Author's Notes: Since this site strips the 'at' symbol from documents, I've had to refer to guild houses as at-homes, rather than...well, you know how it's supposed to be written in the games.

Two

Standing in Demon Palace was a bittersweet experience, tainted by memories of cruelty, the flawed beginnings of something brilliant and warm. Standing in Holy Palace was more positive, the place he'd first proved his new-blossomed devotion. Sage Palace was different again; Endrance recalled the twist of hurt in Haseo's voice when he thought he'd been betrayed, but also the look on his face when he realised the truth…

His musings were interrupted by the call of a high, familiar voice.

"Master En!"

"…Saku?" He didn't know what to expect from her; the last time they'd met was before his wedding. But if she felt slighted or angry then it wasn't Endrance's fault. She was a child, and he'd never encouraged her infatuation.

Surprisingly, she beamed up at him as if nothing had changed. In denial? "It's great to see you here! You're hardly ever in the arena anymore."

"Being Emperor doesn't interest me anymore." Which was true, though he'd come to watch a team heading for the next Sage Palace title match. He only cared because Haseo cared (and Haseo didn't care about the Emperor title itself; he just enjoyed a challenge now and then). Even the most pointless things gained meaning if he could relate them back to Haseo somehow.

"That's too bad, you know. Nobody else is half as cool as you," she declared. Then after glancing around, she asked, "So, um. You're here alone?"

"Haseo is with Shino today…" he said, responding to the question she'd really been asking. He wasn't jealous. Actually, he rather liked Shino. She was less intimidating than most women, and he knew she approved of him. It was important that Endrance and Shino be on good terms, even if they never got to know each other very well, just like it would have been important that Haseo be on good terms with Mia, if she were still around. Endrance understood that perfectly.

"Oh, I know her!" Saku grumbled, apparently not grateful to Shino for getting Haseo 'out of the way' for a day. "She owes me a whole bunch of items! Well, she owes Bo. He kept giving her stuff last time they partied, but those things don't grow on trees."

"What sort of items?"

"Wizard Tomes, Elven Drops, spellcaster stuff."

"…I've probably got some, if you need them soon?"

"Really? You're so generous, Master En – but it's not fair if you have to make up for someone else's mistake!"

"I don't often use them myself-" and Haseo had some rare accessory that automatically restored SP "-so it doesn't matter." Endrance turned to exit the stadium; the battle hadn't been interesting anyway. Haseo would easily defeat that team.

He wasn't sure why he was going out of his way to be kind to Saku, except…he'd been bracing himself for a tirade of hate against Haseo, and it hadn't come.

"Where are we going?" Saku asked, trailing after him.

"Tartarga. I have a guild key to Canard now, though I'm not an actual member… So the items are in storage."

Without saying anything more, he progressed through the Chaos Gate and then the Netslum's decaying architecture, to the at-home entrance.

The only other at-homes Endrance had seen were Raven's plain, functional base and Icolo's custom halls. Canard's was much grander than the former, and more to Endrance's tastes than the latter, with its pools of clear water and quaint little garden area. The only flaw was the guild mascot.

"Hey there, Romeo! Oink! Your boyfriend's not here, so don't bother hanging around!" announced Death Grunty (and although that was a typically obnoxious greeting, Endrance couldn't help enjoy hearing Haseo called his boyfriend). "And what about you, kid? What d'you want? Oink!"

Endrance blinked, and turned just in time to see Saku exiting the at-home. He hadn't known she possessed a key to Canard too; he'd assumed she'd wait for him outside.

Well, never mind. He didn't respond to the NPC, simply collecting the items and leaving. Saku wasn't far away, leaning against a wall and scuffing the toe of her shoe over the dull concrete ground. She didn't look up as Endrance approached, and didn't accept the trade he tried to make.

"Saku…?"

"It's so stupid," she mumbled. Endrance was silent, wary, wondering if he ought to reply or not. Saku looked up at him, her expression strained by something painful. "That's right, isn't it, Master En? I'm stupid for still being here, right?"

"Ah…"

"Just – keep the items, okay? I don't care!" she cried, and fled.

Endrance stared after her, baffled by that sudden turn of mood, and disconcerted. He didn't like the way she usually fawned over him, or the way she pretended he was some poor innocent trapped under Haseo's spell – for the most part, he tuned it out – but he didn't like what had just happened, either. He didn't understand at all.


"So it's doing okay?" Ryou asked, looking at the potted cactus perched beneath a window, basking in pale sunlight. Shino tilted her head, smiling.

"Did you think I'd let it die?"

"Well, no. I guess it'd survive longer than this even if you ignored it." He rubbed the back of his neck, vaguely embarrassed. Quiet reigned for a while, only broken by the distant engine-rumble of a car driving past the house, the precise clink of china as Shino set her teacup down.

"Hey, Shino… When we first met offline, was I different than you thought I'd be?"

"No," she replied, with more certainty than he'd expected. "The World can be a mask that's easy to hide behind, but you're honest about the person you are. With me, anyway." A warmer smile, and Ryou glanced down, feeling like that had been a compliment. "Sometimes more than you mean to be, really. Haha…"

"Did you ever meet anyone besides me and Ovan?"

"I have. You know, even Gord's player doesn't behave too differently from her character. We've gotten back in touch after she started playing The World again."

"Her? You mean he's really a girl?" Ryou gave a surprised laugh; Shino nodded. "I wouldn't have known."

"Is there someone else you'd like to meet?" she asked, and when he hesitated too long, added, "Endrance?" Not slyly suggestive or over-enthusiastic, and of course not disapproving either, not Shino. Just calm and genuinely interested.

No point denying it, then. "He's in Kanagawa Prefecture, so it's not too bad a journey."

"Meeting somebody like that isn't the same as meeting someone who's just a friend though, is it? In a way, there's more pressure to get along well."

"That's why I want to do it now."

"That, and you'd simply like to see him, right? Do you already know what he looks like?"

"Yeah, we traded pictures a while back."

"Would you mind if I saw?"

Ryou sighed in exaggerated impatience and took out his phone, bringing up a photo before handing it over. It did feel strange discussing Kaoru like this, but in a way it was nice, too. He couldn't mention this topic to anyone else without lying somehow, and even if he didn't need advice or want to give out many details, he liked sharing the simple fact of 'this person makes me happy right now'.

"Oh, that was the delete key-?" Shino's hand flew to her mouth in alarm.

Ryou froze, then scowled, seeing through the act. "You didn't really."

"I couldn't resist that worried look on your face." She handed the phone back with a soft, mischievous laugh; the picture was still intact. "You're lucky, though. You two make a handsome couple."

Coming from a woman he'd had a major crush on, once upon a time, that was kind of a weird statement to hear. "What am I meant to say to that?"

"Sorry, am I teasing too much? But it's nice to have someone in real life you can talk to, isn't it?"

"I've dated girls before. I never talked about them much to anyone, either." He paused. "I guess it's not the same, though."

"So Endrance is a first? I see…"

"See what?" Ryou asked crossly.

Most of the time, he didn't want to think of that as too big a deal. He'd always sort of noticed some guys, as well as girls, and wondered if it would really be so bad to… Anyway, he'd decided it was fine to think stuff like that (even if it was less fine to admit it). He hadn't really considered dating another guy, though. Not until Kaoru came along, so insistent that his feelings weren't plain platonic affection, and made Ryou consider it.

Being in The World made it easier. A lot of people felt more secure, more able to be themselves there – the ones who weren't 'hiding behind masks', anyway – and it was detached from 'real' consequences, up to a point. Nothing could get out of control.

"It was sweet, watching your wedding. You both took it all so seriously."

"Seriously? You mean you didn't think the bride thing was a joke?"

"Neither of you are the type to make jokes like that, are you?"

"Glad someone figured it out," Ryou said, and Shino looked pleased.

He headed home a while later, but a heap of everyday duties took priority over logging into The World. He did check his inbox quickly, and was greeted with a trio of new emails. The first was from Endrance.

I've been trying to text you, but my phone was acting oddly… It's not that I had anything important to say really, but if you've tried to contact me and it hasn't been getting through, I'm sorry…

Well, even if Ryou had been trying, it wasn't as if he sat around biting his nails in between messages. Still, it was nice to be informed, he supposed. He typed up a reply.

Don't worry about it. I'll be online by nine. We can do something together then, if you want.

The second email was from Silabus, just chatting about a quest they'd been on recently. As for the last one…it wasn't from anyone he knew, but he recognised the sender. Wasn't that the name of a big gaming website? He'd been there, but didn't have any type of membership or subscription, so why would they contact him?

Ryou skimmed the message, and gave an incredulous laugh. Was this thing actually for real? A while back he would have dismissed it instantly, but now…he'd have to think before giving a reply.


Kaoru was out walking again, restless. He had a lot on his mind.

Ryou cared for him, he didn't doubt that in the slightest - but now these plans to meet up were taking shape, he wasn't sure if he ought to embrace them or pause to catch his breath.

In the time he'd known Mia, they never spoke of meeting offline (even before he found out why that was impossible). He'd imagined what the player behind her PC ought to look like, but that was all. His shyness prevented anything more.

But Ryou was perfectly at ease in the real world, so of course he'd think nothing of wanting to meet. He'd be just as confident, just as charismatic, he wouldn't falter over anything. And Kaoru couldn't banish the fear of disappointing him. Of getting something terribly wrong, being tripped up by atrophied social skills, making Ryou regret his choice to look Kaoru's way.

He'd never had friends in real life, not the sort he'd invite home and do…whatever friends did together after school. Not since he was a small child, and friendship was a loose concept based around sharing toys without squabbling. After that he'd just drifted, not ostracised but seldom invited past the periphery of things. And that was the closest to normal it had ever been. He'd certainly never dated anyone.

When they first started exchanging emails, Endrance hadn't hesitated to say how he'd love to meet Haseo outside of The World. He'd had nothing to lose anyway. Now he had so much…but still, there was no choice but to step forward, was there? No choice but to be brave, to hope that if he faltered, Ryou would forgive and let him make amends. To trust in the strength of what they'd built between them…

If he could just hold Ryou in his arms, wouldn't everything be okay? He didn't recall how it felt, to be that near to somebody; people had always made him too uncomfortable. But that wouldn't matter, would it? Even if there were things he didn't know firsthand, he could learn. He'd do whatever was asked of him, so long as it made Ryou happy. Anything.

Kaoru felt foolish, that all this wasn't happening exactly as he'd dreamed (he'd dreamed enough that he ought to be more accurate). He'd thought that if only Ryou cared for him, nothing would ever be unclear again. As if the world would stand still around them. But…

But it was no good thinking this way, sabotaging himself with all these doubts. He took a deep breath, and turned to look at the ocean.

It was colder today – colder than it ought to be at this time of year, supposedly. And raining, but he didn't mind that; rain really did mean that other people stayed indoors. He hoped it would clear up by the weekend, though. He didn't want it to cause Ryou any bother.

On the downside, it was probably too gloomy to take pictures. He wished Ryou would send more of those. Not just of the things he'd already shown – himself, his school, the nice little apartment block where he lived – but all kinds of things. Anything that caught his eye while he was out, anywhere he'd like to go with Kaoru someday, so that for a moment it might seem like they were already in the same place, looking in the same direction. But that was silly, so Kaoru wouldn't ask. He was already being treated so generously.

Besides, maybe he wanted to stay curious about some things, until he really was there in person. Though he could venture a short distance outside without being devoured by panic now, travelling all the way to Tokyo seemed so far-fetched…but he wanted it badly enough, so one day he'd be able to. Then they could take pictures side by side.


"It's me," Ryou called, stepping into the hallway with its polished pine floorboards. No reply, no sounds of life. He went to the foot of the stairs, where a tall vase of opaque, smoky black glass stood; there used to be a different type of ornament here, when he was a kid, but he'd knocked it over accidentally. One memory that hadn't blurred into nothing. "Mom? Anyone home?" he called up, but there was only silence. He must be early.

He went into the living room, switched on the television and dumped his school bag on the sofa (some ultra-modern design that was more fashionable than comfortable). Flicked idly between channels before settling on something semi-interesting – a show on Doll Syndrome. You saw less and less about it these days; people had short attention spans, were already moving on and filling their heads with all kinds of other crap, no matter how serious the threat had been. In a way it was good, not stressing too much, but in another it was annoyingly careless. Dismissive.

The woman being interviewed on this show, though, she explained how she'd banned her kids from computers altogether. All three had been affected with Doll Syndrome, in various states of severity, and now she wanted to take them to a technology-free life out in the countryside. A debate went back and forth about whether she was overreacting; Ryou's interest waned.

After his own childhood illness, his parents had driven him crazy. The doctors never figured out the coma's cause, so for a long time there'd been fear he might relapse. Collapse and not be lucky enough to wake again, or become a total amnesiac. He hadn't been so young and dense that he couldn't sense that fear in people, catching flickers of it whenever he was over-tired, whenever he had headaches, whenever something slipped his mind in the way that happens to everyone. And he'd hated it, that sense of helplessness, the idea of living on borrowed time. Hated being treated as something delicate, began acting up just to prove that he was fine, he was capable. He was a fighter, didn't they get it?

Eventually they got it. That was a rare time he'd appreciated his father; he overheard his parents rowing once, his father insisting that he couldn't be wrapped in cotton wool for the rest of his life. He had to be normal again. And now he was, for whatever it was worth. Sometimes being tough on somebody was the kindest thing to do.

He heard the front door opening, and after a pause, his mother's voice. "Ryou?"

"In here," he called, and the thin figure of Mrs Misaki appeared in the doorway.

She glanced to the television, where the Doll Syndrome mother was saying how she'd sold her family's computers to help fund their lifestyle change. She didn't comment aloud on it, but the look on her face clearly said What's that rubbish? "Give me two minutes and then we'll start. I need help moving some things around."

"Whatever you want," he replied, with a bored shrug. His relationship with his parents wasn't perfect, but he could show up if they asked, most of the time. His mother had been running around for weeks, helping to prepare for a niece's wedding in ways Ryou didn't really know or care about. He'd considered himself lucky to be left out of it until now (he had a wedding of his own to focus on, after all).

"There's more to do than I realised," she said. "Are you busy this weekend?"

"Yeah, actually."

"Very busy?"

"I've got homework, I've got housework, I've got my job." And most importantly, he had half-organised plans with Kaoru, but he doubted that would carry the same weight of persuasion.

His mother made a dubious, displeased humming sound, turning away. "At least you were early today. Turn that off and come on, then."