anymore.”

“Yes, m’am. You’re right.”

“In fact, if you weren’t such an idiot you’d know that Itsuki almost never stays home on the weekends.”

“Yes I would.”

“I certainly can’t figure out what all these girls see in you.”

“Neither can-”

Rin’s outer dialogue had been getting louder and more frantic during his power-walk to Itsuki’s house. When he noticed some kids had stopped their ball game to stare at him, he stopped walking (way too soon) and shut his mouth (way too late).

“Hey mister, why are you talking to yourself,” an especially snotty boy asked.

“He’s not talking to himself, dummy, he’s got one of those phones you stick in your ear.”

“Nah-ah! Sa-su-ko! He was talking in two different voices.”

The two kids, who could have been brother and sister by snot if not by blood, glared at each other.

Rin tried to smile a no big deal smile. He also tried to think of an explanation.

“What’s the matter with you, mister?”

Kids could smell failure as easily as fear.

“Yeah, and how come you’re the only grown up we’ve seen all morning?”

"Who cares?! Can’t we just play!” The third child was shorter, but spoke like the leader of the group.

“Yeah, it’s nothing. You kids just have fun.”

Rin was smiling for real now, clutching to a small blessing that these kids, who looked some years from puberty, didn’t seem affected by the Lemon Star. He started to walk away again when the third child, snottier now for talking like the leader and the eldest, called out to him.

“Hey! Not so fast!”

Rin looked over his shoulder, remembering what he’d learned about facing dangerous animals in the wild.

“Y-yeah. What is it, Shorty?”

It worked. The other two giggled loudly, making Shorty go red in the face, the ears, the hands, even his beige baseball cap seemed to turn pink.

“You’re probably not even that much older than me, asshole!”

The other two ooo-ed at the challenge. Whether awed by his bravery, or by the trouble he’d soon be in, they at least weren’t looking at Rin anymore.

“Well I’m old enough to mind my own business,” Rin added a little more to his genuinely exasperated sigh, “what do you want?”

“Everyone’s having an or-jer-ie today, huh?”

“Eww! No they aren’t!”

“They are too, Sasuko, what do you think all those noises coming from everyone’s house were?”

“Shut up, you’re disgusting!”

“Mom and dad did look really in a hurry to get us out of the house.”

The snotty brother spoke to their ball, but gave Rin a suspicious look.

“Listen to your sister kid,” Rin tried to start walking away again, then had an idea that he’d recall as crazy even though it worked.

“And hey, why don’t you just tell me where the high school gir-kids, where the older kids hang out around here and I won’t tell your parents about you all being perverts.”

Sasuko laughed, clearly still at that blissfully innocent age where girls believed that only boys could be perverts.

“They don’t know anything, mister. There’s a soda bar up the street a few blocks and to the left.”

“Thanks. Thank you very much.”

Rin let his relief hang out in the breeze. Sasuko took it as deep gratitude and stammered a ‘whatever’ through a growing blush.

Shorty took one look at this and took a deep breath. He was less red for a few seconds before he turned purple.

“CHILD MOLESTER! HELP! THERE’S A CHILD MOLESTER!”

Running was probably the worst thing Rin could have done, but if the Right Thing to Do had anything to say, the worst alarm call in the entire world was definitely drowning it out.

Rin didn’t look back. In fact he didn’t even notice his legs were still attached until he spied the soda bar.

Itsuki was sitting at a patio chair, alone. The wide shade umbrella kept him in shadow, but Rin could tell his friend was wearing aviator glasses and the type of hat only old men who wanted to only kind-of hide the fact they were rich would wear. Only those type of old men and Itsuki.

Impossible to walk after running so fast, Rin did a kind of leisurely jog that just made his breath that much harder to catch. When he sat down in the opposite chair, the nemesis-friend just looked at him with a very tiny, very tightly drawn smile.

“You’ve *pant* Itsuki, you *pant* really shouldn’t be out on the street today *pant*.”

“Ooo! Heavy breathing, eh?”

A pair of teen girls dressed like tween girls dressed like prostitutes had just walked outside with their drinks. They were, Rin hated to admit, very enticing, but he forced himself to give them a dirty look. Not that kind of dirty look, he hoped through his scowl, but they were too busy sharing a giggle to notice.

Itsuki clearly noticed, and turned towards him, slowly, very slowly. Rin would be too embarrassed, despite every other embarrassing thing he’d recall about today, to admit it, but time really did slow down in those next seconds.

Rin grew more and more afraid, terrified even, as Itsuki moved his head like a robot, like a zombie, like a robot zombie vampire sex fiend, to smile at Rin. His smile became wider and wider till Rin could see his friends teeth trembling in his skull. With the same horrifyingly slow movement, Itsuki turned this new smile towards the two girls. He tilted his sunglasses forward. He tilted his head back. He opened his mouth and flickered his tongue. The movement was more like the PR than the business end of a rattlesnake, the hissing moan that zigzagged out of Itsuki’s mouth was definitely warm-blooded, and the message was as clear as the glacier water in Rin’s veins.

Time didn’t speed up again after that, though. In fact it may even have gotten a little slower as the two girls did the unthinkable.

They smiled.

They smiled, giggled and smiled wider, amused if not more than a little intrigued. They walked away, but both glanced over their shoulders with another tempting smile. One of them, Rin swore, even winked.

“So that’s it?”

Itsuki kept announcing himself to the girls even after they disappeared around a corner. Rin was talking to himself, to the whole world condensed around himself, around his ankles in a stagnant kiddie pool. For as much as his friend seemed legitimately ill, The Right Thing to Do was just as hopelessly annoyed as Rin was.

“You’ve really lost it this time, eh?”

Although the pace of time had returned to normal, Itsuki’s head began to roll about like a slow motion film of an escaped fire hose. The sound coming from his mouth reverberated in kind.

“You’re probably already in more trouble than I could ever get you out of.”

Itsuki wavered and seemed about to faint into his soda, but he steadied himself enough so that his chin merely flopped against his chest. It was small comfort, but at least now he sounded like a harmless cartoon car’s sputtering flat tire. The Right Thing to Do wasn’t as disgusted as Rin was when Itsuki’s lips began grasping for the plastic curly straw teat of his remarkably girly-looking drink. Instead, it reminded Rin of all the times Itsuki had tried to help him study, help him get dates, help him forget he was an orphan…

“Dammit,” Rin mumbled to himself, “alright Casanova, let’s get you home.”

Itsuki reached into his pants and began retrieving something. Rin blanched, sighed in relief, then blanched again when he saw it was a water bottle, then smelled that it was full of rum. The girly ice cream soda became less empty and a lot less girly…a lot less classy girl-girly, anyway.

Watching the concoction travel up into Itsuki’s still wobbly head, Rin realized that, whatever else his friend may be today, he was totally drunk.

“Aye need do shleeEEee…p!” A helpless puff of air dropped out the corner of Itsuki’s mouth, popping the last consonant and blowing a sickly bubble back into his drink.

“Ha! I’ll bet.” Rin didn’t want to feel like laughing, but he did wish he could be an outside observer. He’d laugh then, laugh and laugh and maybe never stop.

“Itsuki, listen to me. Do you know anything about the-” Rin tried but just couldn’t refer to some heavenly body like it was the elephant in the room, the randy bull elephant in the room, the rampaging, throbbing-

Rin shook his head till it jumbled any and all images, shook it some more until it was empty of all but a buzz equal and hopefully opposite to Itsuki’s.

“Nevermind. We’ve got to get you home.”

“I’ve been playing Mr. Bomb-Bomb,” Itsuki told his drink in an airy sing-song.

“Nice. I don’t even want to guess what that’s supposed to mean.”

With the extra strength the Right Thing to Do had sure been stingy with so far this morning, Rin lifted Itsuki from his chair. Now supporting him like a wounded comrade in arms, he began walking them both away from the table. Rin looked over both their shoulders and was relieved to see the water bottle forgotten on a chair. He refused to let himself worry about someone else finding it. He refused. He could carry Itsuki’s ass home and he could let some kid find a bottle full of-

“Dammit! Dammitdammitdammitdammit-” Rin grumbled as he swung Itsuki around, which did nothing to steady either of them, and hobbled back.

Itsuki chuckled to himself as if he were at his wits end over something even more witless than their situation.

“Oh. Of course, some star-struck waitress came out to check on us when we could have escaped.”

Rin, who suddenly had a lot of foresight for someone who pleads ignorance so much, lamented his rotten luck before the waitress was even halfway out the door.

“Hey now! Where do you think you’re taking my best customer?”

She didn’t seem any flirtier than the waitresses at these places usually were, so Rin hoped for the best and continued toward the water bottle.

“He’s had enough, trust me.”

Rin grabbed the water bottle, stuffed it in his pocket, and swung Itsuki around again. His charge imitated a baby playing airplane. The waitress called to them like the host of a very different sort of establishment.

“But he promised me an extra big tip if I…sweetened the pot for him.”

Itsuki moaned in pain for both of them. Rin shot him an incredulous look, ready for his longtime buddy, who would never, in a million years, complain about a day like this, to transform into someone else.

Rin looked to the waitress, a drop in the bucket of today’s mistakes, but the ripples ruffled him just the same.

“I…need to get him home,” Rin barely managed.

The waitress was blushing, but clearly NOT from shyness. She was also pulling the edges of her skirt down toward her knees, but clearly NOT to hide something, but rather to keep something just barely at bay.

“Oh I don’t think he needs a chaperone, but I know I sure could use a couple extra hands in the kitchen.”

“That’s-”

The sincere word ‘unnecessary’ had been in the back of his throat. Rin barely caught it when it turned into the flirtatious word ‘unsanitary’ on the tip of his tongue. Rather than find another word that might turn on him, Rin just huffed and began walking Itsuki away toward the first road that looked like it wouldn’t lead back to those snotty kids.

“Wha-where are you going?” She called, confused and frustrated enough to make Rin pick up the pace.

“Just put it on his tab,” Rin yelled at the ground.

“Oh I’ll put it on his tab alri-HEY! Come back here!”

Rin heard her stomp her feet, but didn’t hear her running after them. It didn’t stop him from urging Itsuki to carry more of his own weight.

“Itsuki, you bastard, even if you can’t walk a straight line you can still walk!”

“Ha. Ha ha. It’s like a three legged race.” Itsuki sounded like a candy fairy, despite his breath smelling like he’d eaten a candy fairy he’d found in the gutter. Rin was less than amused.

“Oh, ‘three-legged,’ very funny. Everybody thinks dirty jokes are funny till the joke’s on them.”

“Joke? Oh…oh I get it…heh heh HA-”

“Shut up! I’m taking you home and tying you to the pluming if I have to. Then I’m going back home and digging a hole to hide in.”

“But I can’t,” Itsuki moaned pitifully.

“We’ll all be better off, trust me.”

“No, please, I can’t go home. Really, I started playing last night after dinner and I played aaall night. Allnight-allnight. All night.”

“Wonderful. Add that to all you’ve drunk and it’s a wonder you’re not blind.”

Itsuki started making weak grabbing motions with his free hand toward Rin’s face.

“My eyes DO hurt, and my fingers feel numb. I could have quit at any time, it gave you continue codes, but I had to keep playing, I had to kill.”

“Just keep walking, damn you.”

“I had to kill all of them.”

It was a deadly serious and disturbingly uncharacteristic voice that stumbled out of Itsuki, Itsuki who was a caricature even when he was trying to be sincere. It sounded as much like a plea as a warning.

“Were you really playing a video game all night?”

“I killed them all, the moon was bright and I was up and I was so hungry I couldn’t think, but I killed them all. I won. I won just by not giving up. I was winning the whole time because I wasn’t thinking about anything else. I wasn’t thinking about school or even girls. I just bombed the walls and the little balloon guys, and those damn ghost ones and the ones that bomb you back and-”

“Well done, Itsuki, well done. Now calm down.”

Rin tried to be consoling. He wondered, with an obscure flash of pity, if an already perverted person might blow a fuse under the Lemon Star.

“Had to keep playing. Had to focus on Mr. Bomb Bomb. Mom and dad were making so much noise…going at it like cats…like monkeys!”

Rin hung his head alongside Itsuki’s, wondering if nowhere was safe. The pause gave him time to listen. It occurred to him that he could hear the cicadas in the park, the park that was about two, three…definitely too far away to hear any other time. The star must have cranked up the volume on them, too. Paying attention to his ears, with apartment buildings on both sides of them, apartments full of couples, had been a bad idea. Again, Rin was shocked to hear Itsuki agree.

“Uggggh. Make them stop. I could hear it whenever I wasn’t playing, but they must have been at it before then, before then, after then, then-then I looked outside and I could still hear the bombs.”

“You’re scaring me now, Itsuki,” Rin complained, mostly sarcastic.

“Every time you make it through a new maze you get more bombs, better bombs.”

Rin couldn’t remember what he’d heard, but it was something along the lines of ‘if a drunk suddenly seems sober you should be extra careful.’

“Are you gonna puke?”

The only answer was the chorus of amorous tenants all around them. Itsuki moaned in genuine pain, clutching his forehead.

Rin spied a dead end ally between two dark and blessedly quite warehouses. It was completely in shadow, and Rin took half a moment to wonder if such a perfect place could be a mirage. There were even some old crates that looked perfect for resting, or abandoning drunks on.

After depositing Itsuki as gently as he could, trying to position his burden so that it wouldn’t fall, but also couldn’t get up, Rin tried to think. He also tried to rest against the opposite wall and not think, which was much easier.

“Mr. Bomb-Bomb. I’d get better and better bombs, blanket the whole level like napalm. I could go down the street, block by block, drop my bombs and I’d be bound to win.”

Itsuki reached into his pants with one hand, and started loosening his belt with the other. Whether or not it was the Right Thing to Do, something moved Rin very fast, and slapped his friend across the cheek.

“Pull yourself together Midoriba! I could be saving your life right now.”

A rope connecting Rin’s brain and his stomach was suddenly covered in knots. Something very heavy and clumsy was climbing up. Itsuki, hands flopped helplessly at his side, sounded ready to cry.

“I want it so bad, Rin. I can’t get it up when I drink, and I can’t do anything if I pass out…I’ve been trying, but I still want it sooo bad.”

“Itsuki, are you saying you-that you don’t want-”

“I know something’s wrong with me. I know something’s wrong with everyone today, but I can’t help it.”

Rin grabbed his friend by the shoulders and forced their eyes to meet.

“It’ll be okay, man. We’ll get through this.”

Itsuki managed a weak grimace.

“I knew I should have come to you for help. If anyone can keep themselves under control it’s someone who can resist five…no seven…or is it fifteen girls at once?”

Itsuki was using his fingers to count, badly. Rin didn’t have to consult the Right Thing to Do; they could wait this thing out in a quiet little alley. Maybe Rin could get a little tipsy to make sure it seemed like a party they couldn’t leave. He eased Itsuki back to a more comfortable position and reached for the water bottle. It didn’t take much to get their party started.

With unprecedented speed, Itsuki had wrapped his arms around him. It was a hug of gratitude, of respect, meant for Rin instead of Rin’s Luck. It startled him, but relaxed him twice as much in the next moment. There was something very reassuring, even empowering about having someone in his arms he didn’t have to worry about breaking.

“You’re the man, Tsuchimi,” Itsuki breathed, then breathed across his ear, “I’m the man…and YOU’RE the man, and-”

“Well. Well. Well. What have we here?”

The two of them turned in unison. There was a girl, leaning against the wall with one leg folded in and both arms folded across. She was wearing her school uniform on a weekend, something you only did if you were a very good, or a very naughty student.

Itsuki tried to stand up straighter and faltered. Rin hugged him more tightly and Itsuki did the same.

Mayumi Thyme put her hands behind her head and pushed off the wall with her rear. She looked at them, one blue eye, one purple eye, one thing on her mind, Rin knew, just as surely as he knew it was the same thing on his mind, the same thing on Itsuki’s.

“I should have known.”

She had managed, with no practice Rin could ever have expected, the kind of sultry enunciation a flirty waitress could only dream of.

“I always thought there was some other reason you were able to keep from diving into your harem, Rin, but Itsuki-”

Rin heard Itsuki swallow and tried to guide his friend behind him, but his friend only put a friendly hand on his supportive shoulder to stand himself up. The movement was steady, and Rin was relieved to see that Itsuki’s the other hand was only straightening that ridiculous hat and sunglasses combo.

“It sure looks like this club is no-girls-allowed,” Mayumi continued her approach.

Rin reassured himself, though. Now that Itsuki was up he would say something rude, Mayumi would knock him cold, Rin would busy her hauling him back home, and everything would be all right.

Optimism and luck don’t quite match the way people might expect. Mayumi didn’t know this, but she did know what she wanted.

“I hope I’m wrong. I also hope your mothers…”

Mayumi put her hands on her hips and moved her fingers slowly forward over her thighs and onto her knees, bending to talk to boys who were little even for their age. Then, for each word that followed, she unfastened a button on her blouse. Rin in turn lost another thought about Itsuki’s welfare, and at least a year off his life.

“…taught…you…how…to…share.”

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Meanwhile!

Back at the Fuyou house!

In an alternate Manga-verse!

Where Kaede is always crazy and Primula is always in her Lolita cat maid uniform:

“Kaede, where’s Rin?”

“Probably off with one of his filthy whores, Rimu-chan.”

“Oh.”

“Would you like to help me make lunch for them?”

“K.”

“Here, you can help cut these vegetables.”

“But these are big batteries.”

“Not big enough. Here’s the cleaver.”

“There’s nothing in the pot you’re heating, Kaede.”

“There’s nothing in the oven either, or the microwave, or the bathroom, or my bed or-”

“It’s a nice day, Kaede. Could we have a picnic outside?”

“The sun is bad for our skin and other membranes today.”

“Oh.”

“Isn’t it fun taking care of Rin? Taking care of him for ever and ever and ever until we’re all rotting in the ground together?”

“Psychosis isn’t funny, Kaede.”

“Neither is pedophilia, Primula.”

“Oh.”

“Hand me that empty bag of rice, would you?”

“K.”

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We now return you to an obscure ally where three young people are trying in vain to escape the lascivious rays of a magic star.

These and many other romantic locations can be found in our new pamphlet “Heaven, Hell, and Japan.”

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One eye was purple. One eye was blue.

One eye was blue. One eye was purple.

The colors were not any kind of fancy gemology or fashion color names. Those names were for things that worked with light. Mayumi’s eyes looked something like lights themselves. Mayumi looked like she’d never had to blink in her entire life.

“Now then, I was thinking, since way too many claims have been made on you already, Tsuchimi,” Mayumi had walked past them, a quizzical finger against her lips. Her blouse left only the center of her bra showing, a peak of turquoise floral lace dotting a line of healthy skin.

“AND since you don’t even care if you get an eyeful of my panties…” she glared at Rin and flopped her shoulders against the wall, “I figured that we could put that to use with the fact that Itsuki wouldn’t know what to do with a real woman even if she threw …herself…at him.”

Mayumi’s new confidence wavered in its bluff. Her cheeks ignited with a blush only someone determined to hide it could manage. She closed her eyes and lifted her head with a heavy sigh, as if the whole excruciating performance were actually a bore. Rin and Itsuki didn’t look at each other. They didn’t breathe. They just followed every inch of her as she wiggled a shoulder free of her blouse.

The floral pattern continued up the strap. The floral pattern was slightly transparent. Rin recalled at that moment what flowers were really for and figured Itsuki had probably never forgotten.

They opened their mouths to speak and a gulping sound rang in their ears. Mayumi, impossibly, blushed more and looked from one to the other with a devious chuckle, a downright devilish chuckle, in fact.

Rin wondered if Itsuki remembered that Mayumi was half Devil.

“Here’s what’s gonna happen,” Mayumi began, head up, eyes closed, addressing a room full of her new servants, “I’m going to be the star of this show, and the producer too. Midoriba is going to be a *teehehe* ‘stand in.’ You, Tsuchimi, are going to have to be the director.”

“This is crazy.”

Rin gave Itsuki a look that would have been priceless if only we could be certain that Itsuki would never take the words out of Rin’s mouth ever again (it’s probably a pretty safe bet). Itsuki didn’t notice anyone’s expression, he just looked up and clenched his fists at the sky. His hat slipped off his head, unnoticed.

“I don’t know who’s been listening to my silent prayers all my life, but this is overkill! There’s no way I can play…this…kind of game! Not with her…she’s the…she looks so hot right now it hurts to even make eye contact!”

Itsuki sounded ready to snap and do something really stupid. Mayumi looked ready to spontaneously combust.

“Itsuki…” Mayumi whispered, then cleared her throat before declaring plainly, “that’ll do. I think the audience is suitably convinced.”

The Right Thing to Do would be an honest, practical thing to say, unless it was also something stupid.

“We can’t do anything here, you idiots! We’re in public. Someone might walk by and see us.”

Rin looked at Mayumi, who looked stunned. Rin looked at Itsuki, who looked stupefied. His two friends, who were more trouble than they were worth on the best of days, looked at each other, and nodded with the most terrified and excited expression he could have imagined.

Itsuki sprang into action with all the gusto of an eager soldier, lifting and piling crates to make a small privacy barrier between them and the mouth of the alley. Mayumi started to help and something struck Rin hard and flat in his face.

It was his own hand, which didn’t make it hurt any less, but he was able to right (if not right-thing-to-say) himself more quickly.

“That is NOT what I meant! We can’t…can’t…we’re just-”

Rin felt his voice, his spine, his entire nervous system deflating. He felt two delicate and amazingly warm hands. Mayumi was bringing the hand not still plastered to his face up in front of her mouth, her breath was even warmer, the tiny kiss against his knuckle like a tropical raindrop.

“We’re just friends, Rin. I know. It’s going to be okay. I don’t know how, but I think I know more than you think you do about what’s going on today. Just remember one rule…”

“Mayumi…this-”

“You’re in charge.”

Rin looked at her eyes, from one to the other and found he couldn’t look in any other direction, except down, of course.

“Of course,” Rin spoke plainly to the area of thigh between Mayumi’s stockings and her skirt.

“That’s better,” Mayumi chirped, then joined Itsuki to help him finish building their closed set.

“Wait, no, I was talking to-”

Rin was talking to his friends, his very good friends who were nice enough to agree to help each other explore their sensuality. They couldn’t hear him because he had a tendency to mumble nonsense. He figured he’d better nip that in the bud, since now he had to be a director and all.

“This is it,” Rin sighed at the ground, shuffling his feet toward their ‘set’, “this is the end. Our lives are over. Thanks, Lemon Star, I hope you get sucked into a black hole.”

“You want me to what?”

Itsuki, suddenly either sober or drunker than humanly possible, looked at him in disbelief, but not, Rin noticed, defiance. Mayumi put her hands together under her chin and stepped back with a look that matched Itsuki’s. The two actors glanced at each other, then looked back to Rin intensely, desperately.

The Right Thing to Do was…not silent, but satisfied. It was watching Rin very closely, but from a distance, speaking only with its eyes, and its eyes were closed over an encouraging little grin.

“Close your eyes, both of you.”

Rin imagined he must be blushing, was probably even shaking, but he didn’t feel…bad. No, it wasn’t fear or shame, it was excitement. Faster and faster the visions came, of different ways for two people to be…close. The hesitating moments in his thoughts managed to slow the visions down long enough for him to grasp one like a tiny seed riding the air toward him.

“Now. Itsuki. Put your hands out. Higher. You too, Mayumi.”

Step by step, Rin guided them through a darkened room till Mayumi had her back against the wall again (and looking much less sure of herself than before) with Itsuki shuffling toward her. His fingertips tips touched hers and they both did a convincing job of turning their nervous breaths into conspiring chuckles.

“Now,” Rin swallowed, “pull him towards you. Slowly.”

That last part had been added more timidly than stylishly, but still Rin felt powerful. It did not frighten him, it actually encouraged him. That, he found frightening. That, in turn, he found frustrating. Rin started to reassure himself that he was just playing along, that he wasn’t doing anything…but he didn’t care. This was a game, an act that made him feel so different he didn’t want to spoil its newness. He could really make something of this, of them, of everyone who ever wanted to get close to someone.

Mayumi had pulled Itsuki closer and closer, till their chests met, elbows folded away.

Intimacy.

The word came to Rin like a wood engraving dropped on a stack of thin paper drawings.

“Tell her a secret.”

Rin didn’t specify how, he didn’t know if Itsuki would whisper it so that only she could hear. He was as eager to find out as he was to hear it, or not hear it.

“I…”

Itsuki just laughed. Then, holding Mayumi’s hands with a bit more confidence, bent into her ear. He decided to whisper. Loudly.

“I’ve never had a real girlfriend before. I’m about as virgin as they get.”

“Go on.” Rin was through being shocked, by himself or anyone else, but he liked how surprised he was by his sudden instruction.

“That is a secret, right?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Mayumi breathed, “there’s more to it, though, isn’t there?”

“Mayumi, hush.”

Rin took a deep breath, a nice, enlivening breath, but he still had to wipe the growing smile off his face. It was real. He was in charge of them both.

“I act confident because I know that’s what girls like, and I want girls to like me. I want girls to like me even more than they like Rin. I act confident because I want them to…to fight over me. I want this but…but I also want someone to love me.”

Itsuki’s whisper had been getting progressively quieter, but it was still clear as crystal.

Both young men gulped in near-unison, but Rin acted before anything could be made of it.

“Mayumi. Your turn.”

With a highly suspicious smile, she lifted a leg enough for one tip toe and spoke in a voice as naked as the gaze she shot over Itsuki and into Rin.

“I want to be used.”

Rin gave the silence that followed a wide berth, then stalked up behind it.

“Itsuki, give her space. Give her space, but…don’t let go.”

In a not quite graceful dance move, Itsuki lifted both their arms over Mayumi’s head. Now, her arms spread behind her like a mermaid on the front of a great ship, Mayumi took a deep breath, eager to continue.

“Keep your eyes closed.”

The power Rin felt then as Mayumi obeyed spread directly into his heart. Whether his pulse was faster or just harder, it made his mouth dry. He licked his lips, smiling that Mayumi didn’t see. Smiling at what she’d think if she had.

“Who do you want to use you?”

“N-n-not just anyone. When I’m lying awake in bed, sometimes I imagine I have a sort of…imaginary friend, a sort of imaginary lover.”

Mayumi began to roll her head, and her hips, side to side as she continued.

“He’s not imaginary though, he’s not even invisible. He’s a magic man more powerful and mysterious than any God or Devil. He-”

Mayumi bit her lip and Rin noticed that, wherever his head was, his body was not as removed from this as he thought he could keep it.

“He uses me. He uses me hard. He uses me dirty. He does whatever he wants whenever he wants and I always want him to. He uses me because he knows that, because I’m so flat, I’ll be so excited that somebody wants me so much.”

Rin was starting to feel protective for a moment, that his star was fragile and needed reassurance. Then she smiled.

“And it’ll be true, but,” she laughed to herself, deep and dark in her throat, “but soon he’ll want more and more of me, more of my mind, more of my soul. He’ll give me power, and he’ll ache for me to use it. Our p-pleasures will grab the whole universe. We’ll have…’guests.’ We’ll make doubles of ourselves and-”

She gasped then and Rin noticed the tendons on Itsuki’s forearms. They were both visibly trembling now, but silent save for their breath.

“Itsuki, let her go,” his stars seemed to be dimming, but before their hands fell all the way to their sides Rin added “leave her blouse on, but take off her bra.”

Itsuki flexed his fingers eagerly, but gently. Mayumi made a small, uncertain sound at his first attempt.

“What’s wrong,” Rin and Itsuki asked in a sync so perfect Mayumi’s giggle swallowed it entirely.

“I-I-It clasps in the front.”

Itsuki placed his hands on her shoulders and gave her a small squeeze. Whether it was reassuring or persuading, Rin could only guess, but Mayumi bit her lip again in what was definitely a smile.

He worked with his fingertips, carefully as if he were building a model. When he heard the tiny click of tiny teeth beneath a tiny flower, he spread it open, the halves of her bra pulling back her blouse.

They were small, but they were not shrunken, not stunted, not unfinished; they were hers. They were small enough that Rin could see her hear beat under one and see her nipples throb on the tips of both.

“Now, Mayumi, put his hands where you want them.”

She took him by the wrists, then by the fingers. Itsuki was obviously trying to tremble indifferently. Rin just let her hesitation be excitement, be his own excitement. She might start low and work up, or vice versa. She might get right to the point. She might even skip past the point. That, Rin figured, was more Mayumi’s style.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Mayumi all but slapped the palms of Itsuki’s hands over her breasts. He breathed in, she blew out. Rin’s Right Thing to Do was blown way out of proportion.

Like parents coming home early from a trip to find their children had turned their home into a living tribute to decadence, Rin’s ears began to ring with all manner of ‘what the hells’.

“Open your eyes, Mayumi.”

He said it fearfully, almost frantically. This had to stop.

Mayumi opened her eyes and looked at Rin, and that stopped it.

The Right Thing to Do had crashed a party. It could either contribute to the fun or turn right around. Rin saw in Mayumi’s expression something more like gratitude than fear, more like pleasure than anything. She began to rotate Itsuki’s hands in heavy circles and closed her eyes again.

“K-keep them open,” Rin breathed, “look…look into her eyes, Itsuki.”

Mayumi now looking over her shoulder, a nose away from Itsuki, Rin watched their expressions change into something softer. It may have been a Change For the Better, approved by the Right Thing to Do, but they didn’t seem calmer so much as more focused.

Rin worked with this new energy swimming between them, their new awareness of each other. The more he wanted to see, the more delicate his directions. Itsuki’s hands on her cheek, her cheek against his chest as she undid his shirt, her other cheek against his bare chest as his shirt fell to the ground, each movement flowed from Rin’s mind through both their bodies. Mayumi giggled when Rin told Itsuki to put the tip of his nose in her bellybutton, and giggled louder when he did it, but mostly she smiled, and mostly Rin smiled.

He didn’t feel like a photographer, he felt more like a sculptor, molding his subjects into tender poses, not romantic poses. Sensual poses, not naughty poses. Those types of directions would be coming soon enough, he knew. He didn’t know if he wanted to delay them for their sake or his pleasure, but his next instruction felt like a Change For the Better, so he guessed the latter.

Rin had never watched another man remove a woman’s stocking before. He was only a teenager, but most people went their entire lives without witnessing the real thing, much less the real thing done right, much much less directing it. Itsuki turned out to be fuller and fuller of surprising ad-libs, interpreting the latest instruction of ‘take off her stockings’ as ‘remove one stocking slowly, fingers hooked under the elastic, rolling it down in a sea saw motion that creases the flesh of her legs.’

From his kneeling position, Itsuki looked like a knight more than a butler. Mayumi, even with her foot up on his knee, didn’t resemble a queen, or an empress, but some conquering force above them both. Rin thought of everything he’d felt so far this morning. For once, for this sight he held in his own eyes and his own hands, it felt less like rethinking feelings than feeling them anew.

“Mayumi, put your leg over his shoulder”

She did. They even steadied themselves rather gracefully. Rin didn’t even mind taking partial credit.

“Itsuki…”

“Yeah?” Itsuki answered after a shared pause, hoping to cancel out the director’s hesitation with his own.

“Kiss her panties.”

“W-Where?”

The question came from both actors, following a sound that was something like a yelp, something like a laugh, also from both of them. The answer was a lot more certain of itself.

“Everywhere.”

Rin watched Itsuki comply. He watched Mayumi’s fingers waver towards his hair. Their movements, increasingly frantic if still playful, revealed more stylish restraint than Rin would have imagined…were he not counting it as it fell away.

It occurred to Rin that his stars’ improvisations were feeding each other. Mayumi tickled the back of Itsuki’s ear. Itsuki gripped the string at her hip in his teeth and pulled upward. Mayumi lightly scratched his cheek. Itsuki began to press forward. Mayumi gripped his hair, her face the perfection of everything every woman was imitating in those magazines Itsuki would probably not enjoy as much any more.

Maybe Rin would make his own magazines. He’d only take pictures of people like this, nervous, but excited. They’d be real. They’d be gentle. They’d hug and kiss and-

Rin realized, as if he’d just accidentally run over the Right Thing to Do with a truck, that he’d had them steal more than a couple basses. This wasn’t baseball. Rin didn’t even like baseball! These were people, these were his friends, and he was about to make them eat each other alive before they even knew each other’s tastes.

“You haven’t-you…you two could kiss, if you wanted to.”

The dead and decayed confidence in his mouth tasted terrible, shameful, but the look in Mayumi’s eyes was worse.

She was helpless. She wanted to do everything he might tell her, and she would, but this was the one thing that she’d been afraid of. Itsuki stopped, not that Mayumi had made a sound or movement, but he must have either shared or caught her fear.

“But-” Mayumi whispered, eyes and mouth alternately begging and daring Rin not to listen.

Rin swallowed, opened his mouth, and then closed it.

“It’s all that’s holding me back.” Mayumi’s voice made Rin aware that it was possible for him to be more aroused.

Itsuki took his hands off her hips and set them against the ground to steady himself.

“It’s probably all that’s holding you back, too,” Mayumi said, looking down at herself in Itsuki’s sunglasses, then sliding her hands from his hair to remove them.

“But it’s the rules,” Itsuki shrugged bravely.

Really bravely, Rin thought, even if it was an obvious bluff.

“If the director tells us to, we have to.”

Mayumi looked for something in Rin that was certain, something that could save her from this increasingly unstable divide between more and less.

“Of course, a good leader would never ask anything of us he wasn’t willing to do himself.”

Itsuki, apparently, was better and worse than brave.

Rin closed his eyes and realized how dry they’d become. He lowered his head and saw everything beneath and below him, the tight and flowing parts. When he stood it was more a lift from his heart than a push from his legs. Itsuki stood up as well, stepping to the side as Rin walked forward. Mayumi looked from one to the other, wavering between nervous and eager, or perhaps intentionally juggling both. Itsuki only stopped looking at her when Rin put a hand on his shoulder.

“Close your eyes, Mayumi,” Rin told Itsuki, “one of us is going to do it, then you can open your eyes.”

Mayumi, looked at them both, smiling wider and wider. She closed her eyes and leaned forward while trying to look casual, then puckered, trying very hard not to shake. Rin made the universal rock paper scissors gesture, Itsuki was probably about to pick paper when Mayumi put one hand behind each of their necks. They were so very stiff that they couldn’t believe how easily she guided their cheeks into each other. For a girl with so much power in her eyes, it was amazing that the could now reel them both toward her without opening the purple, or opening the blue one. The men in their hands would probably not blink again for a while.

“I want you, but I can’t want you.”

She opened her eyes then and they knew, and knew the other knew, that she was talking to them both, equal and opposite.

The slightest pull and they leaned in to kiss half her mouth. They kissed her cheeks, they nibbled her ears. She grabbed them each by the hair as they kissed her neck, caressing, pulling, commanding. Rin felt his forearm brush against Itsuki’s as they both reached toward one of Mayumi’s breasts. She hummed when they reached their destination together, whimpered when they twisted her nipples. Mayumi bit Itsuki’s neck, no more than attached her mouth to it, really, but the look on Itsuki’s face made Rin remember the two kings.

Sometimes, when Rin remembered what he did next, he’d get embarrassed, other times he’d get a big smile; he’d never be able to explain why.

Mayumi’s hair was so soft and smelled so good as Rin tilted his face over it, touching foreheads with Itsuki and looking him in the eye. Itsuki only looked confused for a second before staring back, a challenge, a dare. Strength and heat and flesh, all in that moment together, all in that moment inseparable as Mayumi reached into their pants. Whereas Rin’s eyes exploded open, Itsuki’s closed tight. The sensation was excruciating, but Mayumi was merciless. She put her mouth on Rin’s neck as she took her hand from Rin’s pants, kept it there as she freed Itsuki, kept it there as she freed Rin. It was impossible that he could notice anything but his own flesh, but he did; Itsuki spread his hand down Mayumi’s belly, under her panties.

“What now, Tsuchimi, sir?” Itsuki’s asked Mayumi’s neck before devouring it.

“Tell him,” Mayumi breathed into Rin’s chest.

Rin curled his hand over Itsuki’s and guided his fingers. Mayumi gasped and clutched their hair with all her strength, pulling their faces back into either side of her neck. Rin made sure that, when he tightened his lips, Itsuki would know it, and follow suit. Mayumi pulled on them both. Rin had to remove his left hand from Itsuki’s, replace it with his right, and use that left hand to push back against the wall before it swallowed them all. Itsuki just gripped Mayumi’s nipple tighter. She made the most stimulating sound Rin had ever heard. He pulled Itsuki’s wrist down to lower her panties. He made a shape of Itsuki’s hand and moved it forward.

“Gently,” Rin whispered to everyone.

In seconds they were all breathing too loudly for Rin to think. If Mayumi’s grip on Itsuki was anything like her grip on him, though, the next task was obvious. Rin took Mayumi’s hand to give it some guidance over Itsuki. Mayumi, the producer who outranks the director, replaced her hand with Rin’s. Somehow both men managed to keep their mouths on Mayumi’s neck as Itsuki returned the gesture. Rin arched his back and gasped at the sky, Itsuki went instantly from Mayumi’s neck to his. Rin clutched Mayumi’s hip, crumpling her skirt in his hand, reached lower, clutched tighter as her gasps became tiny little screams, as Itsuki’s muffled roar blasted against his neck. The two men tilted as they collapsed against the wall, eye to eye, breathing close against each other’s teeth. Rin was ready to taste his mouth, Mayumi’s mouth, every mouth. Itsuki touched his forehead to Rin’s and closed his eyes. The producer’s grip at the base of their skulls loosened as her breathing calmed.

Rin looked down and saw her panties, diagonal beneath the spots of fluid on her thighs, crinkling her one stalking. They were still breathing heavily when they started to put their clothes back on. Rin and Itsuki shared a look of bewildered freedom, then laughed at the two hickies on either side of Mayumi’s neck, same size, same shape, different color.

Mayumi smiled shyly at them both, then stifled a laugh herself as she looked at her hands and began rubbing them against each other.

“You better check your own necks too, boys.”

In classic fashion, Rin and Itsuki closed their eyes and laughed with their hands on the back of their necks. They opened their eyes and stopped laughing when their fingers smeared what they hoped was blood.