Hey people :D

Yeah, I've decided to rewrite my story. It needed an overhaul – personal experiences and fine-tuning my skills has made that pretty obvious.

The story has taken an unexpected turn in the past year I've been working on it – the beginning stays the same, but it has become much more complicated than I first intended. It's now going to be up to 30 chapters, instead of 14. And I'm keeping the characters Kaoru and Soujirou, but their backgrounds are different, and – I hope – more suiting for the obstacles that will ruin them.

For the past two n a half years I've been living in Egypt, I've seen and heard things that I never will anywhere else, and I've met local women with stories to tell of their lives which are, in most cases, impossible to believe and utterly repulsive to try to imagine. It goes way past the history of the Middle East and it gets down to the people and the culture and the way they're raised as children. Because Kaoru is already a character who, by both gender and origin, has no control over her life and no affection in her family, I've changed her role into an adopted child (still Japanese/Caucasian) of a wealthy and infertile Egyptian-Saudi family. The adoption will play a suitably significant part in her life. Soujirou will have a Japanese mother and an influential Saudi Arabian/Japanesee father, both much more modern and easy going, and both are raised mostly in London. It sounds kind of random, I know. The rest of the gang will stay Asian, including Misao, Sano, Chou, Kenshin and Shougo.

I hope the change isn't too randomly confusing. I promise I will keep the whole thing making sense, though. :)

Prologue

September 2014, Cairo

Mr. Seta;

This is Amjad Mounir, writing to you from Cairo. I'm sorry to tell you that my wife Kaoru, your one-time best friend, has died from heart and kidney failure. She told me to write to you, and give you her final goodbye.

She died on the 30th of August, because she was too frail for transplants. I'm sure you know as well as I do that it's only because of her drug addictions from the past. I'm also aware that around the time she knew you, you were almost as addicted as she was. She's insisted that I tell you to quit everything you may or may not be on today – whether it's heroin, cocaine, weed, even cigarettes. Live long, and live well, because when it's your turn to follow your parents, you will have the power to change the world. That is all she wanted you to know – and you know the meaning behind it much better than I do.

I'll have you know that I'm not writing this letter because I want to, or because I agree with whatever bond you'd illegitimately shared with my wife, but because I'm aware that she felt, until her last hour, that I've given her very little in our marriage, and taken a lot from her in the process. I never had the chance to ease her suffering while she lived, so my only atonement is to give her the listening ear that I hadn't before. This small request to write a letter to you is the very least I could do, despite the fact that she'll never get to see you read it.

Whatever happened between you and Kaoru, you probably know is in the past. I'm just writing to you because she couldn't, to tell you that whatever past that was, it was her entire life. She lived for you, and me, and everyone she touched – she was the only one who gained nothing from her birth. That being said, all you need is to remember her.

If you ever want to say goodbye, you'll find her grave in the garden behind Cairo's oldest and unknown cemetery, down in the Sakkara Nile Valley. Her family asked for it to be placed there, in her mother land. She used to pass the quiet place every day during her family visits before she died – apparently you were with her the first time she saw it.

Amjad.

How long was Seven years? He asked himself.

The paper was numb in his hands, not because of the cold, but because he was so deeply disengaged from the rest of the world and from himself. Empty and spiritless could not explain what he felt as he stood before the newly laid stone, and the freshly dug grave, and surveyed the mounds of roses and sakura blossoms and carnations and orchids, all withering from the autumn's lack of sun, all there to cover up the gruesomeness and reality of what lay beneath, and what it meant. Even in death beauty had flocked towards her. It was what she was made of.

But her beauty was the last thing he needed to remember - because the contours of her face had been burned into his mind and heart since the first day they met, seven years ago. And he almost staggered with surprise, at the notion of how long ago it was when they'd first started this winding and complicated path. The entirety of seven years was buzzing through his mind, blocking out every rational thought he had a hold on. The entirety of seven years lay before him, under such horrible circumstances, and for a moment he almost lost his breath.

He had read every line of her husband's letter to him, over and over, and still the second sentence could not sink in to his mind. Even as he stood right over her body, his denial was too powerful. He hated this man with every fiber of his being, and tried desperately to convince himself that this was merely a trick.

"Kaoru," he whispered, and he swallowed hard, as if the imprint of her name on his tongue would somehow hold a material sign, reading the bond that was beyond earthly, to tell him if it still existed. But underlying the false, exhausting, futile hope that he needed just to continue breathing, he knew that the answer already lay before him, and it killed him to the point were his knees were on the grass and his hand was clenching his chest, to harness the stabbing pain that lay there. He had spent the longest hour of his life, reading over and over again the lines on her tomb, and he leaned in to read it just one more time.

Kaoru Mounir, beloved daughter, sister, wife, and mother. Sunrise: June 2nd, 1991. Sunset: August 30th, 2014. Aged 24.

She slipped away long before she'd wither, age, and begin to rot. The flowers in her hair were still fresh from birth, given no chance to brown and shrivel and fall out of place before she'd join the earth once more. Rest in peace.

"She slipped away… before she'd wither, age, and rot," he whispered absently, eyes wide, lips parted a little. The drizzle went unnoticed when it came. His undivided attention was on the tombstone, on the soil, on the flowers. There was nothing, absolutely nothing in this world, that could justify burying such a beautiful, such a fleeting and resilient creature in the ground to rot for all eternity, and covering the whole damn thing in flowers just to make it seem like the right thing to do. Fucking flowers, fucking consolation prize, fucking bullshit...

"Kaoru…" he said pointedly, "How long 'til sunrise?"

She grinned and gently searched for Misao's right wrist under the covers. And when she finally found it, the silver rolex gave her a time to read out. "About six hours."

He took Misao's floppy hand from her. "12:45 AM. Not bad." He grinned. "You ready to stay up till the sun comes up all grouchy in the morning and tells us to get into bed?"

"Hell yeah," she said, her eyes glinting with curiousity and delight, "I will, without a doubt, chug massive amounts of beer to that."

That was seven years. The space between that moment and this one was so far apart that the intensity of its length almost burned him. It was short to say… and it was long to live.

"Seven years…" he said, just to hear it out loud. He stared blankly at the flowers, so swept up with emotion that he could have been blind and he would have seen more with his eyes than he did now. Those seven years were his entire life – nothing before that moment in her bedroom, when he confessed everything to himself and ruined everything between them, even existed in his mind. Nobody else could have hijacked his life so completely – but he had long before decided she was more than human. The thought of it seemed so ridiculous now, as he remembered them both, a little younger, a little less responsible and a little more pure, because there was nothing inhuman about her. She was young. She was pretty. She was lively and she laughed and she played, she got wasted like any other teenager, she fooled around like any other kid. It was the only time she'd ever truly been 'normal' and it was as normal as she, or he, would ever be again.

Soujirou swiped his wrist over his face, only to find that it was soaked with tears. The moments flashed through his mind, of arguing with her in Misao's apartment, and enjoying the exasperation he caused, to seducing her one drunken night when she didn't know any better, and discarding her all the same. It was his fault, and he knew it as he crumpled to the floor at her grave, thinking of all the things he'd done, and all the things he hadn't, to lead her to this place. He was aware that he'd lead her to the man who destroyed her, and the drugs she needed to feel alive, and the overdoses she took from her desire to die, and the marriage that ultimately killed her.

In that moment, soaked in rain, up to his knees in mud, and barely able to see through the river in his eyes, he wished and wanted more passionately than he ever had before - he wished he could go back in time, to the very beginning, and undo what he'd done because… in his childlike stupidity, he'd wished to be alone and unbound. And now that he was, he hated it.

March 2007, London

"Okay," he said, back pressed flat against the open window as he identified some sturdy and arm-level objects possible to grab for balance. They would need such things to make their way across the room to the door, "She's gone now. Let's get away from the damned cold."

"Yeah, I don't mind the idea," Kaoru said, slurring her words as she reached out to grasp his arm and steady herself. The one touch was unusual enough for close friends like Soujirou and Kaoru, considering the awkward and childlike and often comedic relationship they shared. They regarded each other, when sober, almost as if they were covered in thorns. It could be said that the unease of physical touch was only due to teenage hormones. But beneath the shivers that crept down their spines, there was an electric and daunting and illegal sexuality, forcefully implied and forcefully resisted, at the simple, accidental brush of fingertips, or the casual, playful embrace, shared at greetings and goodbyes.

"I think I drank too much," Soujirou said, laughing at his own stupidity when his legs began shivering at the task of carrying his weight.

"No duh," Kaoru replied, her eyelids lazily closing over her azure eyes. "I told you not to take that last shot."

"Oh please, woman, you always want to be right."

Kaoru let out a stubborn 'hmph!' at his obnoxious comment. Both knew that it was an almost routine reaction, and she didn't bother to reply. Their conversations, drunken or not, were never all that courteous in the first place. "I don't care how drunk you are, just get me off of this friggin window, and stop pressing me into the wall, dumbass."

"Fine, fine, because you're the lady here, I'll take your damned orders," he said, curling his fingers beneath the belt of her jeans as he stepped behind her. "You lead, I'll follow."

"Why do I have to lead?" She whined without sincerity.

"Because I'm too drunk to lead," he said with a stubborn, sloppy smile, giving her a small boost ahead. He wasn't too surprised that she landed on her hands and knees on the floor.

"You little ass!" she said playfully, her speech peppered with uncontrollable giggles. Soujirou broke into laughter.

"I have never seen such terrible balance! So much for your friggin dancing skills," he chortled spitefully.

"Ugh, be a man and help me up," she demanded, because trying to stand was ridiculously hard on her own.

He groaned as though she'd asked him to write a full term paper and hoisted her up, though she landed pretty hard on his chest. "I've got you," he said, and then they both looked across the floorboards to the door.

"Let's do this," she said, her jaw hardened with determination at a task that would normally be effortless.

It would have been easier if they weren't laughing so hard at themselves, stumbling around the particularly large room, wanting somehow to communicate that this moment without Misao was one to nurture and exploit to its very limit. As she grasped the edge of her dresser, doubled over, and reached to the cabinet for support, he trailed along behind her, having to grasp the belt of her jeans to keep his own balance.

"Here," she said, placing her hands flat against the wall and using her abnormally heavy legs to move towards the door. "We can use the door, because I don' t know how much longer I can take this." She turned and rested her back against it, and, his finger caught beneath the belt of her jeans, it was impossible to dislodge his palm from its place, flat against her rounded hip. Not that he minded. He would rather hold her and pretend he didn't have a choice than free himself and move away from her warmth, and it was enough to throw him into a tumult of confusion.

'It's Kaoru… isn't it? She's just a friend… just some chick… the one I always tease about not being… attractive enough, or being too fat or something… or out of tune when she sings… or stupid or something,' he thought with a frown that his nerves, dulled by the numbing essence of Vodka, could not transfer fully to his brow. Lacking all the world's balance, he stumbled to the point that the only way to stay on his feet was to press his face firmly into her chest. "Great… that's just fucking great," he grumbled to himself, when he felt soft cleavage against his forehead. Even in his state, he realized the fire as it trailed over his bones to his chest, directly to his throbbing heart. "Oh god," he mumbled against her idle ribs.

After fully assessing the situation, Kaoru couldn't help herself. She burst into laughter, and the fluttering movements of her chest only emphasized the softness that he'd rather not have to feel against his forehead. She slipped her hand beneath his arm to help him stand straight. "Work with me," she said, and she hauled him up with all the muscle in her slender arms, until his cheek was pressed into hers. He slipped and the flat hold he had on her hip turned into a strong grasp, while his only free hand wrapped around her waist, and he laughed with her, feeling her stomach muscles convulse against his shoulder. They thrust themselves together, and while it was for the sake of balance, they couldn't deny that it was as if their bodies had been fueled by their own, carnal desires.

He was breathing heavily by then. "Thanks," he mumbled sulkily, annoyed that he had to sacrifice his manly pride and let her do everything for him, and he used the rest of his remaining strength to slap a hand against the painted wood of the door, his muscles clenching down on his bones to gain steady ground, eyes squeezed shut at the challenge of the usually simple movement.

Blindly discovering leverage for his weight in his other leg, he settled himself into a better position and the words "Too much Vodka," slipped from his mouth. Their mouths were mere inches apart, and he knew it when she laughed softly and he unintentionally tasted the warmth and mint of her breath. He tried to straighten up, but it became impossible as his legs cooled and tingled and moulded, oozing, into the shape of the floor.

"Souji!" Kaoru gasped, trying to hold him up, but he stumbled backwards onto the carpet, and she followed close behind him.

She landed on his chest, faintly pressing the air from his lungs, but his reaction stated a far bigger crime. "Lose some weight, woman," he said overdramatically as he coughed.

"Get some muscle, dickwad," she said, voice customarily absent of anger. She was unable to stand without support and had to roll off of him, but as she propped herself up by her elbows to straighten, his arm came around her waist and held her down. With a small gasp, her muscles gave in to the force of his arms and she flopped against him.

"Don't move," he said, voice slurred.

She rested her head into the crook of his neck, engulfed in his body heat and fresh sweat and energy, and breathed in the scent of his lacoste cologne. "I could become addicted to your smell," she said dreamily.

"That's fine womenz, you can smell me whenever you want," he said.

So she pressed her face into his shirt, the cotten comforting her skin with the dry heat from his flesh, and she could barely conceal the delighted smile that he could feel against his collarbome.

"Listen," he whispered, placing a hand on the low-cut top's display of naked skin above her left breast, oblivious to the effort it took her to ignore the bombardment of unfamiliar emotion.

"Listen to what?" she asked, letting out a shuddering sigh at the feeling of his palms on such delicate skin.

"Even dudes like shepherds or guys who work in shops would be able to tell if they fucking listened," he said, beginning a drunken session of senseless droning. "Even desert men could tell… even a stupid doctor who knows, like, nothing or nothing about Womenz, would be able to tell."

"Soujirou," she said, one hand sliding up his ribs in a caress.

"OR, the schoolmasters. Fuckin CHRIST knows they all work and nothing else. That's why everybody's like… 'what the hell' when you see one of them in a store at the mall or something, buying underwear. I swear its like seeing monkeys use tools for the first time."

"Souji," she said, grabbing his shirt, the cotton warmer than she expected because it had been on his flesh.

"Or… I dunno… even anybody would know if they just listened…"

"Know what if they listened to what?" she whispered into his ear, almost teasingly, because she knew the sensation would discard any memory of the long and boring speech he wanted to make.

And it worked. Her hot breath tingled in his ear, and like a breath of fresh air, the heat travelled down his neck and shoulders… right to the place he really didn't want to go. His breathing slowed again, and self-amusement from his own words died away.

"It's broken," he murmured.

"What?" she asked slowly, so lethargic that even her voice struggled from her alcohol-thickened throat.

"This," he said. "I can feel it," he squeezed her flesh, devoid of the usual lust. "It's broken."

"No, silly," she said, smiling against his heartbeat. "It's fine."

"Damnit, womanz, it's broken, okay?"

She giggled. "It's not, my dear."

"Dear… DEAR? Who the hell am I, the grandma?" He lifted his head to look her in the eye, but only saw a mass of black hair bundled over her neck and her back.

She looked at him. "No…"

"Anywayz, shut up, womenz, and stop lying. I am not a wise old lady who sits in her rocking chair spitting out words of wisdom, and I am not an idiot. It's broken!"

"Why would it be broken?" She asked lazily, struggling to sit up, but he clamped his arms around her waist to trap her where she was. He was driven by his lack of clear thinking when he admitted to himself that he enjoyed the feeling of her body on his, and didn't want her to move away. This time their foreheads met, and she didn't bother considering the struggle it would take to move away.

She was painfully aware that something new was there now. His lips were full, and supple, and close by. Closer than in reach. Just a single movement and her tongue would be slick over his parted mouth, taste buds caressing every crease in his skin before finally dipping inside and thieving a taste of the warmth beneath.

He egged her on in his own mind, every body hair crying for her touch-the touch of some random friend of his (and why?)- while every nerve rippled with electricity and passion. His hands found their way down her back, over the sleek fabric of her tight-fitted top, until his fingertips first curled over the hem and brushed over her back. Soon, they were easing it up, his palms calling for more, demanding more. He felt the bumps of her spine and the muscles and the leanness and the beauty then, and all of it was within his reach, or more than that. She was in his embrace, his hands touching the very surface of what should have always been his. Their bodies fit together like puzzle pieces on a board of lovers or a board of life, and all of a sudden the mist that rose from his mind revealed something that… terrified him. He felt it as his thumb brushed over a mole on her left shoulder blade, a feeling of intense need and care, and deep, deep intimacy.

Every nerve he possessed had snapped into realization and covered it with the mist of stupidity, fighting against it like a stain on his father's best Turkish carpet that he wanted to cover with an armchair. It was something that existed, and always would, but out of sight would mean out of mind, and those who were ignorant to it would all remain in bliss.

She breathed her beautiful breath out onto his lips as he caressed her, both pairs of eyes closed, and he discovered every part of her that he had ever watched with admiration, and he discovered the flesh that was usually clothed and hidden from him with the pads of his fingers. It was more than he could have ever imagined, being this close to her-something that, due to her relationship with Amar, could never have been more than an afterthought- and while he didn't understand it, he could follow it so naturally it was as if destiny itself had laid the path before him.

She sighed then, body sinking into him, arms limp as they lazily clutched his ribs. Every muscle relaxed, and he could feel the tightened knots giving up the resistance, and somehow he knew that it was the first time the muscles beneath his palms had relaxed in, possibly, years.

He opened his eyes. They were looking straight at her closed lids, and her long, thick lashes. For a moment he did nothing but stare, a cold cut and dry observance of the glistening, fragile lids and the dense forest of thick, jet lashes, but the moment passed. The emotions came flooding back – he felt his desires become his needs, and he choked back on the rising and increasingly painful deprivation.

"Kaoru," he said, breath rebounding as it touched her lips.

Her lids lifted lazily, as if they'd just woken from slumber and returned to their only duty, and the blue irises that ringed black pupils emerged. "Yes?"

His fingers ran through her jet-black strands of hair and released them from their binding tie, letting the waterfall cascade freely down her back. His neck strained to lift his heavy head from the much smaller mass of dark brown, wavy, messy hair, and his lips lingered, only slightly touching hers, devoid of action. Eyes closed. Breath stopped. And she turned.

"Amar," she whispered, looking into his now open eyes.

He paused, finding his thoughts scrambled. "Amar…" he frowned. Who's this Amar, he asked himself. What does he have that forbids her? What does he mean? Realization dawned after the split second of discovery and he nodded. "Yeah… that's exactly why it's broken."

She rose slightly, frowning with confusion even though she knew exactly what he meant. For a while she just stared down at him, and he stared sincerely up at her. She took in his soft, delicate face, the pointed chin and defined jaw line, and his more than attractive eyes, often hidden by a curtain of ragged, rich, dark brown hair.

'How do you know that?' She seemed to ask with her eyes. 'How can a person like you… understand so well? And how can a person like you see and know this truth better than I ever could?'

She pushed off of him. This time, he didn't stop her. Whatever had just happened, it was clearly over.

"I don't understand how a bottle of stupid stuff can make me so stupid," Kaoru slurred in an attempt to bring the subject back to more brainless and wasted topic. When she stumbled to her feet and reached blindly for her bed, she realized that all the alcohol in her stomach was now in her blood. The room was much more rounded than she remembered, and her vision was much more blurred. Soujirou followed suit and grabbed her by the waist to help her clamber onto the huge bed.

She let out a long sigh of relief when she'd flopped onto the feather-soft bed and sank into the duvet. "One day," she began, between heavy breaths, "I have to get a ladder so I can climb onto this bed in peace."

He laughed. "I totally agree, woman, who told your damn parents to make the top of this bed four feet off the ground?"

"I'm an untouched virgin princess so I have to sleep like one," she announced in an unnaturally high, mocking, bitter tone.

"Hahahaha! Princess my ass!" he teased as he flopped down next to her.

They had returned fully to the position they were in when Misao stormed irritably from the room. He opened his arms and she cuddled into him, even though they knew how wrong it was. They barely had a choice, because the air conditioner had no mercy on their dampened clothes. She was just about to comment on how stupid it was of Misao to throw cold water on her bed, and on them, for the sake of sobriety and righteousness and physical distance, when the door opened, and in came Misao. Their eyes were closed and they were as close as they could get, and both looked annoyingly like newlyweds about to really tie the knot. She acknowledged it out loud and only then did Kaoru open her eyes, look over Soujirou's shoulder, and saw her best friend, hands on her hips, glaring bloody murder at her.

"That's it," she said as she walked towards them. "Soujirou, we're going now, kay? Get your stuff."

For the fun of annoying Misao, they released any efforts to stay normal and serious and receded into the blubbering idiots they were supposed to be. "Nooooo! He can't survive in a taxi," Kaoru moaned, wrapping her arms more securely around him.

"Yeah well that'll have to do," Misao said. "And let go of him, Kaoru. You have a boyfriend already."

"No…" Soujirou said. "She doesn't… she has nothing like it."

"Yeah," she said, "and besides, he'll never know."

Misao's anger enflamed them when they pulled closer together, into each other's warmth.

"Whatever happened to your car, woman?" He asked, resisting her efforts.

"It's in service, you idiot," Misao growled, and she forced him from the bed while the two drunkards grasped blindly for each other.

"Where's my teddy bear?" Kaoru whined, letting her arms flop onto the mattress.

"Where's my bottle of perfume?" He asked, reaching out for her.

"Sou, stand up," Misao demanded.

"I don't wanna stand," he declared like a two year old as he leaned over the bed to grasp his friend by the hand.

"Well tough!" she said. "You have to!"

Kaoru pouted stubbornly at the green-eyed girl. "Why do you wanna leave so fast? You don't love me anymore?" She folded her arms and glared at her.

"Oh, shut up. We're leaving because I'm not spending the rest of the night pulling you two apart!"

They fell quiet for a moment, remembering the state they were in just ten minutes ago, when Kaoru and Soujirou had lost all self control and either slipped off the bed, landing hard on their backsides and whining for help, or pulled together and snuggled like Po and Lala on the TellieTubbies. Misao had gone around and around the bed, from one side to the other, to keep one from falling and straighten out the other's legs, or sit on the bed with them and prevent them from doing things they shouldn't.

"What are you, a NURSE?" Soujirou had asked obnoxiously, his teeth bared like a disgusted five year old, as Kaoru curled up in stupefied laughter beside him.

"Yes," she said flatly, "So do what i fucking tell you to."

Then, of course, after throwing up the pink liquor all over the floor, Misao had had to deal with Soujirou's sudden obsession with breasts.

"Can I poke yours?" he would ask Kaoru, turning onto his side on the bed, arching his neck, and looking innocently up at her.

"Yes, please," she'd said, and she giggled as he prodded them, chanting 'poke, poke, poke.'

And when Misao had decided to intervene, he'd begun a whining fit that ended in a simple question.

"Can I poke yours instead?"

"Yes," she had absently permitted, as she straightened Kaoru's arms and pulled one of her legs back onto the bed when it began to slip over the edge.

"Great!" He had smiled, and as he jabbed at her chest with both hands, he'd chanted: "poke, poke, pokepoke, poke, pokepokepoke!"

Misao stood, one hand on her hip, as she watched the two blush slightly at the memory of what they'd done when the intoxication was at its peak. "Remember?" she pushed self-righteously.

"Well, yeah, but, uh, no, that doesn't count, woman, I have the right to be an idiot because I took that extra shot and threw it up again, okay?" Soujirou attempted to justify, but it was obvious that he failed when Misao's face turned red with impatience and anger.

After much prodding, pulling, and arguing (not to ignore the drunken remarks in the midst of the chaos), Kaoru was lying on her large bed in her teal and coral colored room, propped up on the pillows, still in her tight fitted clothes as she watched them walk through the double doors to the hallway and begin a route through the maze that was the expanse of her multi-storey apartment. She lay still, staring at the carvings of old Cairo on the ceiling as she heard their footsteps disappear into the midst of the house, and waited the forty or so seconds it took for her to hear their voices from the open window as they walked from the open foyer to the front gate.

"Sou, shut up and come on."

"I don't trust you," he said in his artificial jokers voice. "Shoulda trust yuh? You gonna take me in a taxi an leave meh in a dump somewhere, ain't ya, woman?"

"No, I'm not!"

"I wanna stay here," he said, "tha bed is all comfy and it was warm."

"It was warm because you were holding another person, you idiot."

"Yeah but… oh, so if I do this I'll get warm too! See, this house got everything to keep peopulz warm."

"Sou, stop hugging the pillar and let's GO!"

He whined more, and Kaoru heard the gate click open and heard them pull it shut.

She listened further, and became irresistibly curious to the reaction Soujirou would have to the rumbling engines of a lorry coming from somewhere outside. The sound became constant as the vehicle lingered in its place, and she waited, smile locked in place, for him to start again.

"Misao, look… oh my god LOOK! There's a lorry with a pictah of a MILK bottle on it!" He said in a hushed tone. "I bet there's cows in there!"

Kaoru trembled with self-indulgent laughter as she enjoyed the sound bytes coming from outside.

"HEY! Dude who's getting out of the Cow-Truck! I need some milk over here! Get me a bucket and I'll milk a cow for free! Hey! HEYY! Don't run off! Come baaaack!"

Kaoru shoved her face into a pillow and laughed insanely as she listened to Misao's furious scolding.

"If you yell at the fucking milkman ONE more time, Sou, I'm gonna take my heels off and poke your eyes out with them!"

"Fuck you, you COW! You're just jealous as fuck cause you don't have four tits that spray milk!"

"You're a little dick, mother fucker!"

"Why yes, I did fuck your mother, and I liked it too!"

Their voices disappeared as they proceeded down the road, and when they were gone, Kaoru hauled herself up, blinked several times to look past the drunk-glasses and see clearly. She looked about herself, from the darkened patches on the duvet where water had been thrown, to the curtains that had been hauled open and twirled up and tied into bows, to the items of clothing thrown all over the floor, and something caught the light on the floor beside her bed. She had to lean right over to reach it because the mattress was so high, and she held the cool metal plates in her palm.

It was Soujirou's Rolex watch, silver and sleek with a dark face and gold watch hands and cubic zirconium studding every number for every hour. She observed the scratches on the surface and the fingerprints on the inside for a long time, and eventually closed her fingers over it, holding it to her heart as if his hand was there again, telling her 'It's broken.'