Written for Jougetsu as part of the Yuletide 2012 fanfiction exchange. My thanks to yasuhei and shati, my betas.

'Oh, I didn't finish High School.' Nanami shrugged and took a sip of her drink. She was used to it, at twenty-three. Happened every time she went out for drinks with new people, because it was unusual in her generation.

'Was it a rough school?' the boy beside her sounded shocked at the thought of it. Refined, classy Nanami Kiryuu, in some low-income area with a bunch of thugs? Why did people come up with this kind of thing, anyway? All kinds of reasons could exist to prevent a person from attending a graduation ceremony. It wasn't always some big theatrical drama.

'Not really,' she said, like always. 'Although, I suppose for some people it was. It was a nice, expensive school. I think it was rough for some of the kids who were on scholarships.'

'Huh, I see.' The guy was a little less interested. 'My school, you could probably call it normal.'

Nanami smiled and drank some more. Around them, the laughter of their acquaintances and friends rose and fell. It was time to take the conversation in a different direction. She uncrossed and re-crossed her legs.

'So, what do you do for a living?' This was a sensitive question, sometimes, if the person didn't have a job. It was getting more common actually, but that was a new conversation all by itself. Someone who was unemployed usually had about as many awkward conversations about being a social failure as she did, which made for a comforting feeling.

'Oh, not much. I'm what you'd call a basic public servant. It pays the bills, though.'

Ugh, boring. She hoped he didn't want to tell her about it.

'What do you do?'

'Well, this and that. To be honest, it sounds pretty petty. I'm an advice columnist. The kind that answers letters written by stressed and depressed people.'

'Whoa, sounds rough.'

They laughed. This was better. This was the kind of conversation that they both knew the rules to.

'Not so much. Generally, people just want to be told cruel things that their friends won't tell them. You might say, yes, your boyfriend probably is cheating on you. Or, no, you are not going to be hired and it's time to move on.'

'So, basically just confirming their bad news?' He smiled.

'Yeah. To put it simply, I tell people to get over themselves and see the obvious truths in front of their own faces.'

'Huh, okay. So. What about me? I'm at this hookup party, I got roped into it to make up extra numbers, and I don't know how to read the signs.' He was smiling a genuine smile, teasing her a little. Not being insecure or flirty.

Nanami laughed. 'You should really get over yourself and see the truth in front of your face,' she said. But then, more sincerely, 'I've decided. Just now. You're not too bad. You're doing okay. I bet you already figured that out, though.'

He smiled shyly. He was kind of cute. Generic and cute. His hair was a dark brown, his eyes were hard to tell in the dim light of the restaurant. No symbols, no costumes, only nice and everyday kinds of vanity and neuroses. She sighed happily. Strange things did not generally happen, these days. She couldn't hold off that fear, though, that every new person was connected to those creepy screw-ups she'd grown up with.

Two drinks later, like always, she was sharing her feelings on high school with everyone else. Not in a way others would have recognised, but still, she shared them.

'The problem with revolutions, is they, well, they come right back around!' She slammed her hand down on the table, attracting a bit of attention. Nodded with finality.

The guy, whose name she still did not know, nodded emphatically along with her. 'Yes! Yes, it's all in circles!'

'More like a spiral. Circling the drain. That kind of thinking, I can't stand it. If things suck, there's nothing keeping you there. Just walk away. Don't buy into that kind of crap!'

'Hear, hear!' He tapped his glass against hers, though there wasn't anything left in any of their cups.

'Cheers, friend!' Nanami raised an eyebrow. 'If you're buying.'

'On my salary? Surely you have mountains of gold. You're wise enough.'

'Ahah, you see? There we go. I'm wise because I have fallen from riches and grace. My brother,' she lowered her voice to a bit of a whisper. 'He believed in the power of twirling, twirling around the bottom of the sink. I got sick of watching him. I climbed out. I don't think our parents ever forgave us. I left these footprints all the way across the carpet, right up to the front door.'

'Heh. Hang on, the Milky Way spins, rotates!' He waved a finger in the air. 'Round and round. We're all spinning. There's this dense centre, probably a black hole... drain hole.'

Her stomach turned. 'Don't,' she snapped, 'bring up astronomy. Or astrology. Anything to do with stars. I hate them.'

He blinked, confused. Surprised. Crap. She had to learn to stop doing that. Years behind her now, you'd think she'd be over it.

'Uh, sure, okay.' The guy laughed nervously. 'Not like we can see them in this city. Who needs em?'

Nanami patted him on the shoulder. 'That's the spirit!'

He belched. Had drunk a little too much. He looked shocked, then guilty. They both giggled until everyone at the table insisted that they share the joke.

'No, I swear, that was it! Back me up here, Nanami!'

Nanami raised her hands helplessly. 'What can I say,' she said, 'you wouldn't believe me if I did tell you!'

She winked at them. People giggled and gave them knowing looks. The guy looked mortified, and pleased. Like he couldn't believe his luck.

She stood up tall, rising above everyone else's heads, and clapped her hands together. 'All right, then. Let's have it out here. What do you think of roses?'

The entire table fell silent. Most of them knew her, or had heard the rumours. The guy laughed, nervous. 'Uh...'

'Don't beat around the bush. Tell me, honestly. As a flower, or as a gift. What do you think of them? Answer properly, this is a test. If you lie, you fail, no second chances.'

'Well...' he frowned. 'If I'm being honest, I don't get it. Sure they're pretty, but for the same price, you can get other flowers that smell better, a piece of jewellery, or a whole dinner out, depending. When I have to buy them, I always feel a bit cheated.'

'Ooooooh!' Natsumi, a girl a little younger than Nanami, with short bleached blonde hair, stood up and applauded. 'Princess, you've found the the only guy in the world who'll be able to satisfy you!'

Nanami clenched a fist. 'Call me that again, you summery twit, I dare you! I'll sic my new bodyguard on you!'

'Who?' The guy craned his neck to look up at her. 'Who's this guy who's supposed to be bullying on your behalf?'

Nanami smiled sweetly. 'Who knows? If you're not up to it...'

'Oh, I can do that, sure. That's cheaper than buying you a drink!'

'Well,' Nanami was charmed. She hooked an arm around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. 'I think I'll keep you, after all.'

Sometimes, she thought, you go out looking to buy a pet, with a list of everything you want. Other times, you end up just picking them up because they seem so pitiful and lost in the great, wide world. Nanami worried that she was like that, that there was something vulnerable inside her that made her look lost no matter how happy in life she was. Then she applied her own advice liberally, and got over herself.

She did not ask him for his name that night, but she did take him home.

'Tell me a secret,' he said, one day when they were catching the train home late at night. 'Anything. Good or bad. Something you don't usually tell other people.'

She shrugged. 'This one time, I spiked someone's curry.'

'Huh? With drugs?'

'As if! Do you really think I'm that low? That a girl like me would have known where to find them? I was a kid back then. I spiked it with spice.'

'You mean, to make it taste bad?'

'Er,' she was sure it had been scandalous at the time. 'No, not really. It was curry spice.'

'So... it was just really hot, compared to what they were expecting?'

Nanami frowned. It had been such a big thing at the time. 'Well, no. Maybe I thought so at the time? But the person I did this with, she was Indian. By that standard, she'd be more used to it, right?'

He sniggered. 'So, your big secret is that when you were a kid, you sabotaged someone's food to make it better for them?'

'Ahah, yeah. Kind of.' There were all kinds of secrets about it that she didn't want to share with him. Did not want any of that stuff contaminating her life. Sometimes during conversations like this, though, she wondered if she hadn't imagined it all. If you looked back on her life through the right kind of filters, it was depressingly mundane.

'The look on your face, I thought you'd done something awful.'

She couldn't shake the feeling of being chased home by shadows. As soon as they shut her apartment door, she turned to him.

'I killed a kitten, once.'

He raised his hands, like he didn't know what to say. 'Uh, um.'

'They always say that about serial killers. That when they were younger, they tortured animals or joined image boards online. They say, you can always tell.'

He really didn't know what to say. He stood there quietly. 'You tortured a cat?'

She wrinkled her nose. 'What? No! Who do you take me for? I just put a kitten into a box and threw it into a storm-water drain.'

He bit his lip. His lips twisted and his chin crinkled. He was trying not to smile.

'What, what's your problem? I'm an awful person, I'm pure evil!'

'Oh, I believe you.'

'I killed a defenceless kitten, out of bitter cruel jealousy!'

'Sure,' he said. 'and I've technically caused the death of a few hundred cows, just by eating steaks.'

Was he being deliberately stupid? She grabbed a cushion from the bed and threw it at him.

'No, really. It's okay. Think about it. Most religions say somewhere, that thinking about a thing is equivalent to doing it. So you've got two kinds of evil here, being able to think of killing a kitten for vengeance, to seriously want to do it, and actually doing it. Or, putting it another way, evil intent exists in everyone.'

'Yeah,' Nanami said, 'but not everyone acts on it.'

'Are you going to act on it right now? Do you eye the neighbourhood kittens on your way to work?'

'What is wrong with you?!' She gave him the finger and went to wash her make-up off.

'He didn't make me kill it, my brother. He just...'

He lay down in bed, and waited for her to join him. 'You've never talked about your family, not really. Do they suck?'

She shrugged. 'More or less. I think it's taking longer than I expected, to see things as they really happened rather than as I saw them, then. On the other hand, there's a point in life where you have to accept the choices you've made as your own, and live with them. Ugh, I'm getting a headache.'

'Would you like a glass of water?'

She kicked the side of the bed as she walked past it. 'You're not getting up, don't pretend you would. Jeez. I like you best, because you're just like me.'

'Evil and corrupt and heartless,' he asked with a grin.

'Selfish to a point, but not beyond it,' she said.

'Happy staying-at-home-day!' He sang out. He had brought her dinner from the station, two boxed meals, one for each of them. A sweet western desert wine in a small bottle. It was their little ritual, was becoming one, because she avoided all of the real rituals out there. She didn't go to temples or funerals, and she never looked up at the stars.

'If you make this into a ceremony,' she said, grabbing the things out of his hands, 'I'll have to burn you out of my address book. The smoke will get into the furniture, you'll ruin my whole week. Don't do it again.'

'So, as long as I'm unpredictable, it's all right?'

'Sure, why not?' She grabbed some plates out of the cupboard

'All right, pizza!' He snapped his fingers in the air. 'Cool news!'

'You're skirting a-round the issue here, my dear,' she said.

'Ah, whoops. Circling the drain again.'

She flicked him in between the eyes and got some stylish small crystal glasses out for the wine.

Once, she received a very strange letter. She furrowed her brow, turned her head this way and that. Her editor had selected this batch, she had no choice but to answer it, somehow.

Dear Little Sis– that was just her pen name, no alarm bells rang from that alone. It was the letter that set her off, and not in a good way.

Dear Little Sis,

I need your help. What do I do? My mother remarried, and my stepfather did strange things to me. All these years, I've loved and hated my half-sister. I've wanted to protect her, but I also want to destroy her. It's my own fault, I can't help it. What do I do? Do I tell her, and apologise?

'Dear Douchebag, no. Your issues aren't her issues, and to me it sounds like you want her to fawn over you and love you more than you want to set things right properly. Get over yourself. Not everyone has to like you, and not everyone's family is perfect. If you contact her you'll be ruining her day. Chalk it up as a loss, and move on with your life. Go be nice and decent to someone else, there's a good boy.

'Love from, someone who is glad she's not your Little Sis.'

'So, sometimes you let your own feelings bleed over into work?'

Nanami had to look up from the glass display cabinet to answer him. 'Well of course I do. Who doesn't? My bad days are just immortalised in print.'

'Newspapers don't last forever,' he consoled her. 'The paper degrades and the ink fades.'

She pinched him on the shoulder. 'Hey, mine is an online column too, you freak. Google never forgets. It's like you're trying to spoil the mood here.'

He was going to say something, but a sales clerk beat him to it.

'Are you two shopping together? If you'd like, we have a selection of engagement rings over here.'

'Oh, hell no!' they both exclaimed at the same time. Then, they turned to stare at each other. She grabbed his left hand, with her right hand.

'You never said what school you attended,' she said, the clerk entirely forgotten.

'Neither did you,' he retorted.

'What year? You weren't around when I was. You're only what, four years ahead of me? I should know you.'

He sucked on his teeth, nodded. 'Well, after I lost, I transferred. I realised when that happened, that I had to get out before it ate me alive.'

'Yeah. Same story for me, really.' Nanami thought about dropping him, running for the hills and for safety. But on the other hand, there was no rule against finding someone to run beside you. You could call it, almost, a relay race for your dignity and self-respect.

'Hey, actually,' she said to the sales clerk, 'we were really looking for something classy but ambiguous. Maybe a necklace, or a bracelet, or a watch?'

'Oh, come on. I'm on a salary, here!'

Nanami kissed him on the cheek. 'So you are, sweetie. But that's okay, they allow for regular repayments that will suit your pay schedule. There's nothing to worry about.'

He brushed his brown hair out of his eyes. 'Fine. But I'm not paying for anything that means anything.'

'Oh, it won't have any significance at all. I can promise you, I have an eye for superficial and flashy trash!'

He looked down at his shirt, his trousers. 'Hang on, does that mean I'm to your taste, or not?'

'Do you want to talk about it?' She had her knees pulled up to her chest, on the lounge, and she was fiddling with her new golden locket. Flashy and tasteless, it was shaped like a flip-phone with sparkling tiny jewels for buttons.

'About what?' he asked, putting the kettle on in the kitchenette.

'I don't know. Something eternal. What was yours?'

He shrugged. 'Nothing worth talking about. What is it ever? Trying to get that feeling of control or love back? Thinking about it too much will just eat you up inside. I never won any duels. I felt so anxious that year, I would grind my teeth in my sleep. That's why I have that chipped incisor.'

'Mine,' she said, 'was strange. I wanted something I never really had. I got over it. At least, I think I did. Sometimes I'm not too sure.'

'Omelette?'

'Huh?' She stared at him, shocked.

'For dinner. Er, that is, we should use up those eggs.'

'Sure, sure,' she covered. She hoped he wasn't looking in her direction, she had probably gone pale at the very mention of it. 'Actually, no. Re-heat that soup.'

He frowned, but put the eggs back in the fridge, and pulled the soup out.

'He~e~y,' she said, 'I never want to marry you. Ever.'

'Aw, sweetie. I never want to marry you, too. Never, ever.'