((Greetings, all~! I felt like writing a cute little Shigure/Ayame story, and voila! Here it is. :] Please read and review so I can determine if I should continue or not. Thank you! 3))

Ayame Sohma was beautiful. Handsome as well, but more beautiful than anything else. It was no wonder at all why he was the most popular boy at the all-male high school he attended. Even boys who would have otherwise been straight as rulers stopped in their tracks when they saw the silver-haired snake prance down the hallways with that distinctive spring in his step. He was like a burst of feminine energy in a world filled with nothing but testosterone, and he enjoyed every moment of it: the admiring stares he received, the blushes that he created on others' cheeks, the anonymous love notes he would stumble upon at least once a week when he opened his locker. He felt like a superstar.

Shigure had known this would happen ever since the two were in elementary school. Back then, Ayame had still been popular, but in a different way than he was now. Hormones didn't factor in, so the other boys enjoyed Aya in a purer sense. He was the class clown, the funny one, the daring one. The one who would stand up to teachers when they made unfair decisions; the one who would steal the school's mascot just before an important assembly started. Everyone loved his antics, and they still did, but Shigure had been the first to predict that once everyone grew up a bit, Ayame would be viewed in a different light.

This was because Shigure began viewing Aya in a different light earlier than his peers, at the age of 10. He remembered the day well. The two had been walking home together, like they usually did, when they ran across an elderly couple sitting at the bus stop. Ayame, being the ever-social and friendly boy he was, offered them a bright smile and a wave of his hand as he passed by. This was all it took for the couple to take notice; the man smiled affectionately.

"What a sweet little girl," he remarked to his wife.

"Oh, don't you remember when we were their age? How precious. Maybe they'll stay together as long as we have," the wife replied back. Ayame didn't seem to hear either of these remarks, but Shigure-who was trailing behind him-certainly did.

A sweet little girl? Stay together? The dog couldn't believe what he was hearing. He caught up to Ayame and looked at him with wide eyes.

"Aya, Aya! Did you hear what they said? They thought you were a girl!" he exclaimed, embarrassed for his friend.

Ayame raised an eyebrow at first but then he stopped in his tracks, letting his hands fly up to his cheeks as a sudden revelation hit him. "Oh, no. That's what I forgot to do today! Mother scheduled me for an appointment at the hair salon right after school! She said that my hair is getting much too long, and that people will begin mistaking me for a girl if I didn't get it cut, but I forgot!"

Shigure put a comforting hand on the other's shoulder, trying to bring him out of his panic. Ayame typically didn't get flustered or worried by much, but when it came to his mother, all bets were off. At this point in his life, he still desperately sought her approval and love. "Aya, it's okay. It's no big deal. You can reschedule for tomorrow or some other day this week!"

"Mother will scold me yet again," the snake declared, though Shigure's tactics did seem to work, as at least the former began walking again, no longer frozen in fear. "But the truth is, I don't think I want to get it cut. I like it like this. It's much more unique than all the other boys' hairstyles, don't you agree?"

Shigure did agree. In fact, a thought crossed his mind when Ayame asked him that. A strange thought, and one that he verbalized to the other before he could stop himself. "Yes, I do. I think you look very pretty with your hair long."

"Pretty?" Aya asked, his lime green eyes blinking widely. "Oh, Gure-san, are you truly telling me that even you think I look more like a girl than a boy?"

The dog chuckled and shook his head quickly, not having meant to offend his dear cousin in any way. "No. Not more like a girl. Maybe like...a mix." He didn't yet know the meaning of the word 'androgynous', but he was just then realizing that Ayame had a special look about him.

Ayame, on the other hand, knew the meaning of seemingly every word in the dictionary. He was a precocious child and had a talent for language ever since he first learned to talk. "A mix! Androgyny! Now that is interesting! Femininity and masculinity combined into one flawless human being! Perhaps that should be my mission." He put a thoughtful finger to his lips as he considered it, knowing his mother would disapprove, but enjoying the idea more and more as he thought about it.

"I think you could pull it off," Shigure offered, shrugging casually. "Why not? It sounds interesting at least."

"And interesting is always better than boring," the silver-haired boy agreed firmly. Suddenly, he raised a fist in the air and turned to his friend with determination blazing in his eyes. "Then I shall do it. My mother will have to sneak into my bedroom at night and chop my hair off with her own scissors if she truly wants me to cut it! Otherwise, it's not going anywhere; I swear it!"

Shigure laughed, having heard similar spiels like this from Ayame all his life, and not being surprised in the slightest. But he immediately realized that if Aya kept to this quest and was able to become the poster child for androgyny, he would end up being heartbreakingly beautiful.

The dog pictured his friend in his teen years, with his hair grown out down his back, braided gorgeously, his cheekbones high and his eyes as dazzling as ever. He didn't know why exactly, but this was a sight he wanted to see. Just thinking about it made his palms feel sweaty.

So when their teen years finally did roll around, and Ayame looked just as Shigure had long ago imagined he would, something began to change between the two. By age 16, Shigure found that he couldn't stop thinking about making love to Ayame. At first, he chalked it up to puberty and raging hormones and the fact that Ayame was his best friend, and so naturally he felt close to him.

But Hatori was his other best friend, and Shigure felt nothing for him besides just that: friendship. One time, he even forced himself to fantasize about Hatori, as a test to see whether he was truly in love with Ayame or just a horn dog who desperately needed to get laid. The fantasy felt so disgusting and wrong to him that he almost ended up in tears, and he vowed to never try such a thing again.

So it became official: Shigure had developed romantic and sexual feelings for the beautiful snake, and along with those feelings came a wide range of problems.

Firstly, the fact that Ayame didn't show even a semblance of interest in him. He constantly talked to Shigure about his other love troubles, about whom he had gone out with on Friday night and who confessed their feelings to him most recently, boys and girls alike. There was an all-girls' school across the street from theirs, and while Ayame tried to stay away from those students to avoid risking transformation, he couldn't help but get his fair share of female admirers. Sometimes a girl who asked him out would be so gorgeous that he simply couldn't say "no", even if he knew it couldn't lead much of anywhere.

Which lead to the second problem. It seemed that Ayame could have anyone he wanted, so why would he possibly want Shigure? Of course, Shigure was a handsome young man himself, but he blended into the crowd more than he stood out. Besides that, he was the other's cousin. He assumed that Ayame wouldn't want to commit incest unless he really had no other options, which was obviously not the case.

And finally the third problem: despite all of Aya's playing around with this person and that person, he had confided in Shigure that there was one boy he had actually fallen for in a more serious way. The lad's name was Atsuo Ueda. It was no surprise that the snake wanted him because Atsuo was one of the few boys in school that didn't want the snake. An undeniably masculine football player with a reputation to uphold, Atsuo wouldn't be caught dead even stealing a glance at Ayame.

He acted-and that's what Shigure thought it was, just acting-like Ayame was an annoyance, an embarrassment to the school even. Every time the two crossed paths, Atsuo would call him "fag". Ayame responded with a cheery smile and a correction of "half-fag, actually". Shigure thought this was funny, but of course Atsuo didn't. And yet the latter was the one Ayame was after, wanting to prove that no one in the world could reject him, that he could conquer any challenge he encountered and win any heart he sought, no matter how much hard work he would have to put into it.

Shigure thought this was ridiculously silly. Ayame's arrogance had no bounds. It was one of the things the dog usually found endearing about him, but in this case, he couldn't stand it. Pursuing someone who treated him like he was nothing-instead of someone that treated him like he was everything-just to satisfy his ego...

At least he was comforted by the fact that Aya's feelings for Atsuo were not genuine and not meaningful in any way beyond this. The snake may have claimed to have "fallen" for him, but Shigure knew better. He knew all Aya wanted was the chase. Or at least, that's what he had to believe in order to even get to sleep at night.

But one day, the day before the much-anticipated school trip up to the mountains for winter break, Ayame told Shigure something that took his breath away. Hatori and Shigure had been hanging out in Aya's room while he packed for the trip; Hatori sat at Aya's desk and read, while Shigure laid on the bed, throwing a baseball in the air.

"This one or this one?" Ayame asked, holding up two fur coats, knowing he could not possibly fit both into his suitcase but unable to decide just which was more fabulous. The first was purple with a bold leopard print, and the second was pure white, like the coat of an arctic fox.

Hatori glanced up from the text on the page for only a moment before looking back at it. "The first one. Surrounded by all the snow, you'll get lost in the other."

"Ah, an excellent point! Once again, you have pierced through my dreadful confusion with your effortless clarity in the most effective way possible, Tori-san," Ayame praised, too lavishly as usual when it came to Hatori, as he put the white coat back in his closet and packed the purple.

The dragon didn't bother to respond to these compliments, but as a different thought occurred to him, he closed his book and looked at the other two with the slightest hint of urgency in his face. "You know, we need to decide what our rooming situation is going to be when we arrive at the mountains. We can't all room together. Yamada-sensei said it's going to be two to a room, period. No exceptions."

"Oh, but I will gladly sleep on the floor if it means all three of us getting to stay together," Shigure teased.

Hatori sighed, but before he could protest and reiterate what their teacher had said, Ayame quickly waved a dismissive hand before folding up a few shirts and stuffing them in his suitcase. "No, no. It's perfectly fine, Gure-san. You and Tori can room together. I have made other arrangements anyway."

This piqued the interest of both of Aya's friends, Hatori's purely out of surprise and Shigure's out of immediate jealousy. "Other arrangements?" the two asked in unison.

"Mmhm. I asked Atsuo if I could room with him, and he said yes! As long as I refrained from talking to him too much. But honestly, I doubt that we will be doing much talking at all, ahahaha!"

"What?!" Shigure spit out, dropping the baseball to the ground and sitting upright on the bed. "But Atsuo can't stand you! How on earth did you convince him to say 'yes'?!" Hatori gave Shigure a confused, suspicious look. He rarely ever saw his friend react like this, with such an outburst. No, Shigure was usually the very picture of laid-back. Suspicious it was indeed. Ayame didn't seem to take note of this, however, instead happily replying: "I suppose my charm and powers of persuasion truly have no limit."

Looking away from Shigure and back at Ayame, Hatori offered, "Or Atsuo really does think you're homosexual, and that you'd have no chance or desire of stealing away any of the girls he intends to take back to the room with him at night."

"Ha! If that's what he thinks, he will be wrong on many accounts. I could steal any girl away from him that I would want to, but aside from that, he shall not even want to bring any girls back to the room when he realizes he could have me pleasuring him instead."

Shaking his head lightly, the dragon once again returned to sinking into a fictional world quite different than the one Ayame was dreaming of for himself. Just like Shigure, Hatori was more than used to hearing about Ayame's delusions of grandeur; the problem was, Shigure wasn't sure if he could chalk this one up to a delusion.

Atsuo protested Ayame's advances too strongly and too harshly, and the dog suspected that he was hiding a secret attraction to his admirer deep down, trying to keep it buried beneath a veneer of hatred. So to imagine Ayame succeeding in finally seducing Atsuo wasn't quite as far-fetched as it seemed to the untrained eye.

Shigure remained silent as Aya and Hatori bantered back and forth about the former's latest scheme, but that was before Ayame came out with this: "I even think that he may be...the one."

"The one? Oh, Aya. Thinking of marriage already? You just can't wait to get into a wedding dress?" the dog snickered, though deep down his stomach was churning with heartbreak at the statement.

"Ahahaha, oh, no, no, no! Not the one for marriage, Gure-san. I would never be able to settle down at such a young age!" Ayame quickly assured, zipping up his finally-packed suitcase and jumping up to sit on the bed next to his friend. "I mean the one for...giving my most precious gift to."

Now once again, both Hatori and Shigure turned to Ayame with shock scribbled all over their faces. "You're a virgin?!"

"Why yes, I am." Green eyes blinked back at them innocently. "Is it truly so hard to believe?"

It was. "Aya, you've been out on dates with at least half our class," Shigure reminded him, as if this proved something.

"Yes, yes. Dates. Nothing more," the snake said with a shrug.

Hatori piped in: "Everyone at school says that they can always call you for a 'good time'."

"Of course they can! I never deliver anything less than an absolutely marvelous time on my dates. Yes. In fact, a 'good time' is a bit insulting, an understatement!"

"Hm. Well. I believe you. But it is surprising," the dragon offered.

"Which reminds me! I must pack my condoms!" With that, the eager teen bounced off the bed once again and skipped into his bathroom.

Shigure felt like he was going to faint. Not only was his precious Ayame a virgin, but he was actually thinking of giving his innocence to Atsuo on this trip? No. That was not going to happen. The dog wouldn't let it. Suddenly filled with determination, Shigure decided that if anyone was going to receiving Aya's special gift on this trip, it would be him. He had to find a way to room with Ayame and keep him away from Atsuo no matter what the cost.

"Ha'ri..." Shigure finally was able to utter, making sure Ayame was not in the room as he turned to his other best friend. "We need to talk. And scheme."

Hatori raised an eyebrow, finally shutting his book for good, knowing it was no use to try and bother reading it whenever these two were around. "Scheme? I don't like the sound of this."