Disclaimer: With this story I've tried to show motives for the characters by embellishing their pasts, focusing on male loves of one kind or another. Therefore I must add that most of this is based on speculation and if Matsushita-sensei ever does go back and clear things up . . . Well, my extrapolations should be taken with a grain of salt. The first chapter is a backstory for the Saint Michel arc in the fourth book of the manga. Izuru, Fujisawa, Mitani, Tsukiori, Robert and Maeda are Matsushita's characters. Later parts will deal with regulars.

The title and lines at the beginnings of the chapters are taken from the song "Forbidden Colours" by Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Sylvian, which struck me (along with its namesake, the novel by Mishima Yukio) as fitting amazingly well with the themes and emotions in YnM. So, since I don't do AMVs, consider this my next best effort. And do check out the song. It is powerful stuff.

These stories are recommended for a mature audience, so use your discretion. They contain adult and ofttimes disturbing content, much of it explicit, running the gamut from sexuality and incest, to gore and violence and death, to the occult. Not to mention, obscure references and shitloads of guilt. If it bothers you terribly to read about any of these in a piece of fiction, then you might just be in the wrong fandom. If not, then may it please.

Forbidden Colors

—

The ephemerality of worldly things is like springtime blossoms scattering
in the breeze; the brevity of human existence is like an autumn moon disappearing
behind a cloud.
—Tale of the Heike, the Initiates' Chapter

—

1

The wounds on your hands never seem to heal
I thought all I needed was to believe

—

It was Mitani's first year teaching at the Saint Michel Preparatory High School for Boys.

He called it a dream job. Having received his degree in Christian history and art, the school had long held special appeal for him. It was built to be a replica of the Mont-Saint-Michel abbey off the Normandy coast, almost completely surrounded by water except for one long two-lane floating bridge leading in and out, and rather secluded from the rest of the Nagasaki area. In addition, the school's chapel also featured reproductions of famous stained glass windows, those scriptures of the once illiterate masses, most notably the "Notification of Conception" from Saint-Etienne Cathedral in Bourges and Augsburg's eleventh-century "The Prophet." It was, in short, a melting pot of Christian achievement, just as the original location must have seemed an amalgamation of different faiths, piled one atop the other, the weight of them welding them together like sedimentary rock.

The rock on which the original abbey was built had once been called Mont Tombe when it was used by Druids as a graveyard. In Roman times, it became a place of worship for the secretive cult of Mithras, the Unconquered Sun, whose followers showed their devotion by branding themselves, before the spread of Christianity. It was not until the year 708 that St Aubert began construction of the abbey, after the Archangel Michael appeared to him in a series of dreams. He had doubted the authenticity of the dream the first night, and still the second, until on the third St Michael tapped him on the head with his finger. (Some of the students chuckled politely as Mitani reached this part of the story.) Still it took centuries of construction and reconstruction before the abbey reached its present state, the state which served the basis for this school half a world away.

Similarly, Nagasaki had seen its phases—Shinto, Buddhism, Christianity—and had its share of highs and lows. Destruction by the A-bomb and rebirth. Defeat and hope. It was a unique cycle, and though they were only living in one moment of it, Mitani wished to impress upon them the pride they should have in the history of the area, because as students of Saint Michel academy it was their history as well, with all its extremes. As Japanese, as residents of Nagasaki, and as Christians they should appreciate the reoccurring themes of transformation and renewal that had shaped their lives.

Thus went Mitani's introductory speech to his second year class, 2-A. He was by far the youngest teacher in the academy, in his twenties and recently out of university. He wore his hair in a short ponytail and a fringe hung down over his eyes. Standing at the front of the room in his pressed suit and plain tie he seemed small, like a boy trying his best to dress like adults around him. The writer Endo Shusaku had once described his faith like a suit of Western clothing, awkward and restrictive; and as Mitani related the same story in standard Japanese, one could not help but think his position was like an ill-fitting suit, in need of compromise with his youth.

But it was precisely his youth that attracted the students to him. He had a timid personality, easily overwhelmed, but once he was on a roll as he was now, his voice filled with a passion to which only the young themselves could truly relate.

He said little about himself. Boys used to sleeping through their older professors' self-glorifying first days sat up and listened as he told instead gruesome and inspiring stories of the trials of Kyushu's Christian martyrs in the seventeenth century, and the guilt—just as painful—of those who had chosen to give up their faith rather than see those precious to them suffer. He related their experiences to those early Christians who were tortured in the circuses and private gardens of the corrupt Roman emperors. Even St Peter, the father of their church, was no exception. He had already denied Christ three times and yet insisted of the emperor Nero that he be crucified upside down at Vaticanus, knowing he did not deserve to emulate Christ in full. And could his faith and atonement be shown more fittingly than in his death? Even the father of the church had stumbled along the way—even Christ himself had had his doubts, his weaknesses. But it was his sacrifice—everyone's sacrifice—that made it possible for others to rebuild themselves and find meaning in their existence.

Mitani was speaking of history, and the senior instructors who sat in metal folding chairs along the side of the room making careful note of his speech heard a sermon intended to inspire morality in the students. What Okazaki Izuru heard, however, was something entirely different, and not at all as trite. He could hear it in the telling of St Peter's martyrdom, and the guilt of Kichijiro. Though the intent may have been purely intellectual, Mitani's words came from his heart, from his own personal faith and own personal failings that would otherwise have been irrelevant in the classroom.

At first, Izuru disliked him for it. He found it conceited of the new teacher that he would choose to speak of his own history in such a roundabout and presumptuous way, comparing himself to martyrs, rather than state his qualifications outright like everyone else. His humility bordered on hubris. But Izuru quickly realized it was in fact envy he felt.

Envy.

He could have laughed. He couldn't see what of the new teacher was deserving of his envy. The man's personality seemed shallow and unstable, and he was only saying these things before his senior colleagues because he knew what they wanted to hear. Izuru's classmates were so enthralled by his stories they forgot that they had all heard them before. It was true Mitani's methodology was worthy of attention, but, as the class captain, so were Izuru's after all.

It came to him slowly what set Mitani apart from the others: He was genuine.

He drew his speech to a close with a short, somewhat informal bow belying his age, and expressed the typical hopes that he and his students would get along and all enjoy the rest of the school year together.

Then, as the head of his class and therefore representative of its feelings, Izuru stood to say a word of welcome to their new teacher.

"A wise man once said," he began, "'those who can, do; those who can't, teach.'"

Stifled laughter echoed around the room, but the senior instructors' faces clearly showed their disapproval. Paying them no heed, Izuru smiled. Mitani's cheeks colored, but he seemed to understand something in Izuru's manner and smiled as well. "Please regard us favorably, Sensei. We look forward to spending the year with you," Izuru said, and bowed. Solemnly and as one, the class echoed his wish. Hands rose quickly with questions.

Outside, the blue sky and bright reds and golds of the trees, that last nostalgic burst of color before winter, signaled the start of the latter term.

—

"Ahh . . . yeah. . . . Right there. . . ."

Fujisawa moaned quietly as Izuru moved deeper inside him. The springs in the mattress groaned beneath them, underscoring their pleasure as they found a rhythm. Fujisawa's breathing was hard and carnal in Izuru's ear as he rocked back and forth above him, exciting him as though in that wordless hush were all the filthy suggestions Izuru saw trapped behind Fujisawa's eyes.

"Oh, God—" Izuru gasped, meaning nothing religious by it, unless the sensations driving their bodies could be described as a religious experience. It would at least make an interesting confession for the strict priest they joked got his jollies listening to stories like theirs. Then I took the Lord's name in vain four—no, five times while I was doing my classmate. . . . What's that, Father? You don't think you know quite what I mean by 'doing'?

Fujisawa sat up erect on his classmate's hips, gasping at the better angle the new position provided. He touched himself and nipped his own fingertips and breathed unintelligible words of encouragement while Izuru thrust up into him, as though he were making love to himself. The picture he presented made Izuru come with a cry; Fujisawa's satisfied groan echoed in his ears soon after.

Afterwards they sat naked on Izuru's bed—his roommate was on paid leave for the evening—sharing a smoke from half a pack Fujisawa had received from a third-year as trade for a blow job. As they passed the cigarette between them, Fujisawa said in jest, "Here's to the new term."

"Hear, hear," said Izuru. He took a puff and blew the smoke in Fujisawa's direction.

He was a handsome and charismatic young man, Okazaki Izuru: athletic, neat, and at the top of his class. His hair he wore parted slightly on the left. He had a heart-shaped face and serious mouth, and wide, piercing eyes framed by dark lashes that sometimes made him look a rather meek seventeen, but the other students knew not to be fooled by appearances. There was a confident air about him that put him above the rest of the crowd, and this ironically attracted the esteem of most of the class, who saw him as a sort of big brother to whom they could turn with their troubles, should they actually have need to disturb him. Though usually reserved, he was recognized as a natural leader, perfect for the position of student body president when he went into his third year. That did not mean he was the most straight-laced student in the school, but when, on the very rare occasion, he was caught doing anything of questionable morals, the academy dismissed it with good faith in his person—and, no doubt, in his parents' pocketbooks as well. He had only one rival in the whole place, and that was his classmate Fujisawa.

No less of an academic, Fujisawa's poise gave him the appearance of a revolutionary, a bohemian, with his hands in his pockets, a cocky tilt to the head, and his dark auburn hair in a fashionable, jagged cut—which presently stuck stubbornly to the sweat on the side of his face. His eyes were sharp, his brows dark and severe, and his mouth seemed permanently fixed in a clever sneer, yet his looks retained an alluring androgyny that no one could say he did not take full advantage of. But if he was not an outright rebel in act—his style merely came close to breaking school regulations, and his illicit ideas of fun were kept to the confines of the dorms and washrooms—he was at least in his philosophy, which was always pushing the envelope, shocking his classmates with his wild and logical conclusions. And yet, with his otherwise impeccable public manners, no one could ultimately say that he wasn't really an angel.

That is, more to the point, a wolf in sheep's clothing. Izuru would have said he was a slut and a sadist. He would have been partly correct. His ambition and Fujisawa's were, after all, and always had been two sides of the same coin. Theirs was a philosophy of take or be left with nothing. Neither could deny it was little more than this shared narcissistic leaning that had brought them, with all their mutual distrust, together in the first place.

"Naa, Okazaki. . . ." The sly look had returned to Fujisawa's face, but he asked innocently, "What did you think of the new teacher?"

"Mm? Which one?" Izuru feigned ignorance.

"You know which one. The Christian history replacement. Mitani."

"Oh." Izuru rolled onto his stomach. He made nothing of the gesture, but in fact he suddenly felt vulnerable speaking of the man as exposed as he was. "He seems all right, I guess. Not too interesting. At least he sounds easy, but who knows with those types. You know, talking about how we should motivate ourselves—'as Japanese, as Christians!'"

"Heh. Yeah. You don't suppose Father Robert put him up to that godawful speech, do you?"

"I'm just relieved he didn't start in on 'the full moon in autumn' or something."

"'O bright, bright, bright, bright and bright, bright moon!'" Fujisawa said laughing. But on second thought, "I don't know. Any teacher who can romanticize torture like that can't be all that bad."

"Come on. He's a square."

"Tch." Suddenly serious, Fujisawa turned away to nurse the cigarette by himself.

But Izuru hadn't meant what he said. He wasn't even sure why he had said it.

—

Mitani arrived at class the next day just as the second bell was ringing. His loose-leaf notes were wedged between the pages of his textbook, ready to fall out at a careless tilt, and though he tried to make nothing of it he was short of breath. Yet, though he must have been in a hurry, at the same time it could be said that he seemed somewhat more solidly in his element compared to the day before. One able to make the comparison might have wondered which was his truer nature, because in this light he seemed even more like a university graduate student than a professor of any sort.

Dropping the book on the lectern and running a hand through his hair, he said without preamble: "I know history can be a boring subject to study, any way it's presented. I find that somewhat backwards myself, because when you think about the events and philosophies that have shaped the world into what it is today, how much they meant to the people living through them, you'd find history isn't boring at all but incredibly dynamic and wonderful and . . ." A sigh. "Frustrating. I can't guarantee I'll be able to convey them as well as that, but I will try to make this class as interesting as I can, if you all will just bear with me. . . ."

The whole tone of this disclaimer was so different from his introductory speech that Izuru could not help his fascination at seeing another side to Mitani's person. Against this stubborn will, he could feel his esteem for the young teacher slowly begin to grow within himself.

"I was told your last professor brought you up to the twelfth century before he left," Mitani began as he sorted through his material. "I guess we'll start off with some review of last term. Anyone care to remind us where we left off?"

Shyly at first, the students volunteered what they remembered, vague as that often was. It was the first official day of class, after all, and even if they daydreamed or drew in their notebook margins in lecture tomorrow, it was the benefit of the doubt they gave their new instructor on that first day. Mitani wrote what they supplied him on the blackboards and added dryly-delivered anecdotes in an attempt to lighten the mood. The rise of the Holy Roman Empire in Europe, the crusades to take back the Holy Land, the riches gained by Rome and Venice and the great works of the monasteries, the Great Schism with the Eastern church and mounting fear of Doomsday. Though usually an active participant in class discussions, Izuru held back from this one and was content to observe. If he were honest, however, he might have said it wasn't just the material he was taking in. He was quite familiar with that already.

The class time went by too quickly, but before it was over, Mitani handed out their reading assignment for the rest of the calendar year, what he said was one of his favorite novels: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. It was a thick, intimidating book riddled with untranslated Latin, and many of the students groaned when they got it. Their displeasure was even more obvious when they learned it was a piece of historical fiction based entirely around a monastery in northern Italy. In his well-meaning way, Mitani tried to encourage them by saying it was in fact a detective story; and Fujisawa's grin widened knowingly, the same look coming over his features as when he suggested something utterly lewd. His reaction, and Mitani's more innocent enthusiasm for the book, lent it a strange weight in Izuru's hands that must have been akin to the feeling the illusive tome in the novel sent through the bodies of the novices who longed for it.

He was the last to leave the room when the bell rang for lunch, and Mitani said to him, rather matter-of-factly, as he moved past the lectern to the exit, "Excuse me, um . . . Okazaki is it?"

The gentleness and uncertainty with which he said that—as though he wasn't sure if he really wanted to know, or was trying overly hard to sound uninterested—took Izuru by surprise, so that he only managed an awkward, affirmative, "Mm."

"I hear you're the captain of this class."

"That's right."

"That's good to know. . . ." There was a tense moment in which Izuru was unsure whether he should excuse himself or ask what his teacher wanted. With his hair in his eyes, it was difficult to tell even where Mitani's attention really lay. He said, "What you said yesterday—"

"I didn't mean anything by it," Izuru said, suddenly and inexplicably self-conscious. It wasn't like him to be apologetic.

But Mitani smiled. "Actually, I thought it was very appropriate."

Izuru didn't know what to say. Though it seemed in that brief moment as though Mitani had reached out to him, even only a little bit, he couldn't be sure that the meaning he gleaned from his professor's words was not in fact arisen from within himself. The truth was, it had affected Izuru somehow, to find himself alone with Mitani and hear that man speak his name in that same gentle but hesitant tone he used to speak the names of kings and popes and heretics. Perhaps it was the normal amount of awe for a particularly genuine mind that often possesses a student that possessed Izuru then.

Surely, he thought, it would fade with Mitani's novelty.

—

But it only seemed to grow.

It was hardly two weeks into the latter term that he was struck by a new realization about Mitani. The deciduous trees around campus had a mangy look and were dropping their leaves at a heartbreaking rate, but they were glorious and even managed to promise spring's renewal in their deaths, like the burnt relics of martyrs that fascinated the new teacher.

It was a strange affinity that Izuru realized, a curiosity he could not quite describe. Like an affliction, it had seemed it wasn't there one day, but the next it was constantly resurfacing in his mind, nagging at him, so that he wondered how he had ever been without it. He wondered how—in that first long week and a half—he had never noticed Mitani in the same way he did now. It was as if he were seeing the real Mitani for the first time—as though there were two Mitanis: one, the dodgy newcomer who had blushed when the students asked him personal questions, and raked a nervous hand through his overgrown hair—who had appeared hardly older than they were and kept his distance with a well-pressed suit and polite language; the other, confident in his knowledge and passionate for the subject, keen with the students, and sincere even in his humorless jokes, singing the psalms in mass with the ritual solemnity they seemed naturally to deserve. These two personalities, though one might think them rather exclusive, melded so humanly together—a seamless combination of optimism and fallibility, kindness and distance—that they made, in Izuru's eyes, his professor's character seem more admirable than his own.

He knew after that first day of class, though perhaps it took him longer to understand it, that he wanted nothing more that term than to make that man proud of him.

The thought did cross Izuru's mind that it was merely his personal attraction that made Mitani stand out in such a manner. While the other boys admired Mitani and seemed to look forward to his class more than any other, they could not have seen in him quite the same qualities that Izuru did. However, in the fierce strength of his conviction, he decided it was they who lacked insight, not that Mitani was in fact not as saintly as Izuru perceived him to be.

—

It was three days into the latter term when Father Robert went to the chapel to prepare for that morning's service, and was startled to see someone already there. The young man's back was turned to him as he stared at the stained glass windows along the side of the nave, so the priest did not recognize him at first, only noted that the stranger sported a short ponytail that was not permitted of the students. Visitors would often come from Nagasaki on the weekends for a tour or to hear the Sunday service, and he thought this man might be one of them until he remembered being notified of a new professor who would be arriving to take over the Christian history class. Of course, even the curve of the man's back exuded that contemplative nature he had seen in those in training to be priests. It was an idealistic nature indicative of youth. He had lost it long ago himself.

He willed his heart to slow itself, something that seemed to take longer these days, but the young man had given him quite a start. He coughed softly to alert the other to his presence.

Mitani spun around. His face lit up in embarrassment as he began to apologize. "It's all right," the priest interrupted him. "Please, keep doing whatever you were doing. Don't let me interrupt. We gave each other a bit of a fright, though, didn't we?"

Mitani reddened. "I suppose so. I'm sorry I didn't say anything, but I didn't see anyone when I came in. I was told the chapel here holds many reproductions of famous art pieces," he said. "I was hoping to get a chance to see them when there was no one around. But if you'd rather I came back later—"

"Don't be ridiculous. The church's doors are always open to the faithful. Anyway, I could use the company. You're the new Christian history teacher, correct? The one who's replacing Professor Segawa?"

"That's right, Father. Please, call me Mitani."

"Well then, Professor Mitani," said the priest as he shook the young man's hand, "I'm Father Robert, but you must have been told that by now. You have an interest in art?"

"Yes. Very much so." The young man finally relaxed at that question. "I wrote my thesis on the Carolingian Renaissance. It's amazing, what they were able to accomplish in those times, when we imagine how innocent men were when it came to the sciences. But back then it wasn't about what you could build but how well you could inspire. Just the word, Christendom, held so much power. . . ." He glanced up at the windows for another moment, drawn to the brilliant colors in the first morning light. "Robert is a French name, isn't it?" And Mitani said in French, "You have hardly any accent. How long have you lived in Japan, Father?"

"All my life. My parents moved here before the war. Your pronunciation is very natural," the priest humored him; then, switching back to Japanese, said, "Do I really have that much of an accent?"

"No—not really." Still a bit flustered from the compliment, Mitani said, "To tell the truth, it was a lucky guess. I don't know the language that well."

"Modesty. You've never been to France?"

"I've never had the time."

"Now that you're a full-time professor here, I doubt that will get any better." Now that they had cleared the air between them, when Father Robert began to prepare for the morning service, Mitani followed him. "Still, you should go to Paris when you have a chance. If you like art, you will love it. I myself was fortunate to study theology there when I was your age—"

He grunted suddenly as he lifted a heavy stack of missals. Mitani quickly stepped in to take the books from him, and cast a worried look at the priest when he put a hand to his chest and breathed deep. "Are you all right, Father?"

"Fine, fine." Father Robert waved away his concern. "Every once and a while this old heart of mine gives me trouble. Nothing to worry about." They placed a few stack's worth of books in the pockets in front of the pews, and then the priest sat with a sigh and gestured for Mitani to join him. Studying his person, Mitani had made him out to be more robust. He had a wide but lean frame under the black costume, that of someone who might once have been fairly muscular, and a stern face with the shaggy eyebrows of a philosopher. Mitani asked out of curiosity, in the innocent and forward way of someone born generations after, "Were you in Paris during the war?"

He could not tell if the priest's chuckle was amused or offended. "Do I look that old to you?" he said. "I was still in primary school then. My family and I were interned near Kumamoto for the last few years of it. We were lucky, actually."

Father Robert related all this to Mitani as calmly as though he were thoroughly removed from that experience, simply telling someone else's story, and Mitani regretted asking such a question that was obviously sensitive now that he thought about it. We were lucky. . . . He wasn't from the Nagasaki area himself, but he could imagine the relief those who had escaped the bomb must have felt. And the guilt. In a situation like that, he thought, you would feel fortunate and—perhaps always wondering, Why me?—want to live this kind of life out of a sense of calling.

A life of service. That was the kind of life he had wanted to lead as a teacher.

Mitani could only nod. Suddenly he held so much respect for the man. He was glad he had come to this school, whose staff also had such an interesting history.

Father Robert did not seem to notice his sudden solemnness, and turning to Mitani, said, "In those days, boys knew the meaning of respect and obedience. They had a sense of higher duty. It was a matter of pride and personal worth, being an upright citizen. Times were hard and everyone had their responsibilities, but our characters were made stronger for it. I wonder sometimes if things aren't too easy now, too complacent."

It seemed odd to Mitani that the priest might actually be praising the war mentality he had grown up learning to criticize. Could someone who had been interned in his own country actually have those kinds of sentiments? "I don't know. . . ." he said half-heartedly for lack of anything better.

"You have to keep a close eye on adolescent boys these days, Professor," the priest said, wagging his index finger at the pew in front of them. "Especially here. You may not think it necessary. This is a Catholic school, therefore the students must be good Christian boys, right? Well, who am I to say. I don't always like it, and I certainly don't condone it, but you should be warned. You'll find out sooner or later. This is an academy for rich folks to send their spoiled sons to. The severity of the family's faith is of less concern to the administrators than whether they can afford a generous donation on top of the tuition. Consequently there are things that go on, behaviors, that the faculty finds it best to turn a blind eye to. Nobody wants to lose their position, you understand."

Mitani smiled uncertainly. "You make it sound like the professors here are afraid of the students."

"Not afraid so much as their hands are tied. However, that doesn't excuse their moral cowardice. Normally I'd agree with the Ministry: At least they have the power and the good sense to instill the right values into our educational system. But ultimately it comes down to the teacher's responsibility. I believe you are in a unique position, Professor. I heard about your introductory speech, and now that I can put a face to the words, I'm sure you meant every word of it. Your youth makes you trustworthy, influential. You have to keep these boys in line or they will fall into disorder. I mean physical and spiritual disorder. It is our duty and our job as educators to instill morals in them, and fill the ethical void these times make in their souls in whatever way we can. It never ceases to amaze me how society keeps functioning decade after decade given the declining moral standards of Japan's youth—"

Perhaps the priest noticed he was starting to preach. He said in a gentler tone, "Well, in any case, I do hope you take my advice."

Mitani studied the old priest's profile, with its deep lines that alternated between making the man look kindly and stern. Sitting there beside him, it might have been the first time the question entered Mitani's mind: What am I supposed to make of this place? What am I truly supposed to be here?

Moreover, what had he really expected to accomplish by coming here? He was no longer sure how realistic it was to believe he could mold in the student body's collective mind an appreciation for history that matched his own, nor had he given much thought to the politics of the education system. Had he erred in his idealism?

Finding himself suddenly disoriented by his uncertainty, Mitani nonetheless told the priest, "I will take it to heart, Father."

—

Morning mass was a solemn affair under the strict gaze of Father Robert. Some of the students would joke that he must have had eyes in the back of his head, not to mention superhuman hearing, because it seemed that nothing even in the farthest pews back escaped his detection, even when his face was turned toward the altar. It was the fear of having to do penance for disrupting the service that so effectively put religion into the boys—during the hour or so they spent in the chapel, at least. Father Robert took his authority very seriously, expounding the glory of God in the highest and the fire and brimstone that awaited the sinners with a zealousness that was easily mistaken for anger. No doubt it was partly anger guiding his oration, and disappointment in the behavior he saw as straying from God. Cursing and taking the Lord's name in vain. Showing blatant disrespect for their elders. Being caught with contraband in the dorm rooms and filling the washrooms with the smell of cigarettes. And what was worse, fornication—their minds had turned off of God and onto sinful and trivial pleasures. In his passion for the Word, perhaps it was that he wanted to save their souls that Father Robert was often so harsh. Or perhaps he merely believed as so many of his generation did: that they were all little devils by nature, teenage boys, delinquents, and could not be trusted to use common sense, if they even had it. And because he was powerless to do anything about that matter in the classroom environment, he took it out on the boys in the only way he could: in sermon.

As they sang the hymns, the students' voices echoed in the huge space, off the cold stone walls and high groin-vaulted ceiling. Behind the plain altar hung the crucifix supported by four angels, perhaps to represent the four gospels or the four corners of the world, or simply because three would have been too few and five too many. Their faces were all calm and forgiving as a buddha's, like the statue of Mary and the Christ child that stood in the alcove. Even the face of Jesus on the cross showed no real human suffering: It was an emotional blank like the rest, if only a bit more depressing. The morning light that filtered through the tall stained glass windows threw the faces in relief, making them appear more magnificent than the gold-leafed pine wood that they were actually made of. In one window, the school's patron, St Michael, prepared to do battle with a dragon representing Satan in the sky above a royal chapel, of which theirs was only a modern imitation.

The homily would start when the hymn ended, and with it Father Robert's rant du jour. Rather than sit through it, Izuru slipped out of the pew and crossed himself, confident he would not be missed by the staff whose gazes sat rapt upon the altar. Even if they did see him leave, they would not say a word. They did not share Father Robert's convictions, having long ago given up that futile struggle; but the trust that accompanied being the captain of his class was convenient in that regard, too.

Izuru made his way down the hallway off the narthex to the toilet. The sounds of the students' voices raised in praise faded behind the door, replaced by the demure tap of his shoes on the tiles, and the hush of ragged breathing issuing from one of the stalls. "Hey, Fujisawa," Izuru said loudly, "I want to talk to you."

Behind the closed door, someone was trying to mask his presence by holding his breath, but it only made his situation more obvious.

"Don't stop, it's just Okazaki," Fujisawa murmured to his shy companion, refusing to miss a beat. Surely as Izuru could recognize him by his breathing, Fujisawa knew Izuru's footsteps, if not his voice. He whispered something else, so low that it did not even echo in the small room, and chuckled. There came a shuffling of feet, then a short sigh. Then several, increasing in volume and frequency, from two separate throats, until neither cared any longer if they were overheard.

"Ah—!" Fujisawa cried out once; and Izuru knew as he studied his own face in the mirror, just as certainly as if he were on the other side of the stall door, how his classmate braced himself against the wall above the toilet as he shuddered, and pushed back against his companion. There was a moment of breathless silence following, then the unmistakable sound of zippers being zipped and the toilet flushing. A third-year emerged from the stall, refusing to meet Izuru's eyes except for a quick glare as he briefly rinsed his hands and checked his reflection.

"Shame on you, skipping mass," Izuru said when he had left. "You'll go straight to Hell for that."

His tone was laced with sarcasm, and Fujisawa laughed. He took his time emerging from the stall, satiated and tucking his shirttails back into this trousers. "You wanted to see me?"

"I just had a thought."

"What, and you had to share it with me right away?"

Fujisawa's sneer was wasted on Izuru, however, who ignored it.

"I've been thinking about it for a while," he said. "I don't think we should wait until third year to lead the student council."

A shade of skepticism touched Fujisawa's features. "What brought this about?"

"Lust for power." Izuru had meant it sarcastically, but his straight delivery made them both wonder if he wasn't telling the truth. "Revenge, perhaps, if that works for you. Either way, I don't see why we should wait, and have it handed to us on a silver platter. One more term won't make any difference. We deserve it more than those third-years that are running things. Everyone knows it; we may as well prove it. Now."

Fujisawa stared past him with a look of indecision.

"Just think," Izuru said, "you could be lording it over Kaburagi instead of the other way around."

Fujisawa couldn't help a wide grin that spoke of things Izuru should not have known. "How is that any different from the way things are now?" he said meaningfully.

"It doesn't have to stop at the student body." Izuru folded his arms. Now that he had Fujisawa's attention, he felt justified in taking his time. "I did some research. The student council's charter, the official document from when it founded—no one's read it in a long time. They don't know that in it is the proof of what everyone considered just an old legend, that the terms of this charter give the student council leaders more authority than even the professors, and even this school's administrators have no choice but to turn a blind eye to their goings on."

"Are you serious?" Fujisawa laughed. "Show me," he said, and shoved his hands under Izuru's jacket, searching for the document—or only pretending to—and backing him against the sink.

Izuru gasped. He was in no mood for playfulness at that moment, in that place. A serious shove made his classmate stop.

"I don't have it with me," Izuru told him. He lowered his voice to a murmur.

"But you will let me see it."

"Of course."

"Otherwise how will I know that you aren't just playing me?"

Izuru turned away, and Fujisawa could not be certain if it wasn't just his classmate's response to his proximity. It was both arousing and intimidating, how he had trapped Izuru between the sink and his hips; and the thought of winning themselves that power seemed to produce in them both a very real, physical lust. So it was reluctantly that Fujisawa took a step back. "You said 'we,'" he said, "but you didn't tell me what was in it for you. Two-A class captain isn't good enough for you now?"

"Why should I settle?" Izuru answered with a queer solemnity. "I could have the chance to mold Saint Michel into whatever I want it to be. And it looks good on a college application—"

"You mean, whatever we want it to be," Fujisawa corrected him.

Izuru smiled. "You're in then?"

"I'd like to have a look at this mysterious charter first."

"Meet me at the rocks after class and all shall be revealed. Now, if you'll excuse me, I don't want to miss communion." His good mood returning, Izuru edged past Fujisawa, and the look that passed between them swore the latter to secrecy.

—

What the students referred to simply as the rocks was a piece of shoreline that faced the north where there was little beach to speak of, where large boulders jutted out into deep water to break the tide. It was not so much inaccessible as unsuspect, as it was secluded by the high wall that rose behind it and supported the island's man-made infrastructure. It was not easy to spy on that strip of rocky beach from the dorms above, an advantage which lead directly to its popularity. The older students went there to smoke in the warmer months, during which time it tended to become a hot spot of initiation, but the adults either did not notice or pretended not to. Now that a cold wind was blowing off the water, the two found it abandoned except for the occasional crab or gull.

Izuru removed the charter from his satchel with the care one afforded an ancient document that might crumble in the slightest wind. In truth, it was not nearly so old; the leather portfolio was worn around the edges, but the only sign of age inside was the dated type-written print and faintly yellowed paper. He handed it to Fujisawa, who immediately skimmed its contents with the same amount of care.

"It was drafted in the late-'seventies, a couple years after the school was finished," Izuru said. "As far as I know, no one's really read it in over a decade, aside from the basics. They've been reprinted so many times, nobody thought there was any need to refer back to the original. If you ask me, I think the older professors probably wanted it to be forgotten."

"If that's the case, how did you get ahold of it?" Fujisawa said.

"I just did a little favor for one of the librarians. I never realized how stressful it was for a young woman to do part-time in an all-boys school."

Fujisawa snorted at his mock-pity.

"Almost twenty years. . . . That seems like so long ago, but it really wasn't."

"Well, it was a lifetime ago."

Even with this knowledge, there was a certain air of mystery about the whole matter. When one thought about it, high school turnover was so short, a mere three years, that it felt as though time had indeed been stretched out in Saint Michel's enclosed world. In that way, it was difficult to fathom that any of their professors could be old enough to have seen the days of the student council's beginning, even though it was barely twenty years thence.

"There are no rules in there against a second- or first-year being president," Izuru said.

"We've always known that."

"Yes, but we always thought that meant running. What first-year is going to win in a gentleman's race against a senior?"

Fujisawa looked up from the page with an anticipatory smile.

"The charter details another way whereby an underclassman might become a leader," Izuru explained from memory as he looked out over the bay. "It's rather archaic but efficient. A student may challenge a member of the student council to a duel, and if he should win, the position of the man he bested becomes his. That way the student body can be certain it really does have the best man representing them. It's simple Darwinian theory. What entails a duel isn't exactly clear—I mean, it doesn't say if it should be literally with swords or what—except that it should be one-on-one."

Now he turned to Fujisawa with a gleam in his eye and said, "If we can defeat the president and vice-president, the council is ours. And between the two of us, I have no doubt we can do it."

"And what do you suggest we do?"

Izuru bit his lip in thought, but he had already worked it out long ago. "One of us will have to take on Kaburagi. The other takes Kawada."

"And how do you propose breaking this to them?" Fujisawa indicated the document. "Obviously we can't just hand this over and hope it remains intact. This may be sacred stuff, but I can't guarantee the third-years on the council will necessarily take it that way."

"Then we'll just have to beat them soundly enough to where they have no other choice."

Fujisawa regarded him blankly for a moment, following some train of thought. Then he said, just as Izuru had predicted after his run-in with the current student council president that morning in the restroom during mass: "I'll take Kaburagi, if it's all the same to you. I want to see the look on his face when he gets his ass handed to him by a second-year. That's the only way I can guarantee it." He grinned. "You understand."

—

What Fujisawa could not have known was that Izuru had another motive for revealing what he had, and it was inherently a selfish motive. Although it was true that Izuru's conscious intent was on molding Saint Michel to his own desires, that explanation was no more than a rational survival mechanism: His real plans were not so holistic as that.

From the start, he was well aware of the attention that Mitani paid the student council leaders. He watched from afar as his professor held intense discussions with them outside of class; and though the subjects of those discussions were unknown to him, the laughs or flashes of insight they occasionally shared were not.

It bothered Izuru. Someone as honest and genuine as his professor deserved better company than theirs. He deserved someone who had more than just a feigned interest in the subject he was so passionate about, someone who did not repeat names and dates just for the air of intelligence it lent him—someone who did not strive to build a relationship with Mitani simply in the belief it would earn him a better grade at the end of the term than the man he had replaced was willing to give. And it bothered Izuru that Mitani did not see through their self-serving deceit.

Or perhaps he did and his character simply would not allow him to show it. Strange how that only made Izuru feel worse for his teacher. It was not like him to empathize with a member of the staff, or pity them. Yet, if he were to be honest, he could not deny the vein of possessiveness that had influenced his own decisions as of late. The resentment he harbored toward the third-years and his plan to dethrone them was not completely separate from his inability, or unwillingness, to imagine Mitani teaching any class but 2-A. He was now convinced that since the first day of lectures when Mitani had spoken to him alone, they had shared a connection. The encouraging glances in class, the notes in the margins of his papers that made it seem Mitani could read his mind were only further evidence of this. The only problem was that Mitani had yet to realize it. Izuru had no doubt if he became president of the student council his professor would have no choice but to confront this truth. And how much more proud would he be if Izuru accomplished the leap on his own merits now, rather than having the position handed to him in his third year.

There was something about the idea of the duel that recalled a romanticized sense of honor and glory for Izuru, and nostalgia for the days of the samurai or the crusades of medieval Europe—when life and death moved at a faster pace, and immortality could be won with one noble deed. Indeed, the excitement that followed the intimate knowledge of one's own mortality was inescapable, despite that Izuru had nothing so lethal in mind for this duel.

He would respect Fujisawa's claim and focus his attentions on Kawada, the current vice-president of the student council. It was a better match. Kawada was an ignoramus; he had a habit of flaunting his knowledge and its shortcomings at the same time, as if he were purposefully degrading himself and then asking everyone to still take him seriously. Izuru in contrast was calculating, and never said anything that might make him look stupid. Kawada was a young man hungry for validation; his father was president of an automobile company. Izuru's was a corporate attorney. Kawada was a star member of the track team; Izuru's parents had had him enroled in martial arts lessons from a young age.

And Kawada was one against whom Izuru had no personal qualms other than a desire for the station he held. Professors said that if not for Kaburagi and his own submissive character, Kawada would have been running things. It was against Izuru's nature to settle for anything less than he wanted.

What he wanted now was a crowd. Luckily, this time of the year, Kawada could usually be found playing basketball in the gym with his classmates. There were plenty of witnesses when Izuru made his appearance.

He sat himself down on one of the bleacher steps without a word, an air of purpose about him that the young men playing on the hardwood could not ignore for long. "What are you doing here, Okazaki?" Kawada said when there was a break in the game. "Doubt you've come to play with us. I always figured you more for the type who likes to watch."

His classmates laughed along at the implication, but as far as Izuru was concerned the jibe did not deserve the breath wasted on it. "Actually, Sempai," he said, "I've come to challenge you to a duel."

"A duel?" How could that word not inspire some incredulity in this day and age? "The hell would you want to do that for?"

"Your seat in the student council."

Startled by Izuru's seriousness, and by his ready answer, the third-years lost interest in their game. The tension in the gym was suddenly as thick as the smell of sweat, and something more exciting seemed to be brewing. Kawada approached the bleachers as Izuru stood.

"That's ridiculous," he said.

"Is it?" said Izuru. "According to Saint Michel's student council charter, a council member may be challenged for his seat by anyone who wishes to do so. If he loses, he is required to abdicate his seat to the winner."

Kawada snorted. "There's nothing like that in there." But Izuru sensed his doubt.

"It's in the original. The particular article has been shortened in your copy, but remains unamended. You can check if you like." Izuru pointed his thumb over his shoulder. "I have the original in my room. We could go there together after we settle this—"

"Right. You need to work on your pickup lines, Okazaki, 'cause I ain't going anywhere with you. Why don't you get this alleged original first and bring it here so I can see it?"

"What difference will it make? If I'm bluffing, it's no skin off your back."

Kawada considered the proposition. "You better not be wasting my time, Okazaki," he said after a few moments. Apparently he found something appealing about the idea of soundly, and publicly, beating the second-year. Or else he couldn't bring himself to refuse before a dozen pairs of waiting eyes. Either way, Izuru doubted he would have accepted if he saw his underclassman as much of a threat. "What'll it be? Horse?"

Izuru pretended to think it over as well as he stepped onto the court, sized Kawada up. "I was thinking something more hands-on. Less gentleman-like."

"Like what?"

"Does that mean you accept the conditions of the duel and any possible ramifications?" Kawada impatiently nodded, and Izuru allowed himself a small smile. "I want you to pin me—knock me down," he said, "until I can't get up. Use whatever method you feel comfortable with."

"Jesus, you are a sick son-of-a- . . ." The vice-president continued to regard him as though waiting for the punchline of a bad joke. Izuru let him stew. He removed his jacket, tossing it in the direction of the bleachers. His manner all the while was so casual, it did little to put one in the fighting spirit. "You're serious?" Kawada asked.

"I'm serious."

Kawada snorted and turned as if to go, dribbling the ball before him on the gymn floor as if the whole thing was not worth his time. Then, without warning, he spun and launched the ball at his underclassman, hoping to catch Izuru off guard so that he might not see the punch that followed it until it was too late.

Unfortunately for him, Izuru saw it coming. He ignored the sting of the ball as it bounced off his shoulder, caught Kawada's incoming wrist with one hand, and landed an upper cut to his jaw with the other. The vice-president reeled back, holding the sore spot in disbelief. Okazaki Izuru wasn't the type who looked like he could land a hit so easily.

That disbelief only last a second, however, before the desire to get revenge for his public humiliation overpowered anything else. Kawada rushed at Izuru again; and again Izuru found a handhold, this time throwing the two of them down on the hard, wooden floor.

They grappled, Kawada struggling to gain an advantage over his junior so that he might knock him into submission. But Izuru would not allow Kawada out of his own grip for more than an instant. He caught a knee or two in his side, but nothing that particularly slowed him down. An observer would have been able to see from the focused expression on his face that he had a plan, one which he simply would not allow Kawada to thwart; in the meantime, he could be patient, literally roll with the punches, even if, to the other third-year students watching from the sidelines—busy cheering on their classmate and checking to see that no teacher was coming to break up the fun—Izuru did not seem to have any clear advantage.

That did not stop him, however, from getting Kawada in a choke hold. Although he was technically still on top, the vice-president's struggling grew feebler as he realized that this time he could not be able to shrug out of it. The other students quieted, some swore, all trying to make something out of the mass of their tangled limbs and see if what they suspected was true, that a boy of Izuru's stature had managed to pin one of the third year's top athletes.

"Give up yet?" Izuru muttered into Kawada's ear. Through his gritted teeth and heavy breathing, his voice nonetheless remained perfectly calm.

Still, Kawada resisted. "I'm not giving my seat up to a second-year for this," he grunted, renewing his effort to free himself. "Faggot bastar—"

Izuru shifted into a slightly better position, effectively cutting the other's mobility down another notch. Kawada's curse trailed off with a grunt as Izuru's arm dug deeper into his windpipe. He bent his knees, trying to gain some leverage from the polished floor as Izuru said to him, "You might want to reconsider. I'm not going to let you up until you surrender, so if that's really what you want, we could be here a while. Or, I suppose if you accidentally passed out in front of all these witnesses, that would settle whether I won without any doubt. . . ."

Kawada grunted in pain. One of his classmates, his eyes wide, said, "Jesus, Okazaki, you trying to kill him?"

That was all the prodding Kawada needed. "Okay . . ." he managed to gasp out, "you win. . . ."

"What was that?"

"I said, you win! You can be vice-president for all I care!"

Satisfied, Izuru released him and stood with all the ease and grace of a cat. Kawada rolled to his side on the floor, rubbing his own throat.

"That's all I needed to hear," Izuru said as he went to retrieve his jacket. He tugged his rumpled shirt into its proper place, and ran a hand through his hair, though he hardly looked like someone who'd just been grappling on a hard, wood floor. The grin on his lips could be called no less than devilish.

—

Things were different the next day, however, when Izuru dropped in on the student council in their offices, Fujisawa at his side like some sort of standard-bearer. In fact, the title would have fit him well, for it was the twenty-year-old document he held against his chest that the school would once again hold as sacred and worth abiding by in short time, if the two had their way. They already had about them the air of two rebels staging a glorious coup d'etat.

In sharp contrast, the looks on the faces of the student body president Kaburagi and Hinoki, the dorm chief, were sheer surprise. Kawada suddenly appeared nervous.

Somewhat surprised to see him himself, Izuru said, "Kawada, what are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here, Okazaki?" said Kaburagi. "This isn't a meeting for class captains." He registered Fujisawa's presence with little more than a dark look, similar to the one he had given Izuru when they passed in the chapel toilet a few days before. Fujisawa grinned in response, like a child anticipating his favorite part of a well-known story.

Izuru narrowed his eyes. "I'm not here as class captain," he said. "I'm here to fulfill my duties as the new student body vice-president. Which is why, frankly, I'm a little surprised to see Kawada-sempai here. He didn't inform you two of the situation?"

Hinoki, a deceptively studious-looking young man, glanced at his fellow officer from behind his glasses. "What situation?" he said.

"We had a deal. Didn't we, Sempai?" Izuru's penetrating gaze never wavered from Kawada's. "You're not trying to back out of it, are you, after all that trouble?"

Kawada returned his stare awkwardly, too stubborn to look away and too cowardly to step up to the challenge that was just as clear in Izuru's eyes as his words.

"What the hell are you talking about, Okazaki?" Kaburagi said instead, his drawl laced with the decadence of idleness that is the natural outgrowth of aristocratic upbringing—the ugly, deep-rooted arrogance of the noble title his family was forced to give up after the war evident in his insolent slouch behind the cherry desk.

It was exactly what Izuru and Fujisawa hated about this student council, perhaps because they embodied that same sense of righteousness themselves in what they could only argue was a purer variation born of capitalism, of the meritocracy. Kaburagi's air of invincibility, transparent and feeble next to his own, made Izuru smile. Their so-called president did not know what it meant to be truly fearless. Izuru cooed, "I'll show you."

They handed over the document. It was the complete and unabridged charter that was written in the late 1970s, they told Kaburagi, and it guaranteed the student council officers even more power over the student body than they already assumed. "The headmaster and some of the older professors we asked assured us it was genuine and valid," Fujisawa said in answer to the obvious question, "albeit reluctantly. You can see for yourself why they wouldn't want to be entirely forthcoming with something like this. It would make us kings."

"Who's talking about kings?" said Kawada. "If the officers of the student council have ultimate authority, we don't have to put any stock in these duels if we decide not to."

"And violate the charter?" Izuru said, feigning shock. "The very thing that gave you that power? That would be like if creation itself opposed God, or if a brain decided it didn't need its body to live. It's heresy."

"We could always put the issue before the student body," Fujisawa added with a shrug. "I'm sure if they knew the particulars of the case, they wouldn't have any problem determining which side was in the right. I don't think you want to bring their opinions into a matter of this magnitude."

What he did not need to remind the student council officers was that outside their class there were few who would not call for a deposition of any one of them, given the opportunity. Kaburagi for his cruelty, Hinoki for his corruption, Kawada for his sheer unpopularity. . . . It would be a peasant rebellion. The three of them would not admit it, but they well understood that these two second-years held their fates in their hands, and would not relinquish them without a fight. Kaburagi's snide smile seemed to falter, and Hinoki must have been wondering if he would be next as he glanced uncertainly at Kawada. To him, at least, it seemed Kawada was a condemned man.

"I trust you'll make the right decision. If you don't uphold this one essential article, President Kaburagi," Izuru said pointedly, "Dorm Chief Hinoki, what's the point of any of them existing?"

—

Needless to say, the remaining officers turned on their disgraced comrade like a body does an infection, and Izuru received the single room that was the privilege of the position of vice-president in a matter of days.

He was interrupted from his moving in that evening by a knock on the open door, and was not surprised in the least to see Fujisawa standing in the door frame, his characteristic sneer planted firmly on his lips. "So, this is your new room?" He gave a half-hearted whistle. "Must be nice to have a single. I would be jealous—if I weren't getting my own in a few days' time."

He entered the room and closed the door behind himself.

"What do you want?" Izuru said.

Fujisawa's smug grin remained more fixed than ever. "Is that how you greet someone who's done you a great favor? I suppose you would have found out from someone soon enough that Kaburagi has relinquished his position as president of the student body."

His news did not get much of a reaction, let alone the one he wanted. "You already heard."

Izuru responded with an ambivalent gesture.

"C'mon, Okazaki, what's wrong with you?" Fujisawa gave him a patronizing shake of the head as he closed the distance between them. "With him and Kawada out of the way there'll be no one to oppose us."

Izuru smiled coolly. "I'm glad to hear it. But you still haven't answered my question."

"I thought you might want to congratulate me."

"You thought you'd rub it in."

Fujisawa shrugged. What he really wanted, what Izuru gave him gladly, was something else. These pretenses were always so transparent. So he was not in the least taken aback when Izuru grabbed the back of his collar and pressed his parted lips to Fujisawa's. Fujisawa unbuttoned Izuru's jacket, slipping his hands underneath to rest them on Izuru's narrow hips. He didn't mind Izuru holding him in place, pushing his tongue into his mouth; it was a refreshing change of pace. It was only when Fujisawa moved to undo his trousers that Izuru stepped back. "Undress yourself," he said shortly.

Shrugging off his classmate's brusque mood as none of his business, Fujisawa began to do as he was told. Never mind that Izuru was watching him as though he expected Fujisawa to bolt at any moment.

Once Fujisawa had unbuttoned his shirt, Izuru ran out of patience, and his boldness turned to violent need. He pulled Fujisawa to him by his tie for another kiss, and pushed him back toward the bed. Small piles of neatly folded clothes, waiting to be put away, were crushed and wrinkled beneath their bodies. Izuru pushed Fujisawa down into the mattress by his shoulders and straddled his hips. Then, puzzling Fujisawa who had expected more, he did nothing else.

"How did you do it?" Izuru asked him.

"Does it really matter?" Fujisawa made a motion to sit up, but Izuru would not allow him. "Or is it some kind of turn on?"

"I want to know."

The smug smile returned to Fujisawa's lips. "We exchanged a few choice words at the kendo club meeting. I convinced him some evidence could be gathered and that it would be in his and his family's best interest if he quietly admitted defeat."

"What do you mean? That you threatened to sue him?" Izuru sounded unimpressed. His eyes narrowed. "I thought you were going to beat the shit out of him."

Fujisawa's smile wavered. "Sure, I could have done that. . . . But a duel of wits is pretty grueling, too, you know." He raised a hand, sliding it up along the inseam of Izuru's thigh. "What does it matter how I get the job done as long as I'm student body president?"

"President?"

The icy tone of Izuru's question made him freeze.

"Who said anything about you being president?"

"You're joking, right?" Fujisawa said. "Hey, I was the one who got Kaburagi out of the picture. Since he was president, according to that document, I get his position."

"That depends. There is the question of whether you technically beat him or whether he simply stepped down."

"It doesn't matter! It's too late to be starting this bullshit now, Okazaki. If you wanted to be president so bad, you should have just challenged me when I said I would take Kaburagi. When you didn't, it seemed to me like we had a deal."

"And I thought you were just in it for revenge," Izuru said as he stared down his nose at Fujisawa. "We never had a deal. The only deal was that we were going to take them out. I assumed it was obvious the next step would be to divvy up the spoils among us accordingly."

"Accordingly?"

"Yes. According to who is better suited for each position."

A low growl rose from somewhere inside Fujisawa. He tried to raise himself onto his elbows, but it was awkward with Izuru's weight planted firmly on his lower body.

"Now, since I was the one who found out about the charter and brought it back into the light of day," Izuru continued, "and the one who suggested the duels in the first place, I believe it's only fair I be entitled first pick. Not to mention that given our personalities and our respective standings with the student body and faculty, it simply makes sense that someone like me should be leader and someone like you my lieutenant, doesn't it?" He chuckled, adding, "After all, I am our class captain—"

"Not a chance in hell," Fujisawa snarled. "This is robbery, is what it is. I won fair and square." He moved to get up and push Izuru off of him, but Izuru refused to let him go. His knee in Fujisawa's gut pushed him back into the mattress, pinning him there. Fujisawa grunted at that sharp weight pressing into him. "Get off me, you traitor. You disgust me."

Izuru only smiled at the epithet. He wrapped Fujisawa's tie around his hand in what was almost an absent manner, gripping it fondly as he cocked his head. "Would you like to challenge me to a duel and solve the matter that way?" he said in a low voice. "Because I wouldn't mind. It might be kind of fun, actually. I should warn you, though, that I could accidentally kill you if you pushed me too far."

His fingers were cool as he ran them over Fujisawa's neck, a contrite look on his face that Fujisawa knew better than to trust. Even for being so slight, Izuru had always been the stronger of the two physically. But Fujisawa, for his part, was made of tougher stuff than either of the third-years they had defeated; he didn't come with the same overriding sense of self-preservation that they did. He had been cut from the same cloth as Izuru, and would not give up so easily. He met Izuru's gaze boldly, trusting that would say enough.

A small smile, wicked in its intention, appeared on Izuru's face as he bent to speak into Fujisawa's ear: "I never planned on settling for anything less than president. Come on, you know me well enough by now to have expected that. You're dead wrong if you think I'm going to change my mind now, Fujisawa."

Though he could not help a grimace of discomfort whenever Izuru shifted his weight on that knee, Fujisawa could not bring himself to do anything but stare his classmate down. It killed him to give Izuru the satisfaction of seeing him give in. But on the other hand, Fujisawa had caught a glimpse of a side to his classmate that he knew nothing about, and could not be sure that Izuru would not follow through on his threats. Conceding to himself that there was little he could do at this time, Fujisawa finally raised a hand to the one that gripped his tie in a gesture of surrender.

That did not mean, of course, that in his heart he was defeated. The disgust Fujisawa had for himself at that moment and the resentment that burned within him over this betrayal ensured that the battle was far from over. Though neither would ever have said that they had been friends, some relationship had nonetheless existed between them that was now wounded beyond repair, beyond reconcile. Without words, an understanding passed between them that from this point on they would be mortal enemies.

—

The next morning as he was walking to class, someone called out to him, "Hey, Okazaki!"

Izuru turned, only to have a fist collide with his left cheek. "You asshole!" Fujisawa growled, with no concern for the students who gathered around them, some of whom automatically stepped forward to get between the two young men.

One of their classmates offered to help, but Izuru shrugged him off. "I'm fine," he said, though his cheekbone felt raw and hot as he touched it gently with the tips of his fingers. If he were honest, the punch had not shaken him as much as it might have coming from someone else, in a different situation. From Fujisawa, though, it was almost to be expected. "I guess I deserved that."

"Yeah, you're damn right you did. —Hey, I got it out of my system," Fujisawa said to the boys trying to hold him back.

In fact, it was Izuru they had a right to be worried about, though no one stepped forward to stop him from retaliating. After what had happened to Kawada and Kaburagi—and, after all, the power of rumor was greater than the truth—they probably expected Izuru to return the punch and a fight to break out. They were to be disappointed.

"This doesn't change anything," Izuru said. The onlookers could make of that what they may; this did not concern them. "I hope you realize that."

"Yeah." Fujisawa cracked a painful grin. "But I feel a hell of a lot better."

"Then I'll expect you in the student council's office after last bell. I'm calling a meeting to announce the changes officially." And Izuru left it at that, trusting there were enough witnesses for word to get around before the day was over.

At the meeting of the student council after class that day, he and Fujisawa appeared together at the head of the table as president and vice-president respectively. No one, not even Izuru, seemed to mind the bruise beginning to form under his eye. He wore it like it was a battle scar, and he fresh from the campaign. And victory. It was he who held the original copy of the student council's charter now, and who addressed those who were assembled.

Breaking with routine, he had insisted on a more open setting for his first speech, opening the event to other students and even faculty. The latter stood along the side of the room, stoic expressions on their faces as they knew not what to expect. Students peered eagerly into the room from the doorways, passing word along to those who could not see or hear clearly. Izuru did not see Mitani among the crowd, but it did more to encourage than daunt him to think of what his teacher would hear of this later.

He appeared before them part prophet and part circus ringleader, first seducing and then guiding the attention of his captive audience from one talking point to another. "It is through the grace of God," Izuru dared to say, "that we were able to overthrow our corrupt student government—to sever the head of the Beast, if you will—and we owe it to this." He held the charter enclosed in its old Moroccan leather portfolio above his shoulder, as though it were a relic that might bless them with some hidden light.

"In it are rules set down by our predecessors, the first students to graduate from this school, that the generations that followed forgot. They believed, and wisely so, that a student should have the right to challenge a leader if he thinks the founding values of this school have been neglected or abused, and that he could do a better job in upholding them as they were meant to be upheld. That, in short, is what we have done, in order that we may correct the moral stagnation that reigned under your former leaders, Kaburagi and Kawada. Saint Michel will soon forget their small, empty contributions, but we will make sure the vision of our predecessors is preserved for the classes of the future."

An observer might have wondered, if he had been privy to the secret goings on of these two young men who now stood before the school as though they were angels come down from on high to guard the Arc of the Covenant that was the charter, if there was not an element of hypocrisy to Izuru's speech. Couldn't it be that they only planned on using their offices for their own personal gratification? The question would not have been unfounded; but it was at the same time fair to say that Izuru—to say nothing of Fujisawa—truly believed what he said. Or, that he belived the activities in which he took pleasure in private, that hurt no one in the Pauline sense, were an issue separate from this and therefore exclusively compatable. They simply could not be compared to one another.

One might have wondered, too, if the students who listened would really be sold on such outdated ideas of propriety as those Izuru appeared to be peddling. The difference between his speech and Father Robert's liturgies was a simple matter of semantics. No doubt there were bound to be some third-years who had prospered under Kaburagi's wing the last term who would not go along with the new reigme without nurturing some deep misgivings; but they must have understood nonetheless that Izuru and Fujisawa's coup was about a greater issue, one that held a place of considerable respect among the student hierarchy:

The dealing out of dues.

As for the other students, whether they had been oppressed or not, one could say that they had been put under a kind of spell by Izuru's speaking. When he said they should take pride in being Christian students of such a renowned school, they were forced to think how lacking they had been in ways in which they could take pride before, and suddenly they longed to grasp that glory which he spoke of. Like it was sweet nutrition for their souls they only now realized were impoverished, when he said that they should live by the ideals of Christ in all aspects of school life, they truly wanted to feel the satisfaction of a salvation he seemed to promise would light up their hearts and academic records.

So, for the faculty, who every now and then nodded reluctantly at something profound Izuru had to say, this new student body president was in many ways a dream come true. They could not have known from where he got his inspiration—their memories were not that faithful—or even that it was borrowed in almost every respect. Perhaps they would not have cared, and would have praised Mitani even more for his influence if they knew how responsible he was.

Nor was there any way of knowing that Izuru had little intention to obey his own edicts. But just how, not even he could imagine at that time.

Nonetheless, the faculty formed a picture in their minds of two shining bastions of truth and beauty, of one crying out in the wilderness, another preaching to the crows, the two cutting edges of the proverbial double-edged sword of a holy tongue—a powerful, seraphic image that was precisely what Izuru and Fujisawa had started out with the intent to convey for themselves. If they could do almost anything they wanted before, they could get away with murder now, or worse. These were not leaders of a student democracy but monarchs. Kings who could denounce the very world if they wanted to, and two hundred young men would follow them into the abyss with hardly a question—like sheep to the slaughter, and their shepherds along with them.

—

"Hey, Sensei, wait up!"

Mitani looked up on his way back to the teachers' office. Though the call could have been meant for any of the professors here, somehow he recognized the tone of voice Izuru always used when he spoke to him. Does he use it with his other professors as well? Mitani wondered briefly, which in turn led him to wonder why it suddenly bothered him to think Izuru did.

The thought was swept from his mind, however, when his gaze alighted on the boy jogging across the square to join him. The autumn wind had been blowing lightly all day, and it tussled his hair and jacket as he raced to catch up, and scattered the brown-purple leaves of the plum trees that fell to the cobblestones like burnt scraps of paper behind him. In contrast to the decay of the season, Izuru's cheeks were flushed from the cold wind, and his eyes shown bright and fresh when he grinned open-mouthed to catch his breath. How exclusive that expression seemed, how utterly unlike the Izuru he usually allowed everyone to see. Not for the first time, it had an effect on Mitani, who felt priveleged to witness it.

He said perhaps a little too quickly, "I didn't get to tell you before, Okazaki, but congratulations on your becoming student council president. I heard what you said in the meeting yesterday, about how you plan to turn that office around."

"Yeah?" Izuru couldn't help himself. He beamed.

Mitani nodded. "Your goal to clean up the student body, and try to emulate the teachings of Christ in academic life—I'm sure that's exactly the kind of ethic the council's founders had in mind."

"I'm glad you think so." In truth, Izuru had not given much thought to his professor's reaction. He had not allowed himself to expect anything. After all, "It was you who inspired me, Sensei. If you want to know the truth of it. It wasn't just your lectures either. I believe you were right in saying we should be concerned about the role of faith in our futures. In fact," the words kept flowing all on their own, for fear of winding up with nothing to say, "that was what I wanted to talk to you about, the future—that is, if you're not too busy. Of course, you know I'll start looking into universities after the start of next term, and I was wondering—"

"I would gladly give you whatever help you need," Mitani said. Had he responded too quickly? he wondered immediately after, but Izuru smiled in gratitude.

When he turned briefly toward the sun, Mitani's gaze fell on the raw patch that remained below the boy's eye and the bruise that had formed around it. His eyes had been drawn to it ever since yesterday morning's lecture, but every time he had thought he might be caught he had quickly looked away, leaving a short pause in his lecture like a jitter in a recording. Now that they were outside of class, he ventured, "Okazaki, how did you . . . How did that happen?"

"Mm?" Izuru turned back to him. "Oh. It was nothing. I had a disagreement with someone is all. Lovers' quarrel."

Mitani started. A sudden warmth as the blood rushed to his skin. "What?"

"It was a joke," Izuru amended quickly. And a bad one, he chastised himself.

"You're not in any trouble, are you?" Mitani raised a hand as though to touch his wound, but then thought better of it. It would have been inappropriate, in or outside the classroom. But Izuru found himself wishing his professor had not been so self-conscious. "Does it hurt?"

Izuru put a hand to his cheek. "Not really. Like I said, it's nothing." He hated to be so short, but it just came out as such when he said, untruthfully, "I wish you wouldn't be so concerned about me, Sensei."

"Sorry." Mitani flashed a timid smile. "It's just that you're a conundrum to me, Okazaki. When I heard how you stood up to your upperclassmen, I couldn't help thinking what confidence and drive that must have taken, that I would never have had at your age. I'm proud of you."

Izuru felt his heart leap when Mitani said those words that he had thought he had wanted only to hear. Strange, but now, for reasons he could not explain let alone understand, it did not seem like enough.

"Your answers on exams, too, they radiate a real passion and understanding for the subject."

"You can tell that just by a couple of facts strung together in a sentence?" Izuru didn't know why he spoke with more cynicism than he felt, when what he really was was grateful.

Mitani's slight smile was strained by his tone. "Well, yes. Most students just repeat what the book says. I know I haven't been a teacher for long, and maybe I'm not very traditional in what I think is important, but I guess it's what you would call teacher's intuition. You should really share more of your thoughts in class."

Izuru looked away.

"And that's the thing I don't understand," Mitani went on. "You're so reserved in my lecture, but from everything I've heard about you from the other staff, and how you present yourself outside of my class . . . It seems like you're two different people sometimes. It's none of my business, but you are one of my brightest students—"

"There's no particular reason for it," Izuru said. Which was a lie, but then it would also have been a lie to blame shyness when it only manifested itself in one subject, in front of one professor. If only Mitani knew what kept him silent, and made his heart leap in his chest and his tongue retreat into the back of his throat every time he merely thought of being called upon, singled out by this man in front of everyone, in that same reverent tone of voice. . . .

He would laugh, I know it, Izuru thought, if I tried to tell him that the reason I won't speak in his class is because I like him. An answer like that would only make sense to a schoolgirl with a crush. However, "If it would please you if I said more—"

He was cut off by a gust of wind that swept down through the courtyard without warning. It was a gust so strong that for a heartbeat it threatened to lift them right off the ground, or at very least tear the books from their arms. Izuru shoved his hand deeper into his pocket and scrunched his shoulders against the chill; Mitani held his books and notes closer to his body. Other students clutched at their bags. It had been a rather still day, but now the red and gold leaves were blasted from the branches they clung to so delicately, for a moment whipping away across the pavement like they were trying to escape something.

A din rose up around them. As the wind began to let up, the gulls gathered on the rooftops began to cry out as one at the top of their lungs. Taking flight, they scattered against the clear blue sky, some shitting randomly as they went, which prompted boys in the courtyard below to cover their heads. Even when the birds settled down again, their cacophony grew louder and more complex as everyone in the flock joined in in communicating what human onlookers could only describe as their panic. There was something of a vague sense of unease, even distress, in their unsettled behavior. It seemed as if to warn one another of a nearby threat, albeit a dormant one if they were not abandoning their posts completely, like a shark slowly patrolling the sea floor.

Listening to their cries that split the air filled Izuru with an inexplicable sense of dread; and watching their movements along the tops of the buildings, he thought he almost felt some sort of presence in the wind, as ridiculous as such a thought was.

There was nothing there. As far as anyone could see, the gulls were the roof's only inhabitants, aside from an occasional crow. No matter how sudden, could what startled them really have been as simple as a strong gust of air?

"I wonder what that was all about," Mitani said beside him.

Izuru shivered, and not just from the cold. "Must have been the wind."

—

Meanwhile, hidden in the shadow of human ignorance, Focalor watched with avid interest.

Duke of Hell, and one-time angel of Heaven of the Order of Thrones, long had his name been cause for much fear and anguish. Known among humans as a destroyer of ships, who had drowned hundreds of thousands of men, and among his own as a lord of distinguished loyalty and extraordinary patience.

However, these last months had been spent stewing in outrage and disgrace, plotting against the bastard human who had so upset the natural hierarchy of his world. Attitudes had changed since the Dark Ages, when his kind was truly held in awe by mankind. He understood that he could not turn back the ways of their hearts, but this offense was beyond toleration.

By accident it seemed, that human had defeated their Dragon Cavalry Brigade Commander Surgatanus. And, according to their own laws, in doing so he gained the rank and title of Surgatanus. A mere human. A powerful one, yes, but did his victory not come with the help of his friends and guardian spirits? For this upset they should all have met a swift and final death. Focalor would have laughed if the very thought did not rile him so, compounded by his brethren's undying reverence for the laws they had made themselves and yet held sacred above all else, even reason. They would permit themselves to be lorded over by a human—they who owed their very fall to Heaven's fondness for that mortal race! Even though they complained and plotted means to usurp the offender, still they permitted it. His Lord even seemed amused by the idea, preparing himself to welcome the human under his wing.

His heedlessness disgusted Focalor.

But if it was the law that mattered, then the law he would obey. He would kill that man himself and rightfully claim the position he had coveted for so long. Though the idea of what Surgatanus might have seen in that creature's eyes before he met his own demise continued to plague him, Focalor had convinced himself his goal could not be too difficult to reach. Then, once he became Brigade Commander himself, he would be that much closer to the other goal he had almost given up on, the one that would take all his strength, that they had told him would never succeed: of returning with his legions to the throne that awaited him in Heaven.

Existence in the world of the living had corrupted him. It was only due to his hope that he was able to wallow in his watery lair all these months without incident, steeping his wizened body in the wastefulness of humans, drowning in his hatred of them, and repeating the name of that vile usurper in his heart—the name that made his skin crawl when it spilled from his Lord's lips: Tsuzuki Asato. He would never forget that name, not until its bearer was long erased from existence, crushed by his hands.

But in his current form, his ancient and tired shell of a body, he was no match for that man. No, in order to accomplish his goal he needed a fresh body through which he might channel his power to its fullest. And on top of that, he needed a lure.

He needed a human body.

He understood that it took a spiritual incident of significant magnitude on this Japanese island to summon this Tsuzuki, whose job it was to investigate those phenomenon that went against Meifu's laws of death. So Focalor would create a conundrum: He would cause a soul to disappear so perfectly even God himself would be lucky to find it again.

It was about that time that Izuru and Fujisawa had stunned the school by taking control of Saint Michel's student council in their second years. Their struggle inspired him. In either of their bodies he could be reborn and reach his ideal power. What was essential, what would make both the pact and his triumph over Tsuzuki complete, was desire. A desire equaling his own—for it was like a hunger that would destroy him, the threat of which motivated him like starvation motivates a wild animal to do the unconscionable in order to survive, if only for one more day.

He found this great desire in Okazaki Izuru.

Izuru who had everything a boy of his age could want. Wealth, a sure foot in the door of society, the finest education money could buy and the brilliant mind to appreciate it. He had the admiration of his classmates, for his character and looks; and it was with satisfaction that Focalor noted his top physical form and beauty. He was the perfect candidate, with all the attributes a devil could hope for, the last anyone would suspect.

And now Izuru was head of the student council. For all anyone could see, he should have been content. However, it was the wager that he still longed on which everything Focalor dreamed of rode.

He eavesdropped on Izuru's thoughts and discovered the boy lusted hopelessly after his professor, that meek intellectual Mitani. How obsessed he was, entertaining fantasies about the two of them in his dreams, both during the day, with his pitiful attempts to focus his mind on matters at hand, and at night when he would sometimes act them out alone in his single, sighing, writhing and touching himself. The sort of relief that provided lasted only so long, and even worse were the dreams that tormented him with more vivid images than his conscious imagination out of shame could conjure. It was all driving him slowly mad; that much was apparent. What amazed the devil was that Izuru still could not quite see it for what it was.

No one else noticed this particular change that had come over Okazaki, either, let alone the object of his desire. Focalor, on the other hand, recognized it clearly. As the weeks passed, his course was only made clearer, and his mind more solidly set on what he must do.

—

"One might say," Mitani spoke to the class as he paced the front of the room, a worn and well-loved copy of the novel in his hand. He had departed from his usual lectures to speak about it, as everyone was expected to have read it through at this point in the term. Izuru had finished it long ago, as soon as he had been able. It was his appreciation for his professor that had driven him—driven him to see why it was Mitani appreciated the book so. And Fujisawa, who had grinned knowingly that first day—it was old news to him as well. He slouched in his chair where Izuru sat at attention, but he was no less rapt at all their teacher had to say.

"One might say," Mitani said, "that this is a book first and foremost about knowledge. It is set in a monastery, a place of learning in medieval Europe, specifically one with a huge library designed as a labyrinth, which requires substantial knowledge of scripture and geography to navigate. Our protagonists, Adso and William of Baskerville, are concerned with the search for knowledge: knowledge of the monastery and other characters, namely as they relate to the mystery at hand. But the quest for knowledge is also what leads so many to their deaths: Adelmo, Venantius, Berengar . . . everyone who goes after this book no one seems to be able to find.

"And then there are those who are concerned with the truth, like Jorge and the inquisitors. But what is truth? Can any one person have all the answers to everything? And how can one really say he is trying to get at the truth when that same person twists everything to fit the convictions he already holds, regardless of whether they are . . ." He chuckled. "True?

"So the next question is, is knowledge dangerous? Or rather, for whom, or by whom, does it become so? Obviously, one could say it became dangerous for those who died searching for it. But . . ." He glanced in Izuru's direction briefly. "Was it the thirst to know that killed them? Regardless of what physically did them in, I mean. Isn't it true that for those who control knowledge, those who have power, that these same forces can be dangerous in the hands of those beneath them? There is this idea, obviously shared not just among the men in power, but also those who fear that to actually think—to use our minds logically—indeed, to have an appreciation for something as human as humor is to encroach on the realm of the Devil.

"So, what is it that makes this book controversial?" he said now to the other side of the classroom, holding the book aloft in a manner not unlike that of a preacher. "I'm not talking about what Adelmo and Berengar were up to, either," he clarified to some awkward laughter. "These themes apply to our lives, whether we live now or five hundred years ago—or five hundred years in the future, for that matter. The question of whether information should be free or restricted, and by how much. Not to mention its portrayal of the Church's often ugly past, particularly in its treatment of heretics which we Japanese Christians can relate to as a shameful part of our own history.

"And as for the heretics. . . . What do you make of them? Are they sinners, or just searching for the truth like any of us? Or both? So many of the things we take for granted as truths now were considered controversy then—not just in Europe's middle ages but since the founding of Christianity. The concept that Christ was poor, for example. We accept it today as tradition, but for the leaders of the Church in the thirteenth, fourteenth century nothing could be more dangerous than to question their moral and spiritual integrity by saying that he was. What these heretics were saying by upholding Christ's poverty, essentially, was that the Church was not only not imitating Christ, but going against the very lifestyle he preached! Imagine! It was their audacity to make those kinds of claims that got them killed, more often than not, because there were many—or at least a few who had great power, anyway—who thought that kind of preaching had to be silenced at any costs.

"Like this issue of whether Christ laughed. I know, you're probably thinking, where's the issue? But what you have to understand is that to men like Jorge, laughter was a bestial emotion; and if it was bestial for ordinary men, how much more offensive was it to claim that the son of God, brought into this world without original sin, would have loved a good joke, let alone used one to get his message across. So you had texts like the Coena Cypriani mentioned in the story that were banned as sacrilegious although they were said to reveal secret moral lessons under the 'veil of mirth,' albeit more often than not in an obscene fashion.

"So this is the question I pose to you, even though it's just as much a matter of philosophy as history: If there are no absolutes to measure by, how are we to determine what is moral behavior? We can't abolish 'morality' completely, and let everyone decide for himself what is the truth and what is deception. Or do you think we can? Yes?"

One of the boys had raised his hand, and now seemed surprised to actually be called upon. He said uncertainly, "Well . . . yeah. I mean, within reason, of course—"

"But then how do you determine reason?" said one from the back corner of the room. Those around him laughed, but it was the nervous laugh of those who did not know the answer themselves. "Obviously you have to have some references," said the first boy in response.

Mitani chuckled. "I think what you have there is the great paradox."

Izuru smiled. Though he only listened, he felt like he were the novice Adso listening to one of William of Baskerville's lectures: Ultimately few would understand, including himself at first, but he could not shake the feeling that the truths hidden in the lecture were meant primarily for him. For he found in himself a certain nostalgia for the atmosphere of the fourteenth century as he sat there, when one could still be tortured and burned for having an outlandish idea. He envied the steadfastness of the heretics turned martyrs, their willingness to die for an idea. It was so unlike that modern sentiment expressed by Endo Shusaku and taken up by their professor that it was easier to apostatize, if only in words, and live with the weight of guilt than see one's beloveds suffer, let alone suffer bodily harm oneself. Better to chew off your own leg, in other words, and live lame another day than die in the trap.

Though Izuru could not imagine giving up his life for love of God, as the triumph and subsequent complacency of Christianity in the late-twentieth century would not allow him to, he could see himself giving it up, if for no other reason than to die for a conviction. Or in spite of one. It didn't matter. It was not that he lacked a sense of self-preservation; in fact, one could say that it was strong in him. But it was that sort of drive, after all, that was at the heart of true patriotism and true faithfulness which led one to romanticize death as the ultimate act of honor.

Fujisawa, whose passion for the novel seemed to match his own, was not so unlike him, although one might have compared him rather to the inquisitor than the martyr, if for no other reason than the apparent joy he took hearing of others' suffering. But couldn't it be said that they were oppressed equally under Father Robert and the Ministry of Education's high and blind ideals about the morality of Saint Michel's students? Adelmo and Berengar, they had sought knowledge of a different kind, not just that which could be found in a book. The conviction that there was some kernel of divine purity at the heart of sexual pleasure got Fra Dolcino burned at the stake, and that was sex with women. How much more forbidden, more heretical—and more allowed—had been the secret goings on in the young monks' dormitories as they sought the truth in each other's bodies. How much more Izuru glorified their deaths in his mind, how innocent and genuine they became for him, thinking that in any other time he would only hope to imitate them. How admirable it was for death to mean something, if only to the dying.

Another boy spoke up and said, "If we're Christians, why don't we just go by what the Bible tells us?"

"And whose interpretation do you propose we go by?"

That was Fujisawa, who had been suspiciously quiet throughout the entire class period. Surprised, perhaps by the clarity his voice seemed to have in that one sentence, Mitani said, "Fujisawa brings up an excellent point. The Bible has been used to justify a number of radically different, even contradictory viewpoints over the years. Zwingli and Luther both claimed it as their only source, and yet they couldn't reach a compromise over its interpretation."

"Which is not necessarily a bad thing," said Fujisawa, sitting up with an air worthy of the student body vice-president. "All things considered, I think a deconstructionist attitude is the lesser of two evils. In fact, I would go a step further: rule by shame. It's the best way to keep people in line. And, of course, knowledge leads to shame."

A few of the students snorted and rolled their eyes. It sounded like something Father Robert would say.

"I'm serious," Fujisawa told them. A cocky grin spread across his lips. "Case in point, the garden of Eden. What is original sin but man's punishment for choosing reason over irrational animal instinct? And why else do you think they call sex 'carnal knowledge'?"

"Er, that's an interesting argument," Mitani said, but the excitement he had exhibited over the beginning of the discussion quickly dwindled into what seemed a defensive tone of voice. "But we seem to be drifting off the topic and running out of time, and I wanted to discuss the role of the Minorites a bit before we stop for today. . . ."

—

That night seemed unseasonably warm in the dormitories. The waves were high and could be clearly heard crashing against the rocks and concrete walls from the open window, but there was only a faint breeze moving through. Izuru longed for it to come in and cool the fire that burned inside him, but it remained merely heard and out of reach, much to his frustration. The "noontime devil" moved around even stronger at night. Now when Izuru closed his eyes he saw only Mitani, and remembered how his professor had often smiled at him timidly, and how he had breathed and held himself when they stood close to one another as Izuru asked him a question after class the day before. And how he had smelled. The sound of the crashing waves seemed to call Izuru's name, and in his mind it was Mitani whispering in his ear, breathing against his neck. . . .

Izuru was unable to concentrate on anything else. He abandoned his studies and lay back on his bed, not bothering to turn down the sheets. With the change of position, he could not ignore his arousal any longer if he wanted to. He bit his lip and shifted his hips as his erection strained the crotch of his school pants, and the friction made his head swim.

In the dark he had fewer reservations about admitting what he tried to deny to himself in the day: He wanted Mitani. He wanted him so much he felt he would explode from the pressure. Eyes shut to better lose himself in the world of his thoughts, Izuru slid his hand under the hem of his shirt, caressing his stomach, imagining it was Mitani touching him. Absently, he undid the buttons of the shirt, bared himself to the heavy night air. His legs parted to relieve the pressure building between them, but he only wound up wondering instead how it would feel to have Mitani between his thighs, inside him, and the strain in his groin grew almost painful with anticipation at that thought. He moaned quietly, and the sea continued to call him.

I . . . zu . . . ru . . . i . . . zu . . . ru . . .

. . . went the cycle of ebb, flow, and crash. He paid it no more heed than anything else in his fantasy. His fingertips brushed over a nipple. "Sensei," he whispered in answer, turning into the pillow. Kissing the imaginary lips of his professor, he heard Mitani's breathing echoed in his own, quickening next to his skin. He undid the button of his fly, gasping at the slight, sudden release, and touched himself beneath the stiff material of his uniform trousers. His hips began to move in slow circles.

It was only in the back of his mind that Izuru knew he was not alone.

He was too engrossed in his fantasy to see the dark and supple body, thick as a tree trunk, that slid itself into his room through the open window. It made hardly a sound as it moved toward him—or rather, the sound so perfectly matched the hush of the sea and the wind that it seemed like no sound at all. It wove through the shadows toward the foot of the bed; and as it slowly made its way up the length of Izuru's body, hovering above him, he writhed and arched toward it in mindless pleasure. The creature took amusement in this. In the boy's vulnerable state, he could not be bothered to tell the difference between a danger and his imaginary lover. Which merely meant that, so far, Focalor had been right.

The creature let out a hiss of laughter like the clatter of pebbles in the tide, and Izuru started. "Who's there?" he asked, but even then the alarm in his voice was clouded by a stubborn lust. Focalor moved back a little ways into the shadow.

After a tense pause, he breathed the boy's name again. "I-zu-ru. . . ." For a moment he doubted his old skills, but he caught the rise of Izuru's Adam's apple as he swallowed and was convinced otherwise.

"Who are you?" Izuru whispered. His eyes were closing again, he was falling back into his waking dream, and Focalor took the opportunity to move closer for a better look at the body that would soon be his. Skin thin and wrinkled like parchment brushed against Izuru's thighs and his bare chest as he moved, causing Izuru to moan.

With another low chuckle, Focalor answered him: "You know who I am."

The room's invader was a dim shape, already difficult to make out, like the elusive figure of a monster in dreams, always barely escaping the eye, and in the dark it was even less distinct. Nonetheless, what hovered above Izuru on its vestigial limbs was a long and serpentine creature, perhaps nine meters in length, that moved in rippling coils. Like a wave slowly moving to shore and melting into the one behind it, the gentle undulation of its body had a seductive, feminine quality despite its grotesque appearance. The hide was a muddy black and covered by a mail shirt of long tough scales, which shone like a cloak of electrum where the faint light hit it with its own oils, or perhaps the accumulation of millennia-long immersion in the silty ocean depths and the muck of the human world that polluted them. Sprouting from behind its gills and from bony protuberances above each set of spindly arms, were great wings or fins, though their appearance was more like sails, their masts twisted and knotted like maple wood. The skin stretched between those bones, thick and embroidered with myriad wrinkled black veins, was like vellum or a silken fabric in the way it billowed around the body with each breath and flex.

Its head was bald except for a scraggly beard like seaweed or burnt flesh that peels away from the body hanging from the lower jaw, and was skeletal in its texture and appearance like the skull of some prehistoric fish, bursting with a brain that had had a hundred millennia to evolve within its primitive constraints. The jaw was hinged far back in the head, able to detach itself to swallow larger prey like a python's, but fixed in a permanent death grin as it was not covered by the unnecessary flesh of cheek or lips. Stiletto-like teeth, the longest as long as a human radius, jutted from either side of this creature's mouth in the manner of a viperfish, curving out and up towards the eyes, or down over the chin.

But most striking of all for Focalor's victim were its eyes. Set low and in the front of the head, they were massive and bulged out of their sockets, each swiveling of its own accord. Though fiery in color, they glowed an almost diseased white with an internal, phosphorescent light. And the tiny slits of pupils, that focused so keenly on their target, never breaking eye contact, made those eyes seem even more blind, though hardly lifeless. The lids, what little the creature had of them, were so thin one could see the pupil rolling underneath with each leisurely blink.

And yet Izuru was not frightened—at least not in the sense that men are usually frightened. He was not disgusted, nor did he fear for his life. It was not the goal of the devil to turn away his victims but to bring them closer, to tempt them, to gain their trust—indeed to supplicate himself. In order to be successful, the boy had to believe he would not be hurt and, in fact, that the greater benefit would be his.

But he must not ask for that guarantee or else the freedom to do what the devil had in mind would not be granted. A difficult task to accomplish while possessing of such an unnatural and grotesque vessel, but Focalor was not worried. The tools of the devil were many and multifaceted, a maze of temptation and logical contradiction without beginning or end. His body's breathing was as regular and gentle as the waves, and the low rumbling from the back of his throat which repeated Izuru's name like a mantra rocked the boy like his dream-lover's arms. It was not a putrid odor that he breathed, but something not meant for this world. Something like lilacs or apricot blossoms mingled with the astringent scent of brine and kelp—the smell of saints to confuse that already blurry line between purity and corruption.

Already enthralled by his own lust, Izuru could only focus on the eyes of that angel—albeit one fallen—so radiant, so beautiful it was terrifying, so intangible he wanted nothing more than to possess its magnificence. And with that sweet voice that was as calming as ripples on a pond, he would have done almost anything the creature asked.

"You know me," the devil told him. "It was you who summoned me to be your servant, though perhaps you were not aware of it. Yet I heard you," he assured the boy gently, his words slow like a chant, like a noh actor lulling his audience into a trance, "because we are the same, you and I. We both long for something that is beyond our reach—something we have been told we are not allowed to have, and that is tearing us up at the seams because of it."

Izuru gasped when he heard that, and Focalor gave a low laugh of satisfaction.

"You wonder how I knew? I know everything—about your secret, your sin, your desire. Your body speaks of it loudly, crying out with every fiber of your being, filling my ears with its hunger. I have seen as though through your own eyes how you look after that man . . . Mitani."

Mitani. That was a name Izuru recognized—a face he longed to have look only on him, that always retreated from him like the water around Tantalus when he reached out for it.

"He does not return your feelings, does he? No. . . . But how could he? He does not realize what is in his own heart. Not yet. He is too busy looking at his feet on the ground. But I could make him look up, Izuru. Yes, look up and see you. For a pittance, I could—indeed, I would give you anything your heart desired. I would make you king of the world if you wished it, and you must believe, it would take no large effort on my part. Fame, wealth, adoration. . . . You could be set up for life. Even the slightest whim would be my pleasure. All you need do is ask and you shall receive. Is that not what the Gospels tell you to do? Well, I can make more than empty promises. I can make your dreams reality."

The devil felt for his mind, the train of his thoughts, searching for some clue he was on the right track. The creature's thick tongue moved in its maw like a bird in a cage, behind the sinister smile, tasting the air and the scent rising off of his victim. It told him what he already suspected, that there was no change in the direction of the boy's thoughts.

"But, no. That is not enough for you. You do not want those things, those responsibilities. You have everything you could possibly want already, except. . . ." Yes, he felt it clearly now as he absorbed the boys emotions into his own self, into the nuclei of his cells, more clearly than he had that day in the courtyard. "Yes, everything except him.

"I beg of you, Izuru, I prostrate myself at your feet," the devil said, "I am your servant, to do with as you wish. But I require a small favor in return. It would hardly be fair if only one of us benefited by my grace, would it not? I can only give so much, Izuru, for I have suffered so much. I have been wronged as you have been wronged, denied as you have been denied. And my soul has burned in torment over it. This shell of a body, it grows old. I feel the weight of the years, countless centuries. Millennia. . . . Can you imagine this pain of yours lasting millennia, Izuru? It wastes this body away, just as the world wastes away, Izuru, into oblivion in corruption and suffering and blasphemous nonsense, and I am sickened by it."

Izuru was sickened by it. The endless, meaningless parable of life at Saint Michel without Mitani's constant presence, without any sign the admiration that Izuru so devoutly gave was returned—

"I am tired of being sickened by it. And who will help us to break free from our suffering, Izuru? Where is the god they make you worship in this temple of greed and vanity when you need him most? Why, he has abandoned you—abandoned you because what you seek to enter is a world that he forbade, Izuru, just as he forbade me that world I once called my home, my empire. Do you not see what a cruel god he is, Izuru?"

Izuru did see. He had been living under the yoke of a faith he never chose for himself long enough, and for nothing—

"He would deny you Mitani's embrace, his touch, his adoration—all these things you desire even more than existence itself. And for what? It is called an unnatural love, because its realization can come to nothing. It is called blasphemy to say that such a love can be purer than any base one that leads to reproduction, to the propagation of filth, to animal rutting, though somehow that base one is held in the highest honor, as a sacrament.

"See the hypocrisy of men's religion, Izuru!" the devil hissed, the conviction in his words echoing off the dormitory ceiling and ringing in Izuru's ears. "See the hypocrisy of your almighty god! Decry this folly once and for all, embrace what you know in your heart to be right and good, and I guarantee you, your Mitani will come around to that sense as well. How could he not have even once entertained the thought of following the glorious path of youth, being only a lowly man of sin after all?"

His body was within reach. Sensing that, Focalor's hunger grew. The beast's tongue twisted eagerly inside the cage of its maw, slapping the saliva that had begun to pool around it. The boy was so close to accepting him, his scent heady in the creature's nostrils, his soul just beyond his grasp.

"Let us help each other," Focalor said. "Say you wish to close this deal and your will shall be done. Mitani will be yours and yours alone. All I ask in return is that you do not forget your servant, and let him use this mortal body when you have passed, though far away that day may be. What harm could there be in merely recycling this mortal vessel, when you no longer have use of it? Surely you must see what a small, insignificant price it is to pay for how much you will gain. What say you?"

There could only be one answer, but he had to hear it. For his own sake, and for the bargain to be binding, he needed to hear the words. "Tell me what you want, Izuru."

"I want him . . ." God, but he wanted Mitani, till he thought his heart would burst from wanting.

But it wasn't enough. Stubborn child. "Then say you accept my terms! Say the words and I will appease your hunger. I will make this agony go away!"

"Yes . . . do it, please . . ." Izuru moaned beneath him. He twisted in impatience, clawing at the pillow beneath his head.

"'Please' what? If you want what I am offering you, boy, then say that you accept!"

"I accept, I accept!" The words tore themselves from Izuru's throat. "Just please . . . now. . . ."

Satisfied, Focalor wasted no more time. It did not matter to him whether the boy knew what he was saying, or that he was only prompted by the promise of seeing his desire fulfilled. The contract had been signed; it needed only ratification.

The creature's tongue shot between the teeth that were the bars of its prison, forcing its way through the boy's parted lips. Izuru gasped at the intrusion. At first, still lost in his lust, the hardness of the muscle, the life that throbbed within it, and the first briny taste that hit his tongue nearly drove him to the climax that had eluded him painfully so far.

In an instant, however, every trace of desire within him was dashed as the thing discharged in him. Every desire, that was, but his body's to reject the intrusion. He gagged as something warm and viscous filled the back of his throat. He tasted bile and blood that were not his own, and something fouler than the smell of sewage, something that slithered down his windpipe like slimy bits of flesh, alive with a purpose of their own. He wanted to vomit. He longed desperately to breathe, but the tongue pushed farther in, blocking his airflow with its foul ichor. It pumped its contents into him without cessation, the filth filling Izuru's esophagus, filling his lungs. The sharp pain deep in his chest and the dreaded realization that he was falling from that proverbial cliff toward death were the last things Izuru knew before passing into unconsciousness. It could have come sooner, but at least he would remember less of that horrifying pain when he woke than he would a hazy dream.

At last he went still, and silence filled the room. It was a moment more before the creature finished its duty. Hunched tense over the boy's body, there was something of the detached stare of childbirth in its shadowy silhouette. When the tongue retracted, the angelic light faded from the bulging eyes. Only a dumb, empty look remained in its hideous features—no hint of sentience let alone any mind at all showed in its skeletal grin. If any consciousness remained it was a rudimentary, instinctual one hardwired into the body, into the spinal chord. It was only that that made the creature turn once again to the window, and drag its body through it toward the ocean and the chilly night air, an empty husk.

—

Izuru did not attend class the next day.

No one made a fuss about it for much of the morning—after all, it was not unusual for students to skip lectures due to illness or studying for exams, or simply for the hell of it. However, for Izuru, who had never missed a day since the start of the term, this was unusual. At least Mitani thought so.

"Where's Okazaki?" he asked the class when he failed to see the boy at the beginning of lecture.

Some of the students in the front row shrugged. "I haven't seen him all day. He never came in."

"Maybe he got sick."

"If he was feeling ill," Mitani said aloud to himself, "he would have gone to the infirmary—"

Fujisawa's snort startled him. "Yeah, right. Okazaki's never sick." Not so hidden behind his careless smile lay his disgust for his classmate, who not only seemed able to get away with anything, but now was actually procuring a professor's sympathy in doing so. Why such a fuss? As always, he thought, it couldn't be anything serious.

But Mitani appeared to think it was. "Fujisawa," he said, "will you come with me, please?"

The other started. "What? Why?"

"Since you know Okazaki so well," Mitani said, much to his chagrin, "I think you should come with me to make sure nothing has happened to him."

"You've got to be kidding me," Fujisawa muttered under his breath, but he could hear the worry held in close check in his professor's voice and knew he was serious. Grudgingly, he rose from his seat, and Mitani told the class, "Continue to read from the book while I'm gone. Tanaka will be in charge until I return." The bespectacled boy sitting next to Fujisawa nodded. To Fujisawa, even he looked annoyed by their professor's preferential treatment.

They checked with the infirmary first, but Izuru was never there, so Fujisawa took Mitani to the dorms. To say that it was awkward bringing his professor this close to his private life, and to his rival's, would be an understatement. That, compounded by his outrage over the special treatment Izuru received, served to only darken his mood. He turned away when his teacher knocked and, getting no answer, opened the door.

Mitani put his hand over his mouth. "Oh God—"

Izuru lay on the floor, curled on his side and unconscious, so that at first glance he seemed as still as a corpse. Mitani was beside him the next, turning him over and feeling for a pulse. As he did so, Izuru groaned in his arms.

"What time is it?" he mumbled. "I'm going to be late for Sensei's class. . . ."

He tried to get up, looking right past Mitani, and Mitani could tell he was still out of it. He shook the boy gently. "It's okay, Okazaki. That doesn't matter right now."

Slowly Izuru's gaze focused on his face. "Sensei?"

"That's right. Are you all right?"

Izuru nodded and sat up.

But no sooner had he done so than he abruptly pushed himself away from Mitani, turned, and vomited. At least, he tried to. The muscles in his stomach spasmed violently under Mitani's hands as he dry heaved, and that was when Mitani noticed the boy was burning up. His skin felt clammy. His trousers was undone and what few buttons on his shirt he had managed were in the wrong holes. He must have collapsed while getting ready to leave for class, Mitani thought. The window was wide open and the curtains billowed in the cold breeze. No wonder Izuru had a fever. It had probably been open all night.

"Fujisawa," Mitani said to the boy in the doorway, "call the nurse."

Fujisawa was livid. Out of all the stunts to pull, making himself ill for attention was by far the lowest. "Come on, you don't believe he's— He's faking it, Sensei!"

To prove him wrong, Izuru doubled over again, this time with a sob of pain. "Just do it!" Mitani said as he held onto him. Glancing up, he saw Fujisawa pale as he stared at Izuru, looking like he was going to be sick himself. "Jesus Christ—" he gasped and hurried from the room.

When Mitani turned back, he saw for himself what had startled Fujisawa. Something like a ragged piece of flesh was lying on the floor where Izuru had spit it out, covered in a thick black bile the consistency of molasses that shone sickly in the light from the window. The way sea cucumbers deflate out of water, that was how it seemed to lie there. In the split second that Mitani was able to study it, he could have sworn it moved by itself, palpitated, like a thing suffering a slow death.

But he had no time to dwell on it as Izuru fainted. In the short time before Mitani glanced back toward the thing, it had disappeared, like water evaporating from a hot stone.

—

While he waited for the school nurse to arrive, Mitani carried Izuru to the bed. He felt terribly light to Mitani, who wasn't sure if it was his illness that made him seem so. But even in his pallor Izuru was beautiful.

Beautiful. That wasn't a word Mitani had ever expected to use to describe one of his students, but it was what came to mind now as he watched Izuru sleep.

Beautiful in the perfect, aesthetic proportions of his face and figure—beautiful in the sense that the Madonna is beautiful. There was something divine, Mitani thought, in the downward curve of Izuru's mouth, or the way his long eyelashes brushed his skin, and the serene line of his eyebrows gave him the expression of a saint giving blessings. The slight sheen of sweat on his brow matched this image, and it was with a tender reverence that Mitani brushed the damp hair out of his eyes. He felt like a worshiper, unworthy of the sacred ground on which he tread and holding his breath in the anticipation that any moment he would be noticed. He let his gaze travel down Izuru's body, admiring the curve of his throat, the softness of his torso glimpsed under the hastily buttoned shirt that lingered despite the athletic, masculine lines that had developed.

Of course, Mitani reminded himself, he's seventeen. Maybe it didn't feel like so long since he had been that age himself, though it was long enough to regret what he had—or hadn't—been then. He felt a pang of jealousy looking at Izuru in this new light, but with it a pang of something else that was at the same time much more pleasant and painful. He denied that it was physical attraction, but he couldn't deny his curiosity, which he passed off as being in a scientific vein. Just as some are drawn to machines for the beautiful symbiosis of their various working parts, so could he appreciate the different features, lovely in their own right, that made up this one perfect body. In his mind, there was a hierarchy of temptation in which some kinds of curiosity were purer than others. And it was, after all, mere curiosity that drew his eyes down to Izuru's navel, which rose with each steady breath between the tails of his shirt, and toward his narrow hips, and the lines that disappeared under the waistband of his slacks. . . .

If it was mere curiosity, then why did he suddenly feel like he had caught Izuru's fever?

"Sensei?"

Mitani started. He looked up to see Izuru watching him with half-open eyes. There was a bold intimacy in them Mitani had never received from the boy before. He had to remind himself it was a rather intimate thing he had witnessed.

But how long had Izuru been watching him? The heat rose to Mitani's cheeks, and he felt like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, averting his eyes as Izuru began to fix his appearance.

"Better. Thank you." Izuru managed a small smile. "I'm sorry you had to see that just now. It must have alarmed you."

"Yes. As a matter of fact it did."

"Well, it's nothing to worry about," Izuru said nonchalantly. "I guess I must have eaten something that disagreed with me."

That did nothing to reassure Mitani. Eaten something. . . . He thought of that black thing Izuru had spit up. Izuru must not have seen it; he acted like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Maybe he had been too out of it to notice.

But though he was careful to give no outward indication, Izuru was concerned, if not so much for his health as for his sanity. He knew there was something wrong when he actually wanted to pass out again. Strange and horrible images flooded his mind even now in the light, with his eyes wide open: images of a winged, serpentine creature with a death's-head, birdcage grin and eyes like mirrors he could see himself reflected in. But along with a trace, incongruous, and somewhat embarrassing memory of physical ecstasy, that was all it was: a trace. An image. Why it bothered him so he could not say. It was obviously only a very strange dream.

However, rather than ease his mind, he suspected that if he confided in Mitani what had happened—what he remembered happening—he would only feel worse. It felt like something had an actual hold on his tongue when he tried. So it was with some effort that he forced a smile for his teacher. Though his whole body was exhausted, he felt at the same time physically stronger than any time he could remember. Mentally, however, he did not feel better at all.

And somehow—though it seemed against his will—even that feeling was passing quickly like his upset stomach.

"I had Fujisawa call the nurse," Mitani said. "He should be here any minute—"

"Fujisawa was here?" Izuru grimaced. If there was one embarrassment he could have done without. . . .

"He told me you never got sick. I was afraid something terrible might have happened to you."

"Sensei. . . ." Touched by his professor's concern and ashamed he could not voice his own, Izuru averted his eyes. "That was kind of you," he said after a moment, "but I'm sorry to cause you so much trouble. I'm . . . I'm sorry I missed class."

"Please, Okazaki, don't apologize for something you couldn't control. Anyway, you have nothing to worry about because I canceled my lecture this morning."

The elation Izuru had felt just hearing his teacher say his name so tenderly suddenly gave way to an irrational fear. His heartbeat quickened. "You canceled because of me? Why?"

The turnaround startled Mitani. Shouldn't Izuru have been relieved?

A knock on the door kept him from having to reply. The school nurse entered with an awkward, disarming smile, and Mitani related to him what happened and how he had found Izuru.

Izuru already had the diagnosis and cure down for him. "It's a stomach flu. I ate something that disagreed with me, is all. I'll sleep it off."

"You're probably right," the nurse said. "Still, I'll have to take a look at you to make sure. Then I can give you something to take for—"

"No!" Izuru interjected. Even he was surprised by the deep-seated anxiety in his voice; he did not know where that came from. Calming himself, he amended: "I don't want any medicine. I've already got it out of my system. I'll just take it easy tonight and it'll go away in a day by itself. It always does."

He looked at Mitani, and Mitani would have been able to say with certainty this time that something had changed in his gaze. Holding it, Izuru said, with a fondness that sent a shiver down his professor's spine, "Anyway, I already feel better now that Sensei is here."

Mitani waited outside in the hall while the nurse conducted his examination. The man was out in a short while, greeting Mitani with a shrug. "Okazaki will be fine," he said. "It doesn't appear to be anything serious. He isn't even running a temperature. It was probably just a mild case of dehydration or food poisoning, like he said."

"Food poisoning." Mitani nodded to himself. His thoughts drifted to the thing Izuru had spit up, which had worried him so much with its macabre appearance, but even his memory of it was growing more and more vague by the minute. If he told the nurse what he had seen, with no hard evidence to prove his story, the man might think he was delusional. "But the window was open all night," he said quietly instead. "He was burning up—"

"The stress it puts on the body often makes it seem like a person is running a fever," said the nurse. "He doesn't have pneumonia, if that's what you're suggesting."

"Thank you," was all Mitani could say. So, he had nothing to worry about, he told himself. But that was easier said than believed.

—

As he had predicted, Izuru was back to normal by dinner that night. If anything, he felt even stronger than before. His cheerful mood bordered on out-of-character, and the unusual bounce in his step did little to assuage the speculation that circulated around his brief and mysterious bout with illness.

"Stay away from me!" Fujisawa jumped to his feet when Izuru approached his table, covering his mouth and nose; and for a moment Izuru thought his classmate was accusing him of committing some grave sin. "You have some nerve to show up here," Fujisawa said, indicating the dining hall with his eyes, "after what happened. But you're not giving me your sickness."

At those words, immediately the first-years who sat around him copied his gesture.

"It isn't contagious," Izuru said. "Anyway, I'm better now."

"After one day—no, not even that—a couple hours?" His classmate's voice was muffled behind his hand. "I don't believe it. You shouldn't even be able to leave your room. Unless, of course, you were faking in all along." A sinister grin appeared in his eyes.

"I wasn't faking. You were there—"

"Yeah," Fujisawa lowered his voice, "I was there. I saw that . . . thing you hacked up. . . ."

"Your sympathy is touching, Fujisawa."

"Why would I sympathize with you, Okazaki? This is self-preservation, plain and simple; you know that. I don't want to catch anything like that from you is all . . . not even if it is for Sensei's attention."

The last words had been spoken low enough for only the two of them to hear, but Izuru felt himself rise to anger nonetheless. He tried not to show it in front of the other students. Even though his assumption was incorrect, still there was no way Fujisawa could have known. . . .

The vice-president snickered behind his makeshift mask. "What, Izuru? Speechless? I must have hit a nerve."

"You don't know anything about it," Izuru said.

"Hm." In his characteristic way, Fujisawa's amusement turned instantly to a frown as he looked down his nose at his classmate. "I said, get away!" he barked, pointing his other hand away from him and the first-year table. It seemed to Izuru like he believed himself to be exorcising a malevolent spirit. For some reason, the thought gave him an inexplicable thrill in the pit of his stomach.

Perhaps it was only a coincidence—for his gaze remained fixed on Izuru—that Fujisawa's finger was pointing directly at Mitani.

The young teacher seemed a bit surprised when Izuru approached him. Or maybe it was just that he would do so in a place so crowded with other students. He said amiably enough, "How are you feeling, Okazaki? Your appetite's returning?"

"Yes, thanks to you," said Izuru. There was a confidence in his smile that had been hiding that day in the square.

Mitani was glad to see it. He took it as a sign of Izuru's returning health, and did not give it a second thought. "I'm glad to hear it. If there's anything else you ever need, you shouldn't hesitate to say so."

So brief was the mischievous flash in Izuru's eyes that the other missed it.

"If that's the case," he said, "maybe I can see you about some advice for preparing for college tomorrow."

"No need," said Mitani. He gestured to his half-eaten dinner, adding, "I'm finished here, so I could see you in my office now, if you've already eaten."

Izuru hadn't, but he found he did not have much of an appetite. At least not for food.

The teachers' room was abandoned at that time of day, so it made for an ideal corner in which the two of them could sit and talk in total privacy. Outside, the dark of a late-autumn afternoon was an impenetrable cold that practically invited the intimacy of this uninhabited room. Mitani pulled some thick books from the shelves that lined the side of the room, and Izuru pulled up a chair. Sitting in such close proximity, hunched over the small pool of lamplight on the desk, he listened to Mitani's suggestions only half-heartedly. He was paying close attention, but not to those.

Instead Izuru watched the shape of Mitani's lips as he spoke, his eyes trained on the book in front of him. Every now and then their knees would touch one another. When Mitani was conscious of it, he would withdraw his leg, until he forgot his vigilance and they touched again. How queer the sensation felt, and heavy with meaning, the touch of that man's warm skin and twitching muscles leaning against Izuru's through a barrier of mere cloth. Like how an invisible stray hair can tickle the follicles of the arm as though it were crawling with phantom spiders. How hard and uncomfortable and real was the cheap metal armrest that dug into his thigh in comparison, and the upholstered seat with too little stuffing. With calculated patience, Izuru soaked these feelings in. He leaned in more, feigning sudden interest in the page Mitani had turned to, and was rewarded with a shy chuckle, a subtle cock of the head in the other direction. Izuru smiled. Only a day ago, he might have balked at this evidence that he made his teacher uncomfortable. But the tension that existed between them there, as though contained by that little pool of light, made Izuru's pulse race, and he knew he was not the only one aware of it.

And for the rest of the week, one might have seen out of the corner of his eye—down on the beach, if he braved the weather—the white carcass of a giant fish undulating against the rocks with the flow of the tide, its body bloated and flesh ragged from deterioration and the scavenging of crabs and flies, its lidless eye bursting from its socket and covered by a thick, white film. If it were anything other than a glimpse, one might have thought it was an impossible fish, something that may have existed once but should not have in this geological era, except perhaps in the darkest depths. One more superstitious, one who believed in an actual Hell, might have even thought it cause for alarm.

No one saw it but for a glimpse, however, but Focalor. And Izuru watched the gulls' strange, disoriented behavior for the second time in such a short period, wondering what had provoked the spike of spiteful satisfaction that arose suddenly within him.

—

It was dark in the small room. Hands caressed his face, hands that reached out of the darkness as though bodiless.

But there was a body pressed against him; slowly he deciphered the warmth of another's naked skin, though the face of the owner remained beyond his field of vision. He tried to find it, but every time he turned to focus on its features, the darkness swallowed it up, like a reflection in warped glass. The other knew his frustration and laughed—a rich laugh that was at once condescending and playful and desirous, and without any doubt the laugh of a young man.

His heart leaped at the revelation. These hands, this body that touched him was a thing forbidden by his upbringing and his higher sensibilities, something worthy of rebuke and disgust; and yet he found his own temperature rising at the simple recognition of the muscles of a leg tensing against his; the fingers that brushed shyly against his lips produced the sensation of butterflies in his stomach, and the unmistakable tension of sexual arousal. It defied what he knew in his heart should be, but the truth remained that this profane experience felt no less sacred than that elation he found in mass. . . .

It was impossible to tell which way was up. He was left powerless by his inability to see his elusive seducer, yet the other could lay kisses on his lips and touch the lower regions of his body unbidden. Something about the stranger's manner was familiar to him. Who are you? he longed to ask, but did not dare speak the words. I know I know you, but why must you keep escaping me? He had the vivid knowledge of touching the soft, hot skin of the inside of a thigh and the mouth covering his broke away in a gasp. "Sensei," the stranger whispered against his lips.

Then he knew. It was Izuru. He had one brief glimpse of Izuru's countenance before him before the abrupt end—his eyes downcast and saintly as they had been that afternoon surrounded by a faint sheen of sweat, the pupils dilated beneath his long eyelashes with lust. . . .

Mitani awoke with those images, those feelings fresh and uncompleted in his mind. The sound of the dream Izuru's breath continued to echo in his head, tormenting him with sinful promises so that he couldn't help but play them over in his imagination as he prepared for the day. He felt unclean, but there was no time to shower, and he knew that if he did his arousal would only return two-fold. Just that knowledge shamed him. It was the thought of seeing Izuru in class, of layering the lies of his dream upon that innocent person, that disgusted him the most. He was determined to rid himself of its memory before the first bell.

It was early in the morning and the sun had not yet risen when Mitani went to the chapel. Father Robert looked up immediately from lighting the candles in the alcove in preparation for that morning's mass. Mitani's footsteps carried in the sparsely-furnished, stone-walled building—betraying his guilty conscience, he feared; but that was, after all, why he had come. "Sorry to bother you like this, Father," he said, "but would you hear my confession? It's been two days since the last one, but I felt I should come right away."

He lowered his voice, afraid it too might echo among the images of the saints, and carry his words to Heaven. He preferred to keep them on Earth a while longer. "I need your guidance, Father."

"I can see that. You don't look well, Professor."

"I don't feel well. I have something I need to get off my chest. It feels like I'm being suffocated by it. You're the only person I can talk to about this."

"That is what I'm here for," the priest said, and gestured for Mitani to take a seat in one of the pews. "What is it that has been bothering you so terribly?"

He felt again like he had as a young boy, being swallowed up by the grandness of the church as he confessed his sins to a face that never varied from its stern, unyielding look. Father Robert's face this morning was no different from that hazy memory of a priest from his childhood, and unconsciously Mitani drew himself closer as he sat beneath it. He willed his heart to slow as he gathered the courage to speak what was in it. His hand was shaking for fear of what Father Robert might say. But he was more afraid, he reminded himself, of the consequences should he let his sin go unconfessed.

He lowered his head and let the words come. "I had . . . sinful thoughts, Father. About a student."

"'Sinful' covers a lot of meanings, Professor. Were they of a violent nature?"

"No." Mitani sighed deeply in something like relief. "No, nothing like that, thank God."

"It's not unusual for a teacher to sometimes harbor some resentment toward a student," Father Robert went on without missing a beat. "Sometimes they unconsciously act out some hard feelings carried over from their own youth that something in this generation brings to the surface. Someone reminds them of a rival from long ago. I'm sure everyone here has confessed something like that to me at least once. It's nothing to get worked up over. Pray to God to help you through these struggles, and surely you will be forgiven."

But Mitani shook his head. The priest's blindness frustrated him. It only made it harder to say what he had to. "It isn't that at all, Father. But I fear in the eyes of the Church it may be just as bad as if I had actually struck that person. My thoughts . . . they were sexual in nature."

The silence that followed was so brutal in its totality, Mitani could not bear it.

"Father?" he ventured.

"You had impure thoughts about one of our boys?"

Startled by the hard edge in the priest's tone of voice, the tenuous restraint, Mitani looked up. "Yes," he admitted.

"For how long?"

"It was just early this morning, in a dream. But it was so vivid it left me thinking, maybe I'd had them longer and just hadn't realized it." There had to be some hope found in honesty, in remorse. Though sitting under that hardened, judgmental gaze, like the gaze of a statue of a saint captured in the warped mirror of a childhood memory, made him want to stop, he pressed on, believing it for the best. "I know it was wrong. I feel . . . I feel like I've betrayed my purpose here, and that person, even though I don't know why I had those thoughts. That's why I came to you with repentance in my heart."

"Wrong," said the priest, "is not the half of it. What you speak of is not natural. It is an abomination, an affront against God and all that He has created. You're right to be ashamed. Have we not been taught that men who commit such acts with other men, they 'received in their own persons the due penalty of their error'?"

"Yes. I know what the Bible says of homosexual behavior. But I didn't do anything, Father." Mitani made a small gesture of futility. "I merely ask forgiveness for my thoughts."

"It makes no difference whether it is the mind or the body that sins." The indignant passion of his homilies had begun to slip into the priest's manner, as though what Mitani told him shook his soul more than any sin committed by the students. As though it were he Mitani had trespassed against personally. "Christ said that if a man merely thinks about committing adultery, it is as if he has committed the act for real in his heart."

"Even if it is only a dream?" Mitani tried. "A dream isn't something a person has control over. Is it? Isn't it just something irrational, some random images put together from the events of that day?"

"Which is even worse. Dreams are things that are formed out of our deepest desires. Out of the things we dwell on in our unconscious thoughts."

"I suppose when the angels appeared to the prophets in their dreams, that was genuine," Mitani corrected himself.

"The same could be said of devils."

Mitani groaned, burying his face in his hands. "Father, what am I supposed to do? Please tell me. I feel so lost. I don't know where to begin to find a solution to this problem."

"This isn't something you can just make disappear with a magic word," said the priest. It seemed nothing Mitani said could diminish his disgust, no matter how sincere the young professor's contrition. "You were invited here to act as a moral guide for your students, among other things. They were put in your care, under a great deal of trust. Are you aware of the stain you have put on this institution and all that someone in your position is supposed to stand for? What a disappointment this is? To me?"

"Of course, I am!" Mitani said in a burst of frustration. "That's the worst part of it. Even if no one else is directly affected, I am still dirtied by it. It's like I have blood caked under my nails, and nothing I can do will wash it away. Don't you think I want with all my soul for that feeling to stop?"

Father Robert just shook his head slowly.

"Please, Father." Mitani bowed his head again, pressing his folded hands to his brow. "Can't you see that I'm penitent? I know my thoughts were misguided, but it isn't as though I've killed or robbed anyone."

"You betrayed that person and this institution, as you said."

Father Robert did not need to say anything more. As they both knew, the coldest, innermost circle of Hell was reserved for traitors.

Slowly, Mitani let his shoulders fall. The revulsion and panic of that morning had largely evaporated, leaving in its place a numbness and disparaging unease even heavier. A revelation that even with the absolution of confession, the sin of his dream could not simply be removed like a stain. I could work hard, he thought, to change my heart. If those feelings are truly unnatural and unnecessary, it is possible they could be simply an illusion of the idle brain. The pleasure they conjured was nothing but a sign of decadence. They could be erased. With the proper discipline, they could be erased. Or at very least, replaced. That was something Mitani could settle for. If he only knew the way.

"Please," he said again, unable to raise his voice above a whisper. "There must be something I can do."

—

But one can't always help the way his thoughts drift. Though in the novel, Berengar flogged himself for his sinful deeds and thoughts, still he could not rid himself of them, for they were a kind of addiction.

Mitani would not go so far as to say he had an addiction himself. However, he might admit that he held inside his self a curiosity about Izuru that would not simply go away with prayer or self-denial, or any naive attempt to consciously steer his mind to another course. It was not a pure curiosity, no matter how earnestly he wished it to be. It was for that reason that he felt himself in the constant torment of guilt, like an affliction. In this world of Saint Michel's in which he had been indoctrinated, like that fictional mountain monastery, it seemed the way of women was something forbidden, their bodies held as instruments of the devil that made young men stray from their entrance exam studies. But if that were so, the way of youth, almost revered for its danger in the times of the shogunate, was infinitely more shameful and unnatural. "Those sins that are against nature," St Augustine had written, "like those of the men of Sodom, are in all times and places to be detested and punished. Even if all nations committed such sins, they should all alike be held guilty by God's law which did not make men that they should use each other thus. The friendship which should be between God and us is violated when that nature—whose author he is—is polluted by so perverted a lust."

And yet Mitani could not help asking, as he steadily grew used to the thoughts that pervaded his mind, why if thoughts like his were against nature, if they came to nothing, why then did people have them? No matter how thoroughly the works of theology he had read strove to answer that question, and no matter how solid their logic, still that one doubt nagged constantly at his heart.

Did it bother Fujisawa as well, or was it the thought of sin that only egged him on, like it does so many of the young and disillusioned? While Mitani was reviling his body for its desires, was Fujisawa not praising it and feeding it? Perhaps it is the invincibility of youth that makes one do reckless things in adolescence—not a thought for consequences of the future entering the mind because it is unable to perceive the very idea of a future.

There was nothing sinful about two people coming together to satisfy their needs. Embracing the assistant librarian in the back room, the musky scent of feminine desire as she moved with him mingling with the musty scent of old binding, her arms and legs wrapped around his back awkwardly in their raw and momentary desperation, their only fear was that they might be caught by the head librarian returning early from his break. The first-year who had seemed in awe of the rumors surrounding the vice-president, who held back his cries at the discomfort of Fujisawa inside his inexperienced body, had nothing innocent in his soul to protect, let alone that he wanted to protect.

If he had any second thoughts about what his curiosity had gotten him into, they were not immediate enough to overcome his almost reverent fear of Fujisawa's office; and the young woman, though more than three years his senior, her dark eyes closed in ecstasy behind her dark-framed glasses, cared much less for his office than for the satisfaction of having been loved by a youth of his looks and charm for just a few minutes.

When all was said and done, and the mind reeled in the afterglow of having reached something close to holy for a few transient seconds, what did it matter to him if he lay spent beside a boy or a girl? Either way, he was convinced, there was no salvation for his generation.