Doughnut is from Red V.s Blue, I do not own him

Ginko is from Mushi-Shi, Chacha owns him- Um, I mean I do not own him.

Gangnam Style is PSY's


The titles for the chapters (So far) are from "The World Falls Down" David Bowie's song.

That can't be good, my brain fuzzily told me. I slowly curled my fingers into a fist, still staring at it. The cloud over my eye seemed to pulse and swirl thicker and thicker. "I'm dying." I whispered.

What could it have possibly been, this thing, if not death in the dark? "But Ginko, you can't die!" Chacha exclaimed. I glared at my fist that was get fainter and fainter.

"We've been over this." The words came out harsher then I meant them to.

I looked toward the sound of her breathing, which was thick and ragged by now. I couldn't see her. I couldn't see anything. Engulfed in perfect blackness I told her, "I love you." with my voice breaking and with hot thick tears, like warm ink, rolling down my face. I took a shuttering breath and continued "I'll love you forever.."

"Oh Ginko," She sobbed "I love you too."

"Chachamaru…" I said, half begging her to let me leave and partly so I could say her name.

With a howl like a wounded animal Chacha grabbed my neck in a possessive embrace. "Don't leave me!" She wailed, breaking my heart.

I put my right hand on her shoulder, and my left moved up the other arm to find her face. I tried my best to look her in the eye, and when I was certain that I was at least looking at her face, I said as calmly as I could;

"Chacha, I used to believe the universe hated me but ever since I met you, I was certain. Why else can we come together just as I leave? " I was about to pull her off of me and leave when her hold on me tightened.

"I don't know." She said "I don't want you to go… You HAVE to stay here with me… I long to feel your warmth until the day I die! I want to caress your lips with mine forever. I NEED to be held in your embrace and told that you love me... Without you I'll fade away to nothing…"

With these words I felt her move, closer to me. It seemed to take forever, every beating of my heart lasted an eternity in the blackness, and still closer she came. Then I felt her breath on me.

Was she going to kiss me? My question was soon answered as I felt her lips on mine. Light was pouring through me once again.

I don't want to die. I want to stay here. With Chacha. I'm not going to leave. This beautiful, soft girl, so frail, so strong, I want to be with her forever.

That insufferable voice came to me "Stay then." Gunko said to me. "See if I care."

I blinked, coming back to where Chacha was. I could see her now. "I see you." I whispered softly. "Your eye is back to normal." Chacha whispered back.

I took her hands in mine and gazed at her. "Did you really mean what you said?" She asked. I took a lock of her hair in my hand. "Every word." I said "I'm glad" She said. Of course, like all things, our moment had to end "Ginko-kun, Will you be my boyfriend?"

First off, what does –kun mean? And more importantly "What's a boyfriend?" I said sort of to myself.

"It's like… Well… It's kind of like being married…" She said.

Married? Like, what? Like married in the sense of a family? With kids? What? Part of my mind played out a fantasy, where I came home to Chacha and our child. The rest of my mind was on the fritz.

"NO!" Chacha's voice cut through my panicking mind "Not like that!... If a possibility were together for a long time, but not when started first!"

I sighed, at least I wasn't the only one who didn't make much sense when freaking out. "That sounds even worse." I said, blushing bright red.

"I don't know how to explain…" Chacha said ashamed.

Somebody sniggered.

I quickly changed the subject to some random thing. I was ashamed I didn't understand this place at all. It's one thing when the people around you agree something's weird, but when they see things that you- No, I mean, things that I'M afraid of, like the 'microwave' and the 'computer' and they know what they are and know how to use them, it makes me feel stupid.

And now, it seems there are other things, other than shiny new cook wear and tiny libraries, which I didn't know about.

They, meaning Doughnut and every one else in the Limbo, who were watching Chacha and I, where now singing a song.

"Op- Op- Op- Opum Gangnam Style" Doughnut said, his visor tinted black and had a suit over his pink armor. "Hey~ Sexy lady!" Leatha sang. "Op- Op- Op- Opum Gangnam Style!" Chino and Pup-chan sang.

As Chacha started to dance, Chino grabbed my shirt and started to haul me away. "Come with me." He said gruffly. "O… K?" I said dubiously. "Where are we going?" I asked. "We, are going to date bootcamp." Chino said as he led me outside the Limbo to a very, very sandy place

"This is the Sahara Desert." Chinomin said with some satisfaction as he closed the Limbo's door.

"Is that in the U.S.A?" I asked "No." Chinomin said "The U.S.A is on a completely different continent. But, you are not here to learn that." "What am I here to do then?" I muttered sarcastically.

Chino had me pinned too the wall in two seconds flat, his arm against my throat.

"I'm the one who is going to ask questions, and I'm the one to give the answers to those questions. Understood? Good. You are going to learn about dating, what it is, how to date, and what dating entails. You will have to do everything I say, or so help me; I will leave you stranded out here and tell Chacha you ran off with a taller woman. Am I understood?"

I nodded, thinking as how it could be possible that Gunko had learned from an angry Chino as well.

That would explain a lot.

Chino released me and I rubbed my neck as he pulled open the door from the other side.

Inside was a small cool room with a measly cot. "We're going to be living here for about a week." Chino informed me "At the end of this time, if you obey me, I'll get you tickets to a movie you and Chacha can go see. Now drop and give me fifty push ups."

I slowly lowered myself to the floor. "Too slow!" Chinomin snapped "You'll do push ups until I say stop!" "Merph smerdka kapalfa…" I choked through my teeth. Chinomin sat on my back as I lifted myself on the first pushup.

"Ophff!" I grunted as his weight drove me to the ground. He shoved his muzzle in my face. "No backtalk ether!" He growled.

Sprong! Went something in my mind. This wolf was absolutely nuts. More to the point, he was making me nuts.

As I did push ups, Chinomin lectured me on modern dating, what was usually done, what BF and GF stood for, and most importantly, what a boyfriend was expected to do.

"She might have described it like 'being married' but its not." Chinomin said "It's more like being engaged. You are trying NOT to screw it up. If you don't give her something daily, she'll start to think you don't love her. When you say 'I love you' with 'love you' she'll interpret it like you don't care. If you DARE try to kiss her with out her leading into it, by her stepping closer, that moony eyed look, biting her lips as she looks in your direction, fiddling with something, staring at you longingly, she'll think your after more than a kiss." "M-ha-o-r-e?" I wheezed.

His weight shifted as I assumed he nodded. "Yes. More like, intamaneanaiaphaslp- Ah screw it, sex." I collapsed, hitting my forehead quite hard on the floor. "You may stop doing pushups." Chino said as he jumped off my back.

I sat up, rubbing my forehead and my red face. "Let me guess Ginko, you're a virgin aren't you?" I glared at him "Am I supposed to answer that?" I snarked at him.

"Yes." Chinomin said with dignity.

I rolled my eyes "Yeah I am." I said "It's not exactly like girls where throwing them- oh my gosh."

"What?" Chinomin asked alert.

"Girls were totally trying to throw themselves at me." I said "But most of them were in some way affected by mushi. I was so involved with the mushi; I bet they thought I was gay by the time I left."

Chinomin sniggered at me and spread his left wing across his eye. "Hello," He said matching my tone exactly "I'm Ginko, do you have a mushi problem, hot girl? I'd so rather pay attention to that then you!"

"Oh shut up." I said "And any way, back when I was… Um… My age the first time, so about nineteen or twenty or so, depending how old I was when I lost my memory, when I started thinking about perhaps starting a family, I had to remember that I attracted mushi like crazy, so I would have ether leave my family, or drag them all across the country, with no certain place to stay for even one night! I- I- That is to say…"

I took a deep breath. "I would see these families, husbands and wives, children, people with some one to call 'Mother' 'Father' and even 'My child' 'Aunt' 'Uncle' and my favorite, 'Grandpa' and 'Grandma'. I never had that. I want… I want… I wanted that. I also saw families like the one I would HAVE to have. I saw the pain that an absent father caused. I saw the strain put on those who had to travel. I knew I could never ever inflict that on my loved ones. When I got older, more skilled to talking to people instead of mushi masters, there was a chance I could..." I turned bright red and coughed "Um woo someone…"

"Sure 'woo'…" Chinomin said.

"I WAS YOUNG." I defended myself "I realized I couldn't do anything that would make it so… I would be responsible for… I wouldn't have a… I mean, I wouldn't be able to protect my family like a man should. I had no right to act in a way that would make a woman think I wanted…"

I shook my head. "I was about twenty one or twenty two when I decided I can't even give some one a kiss. Not that my kisses where in high demand back then…"

I rested my hands on the back of my neck, staring down at my knees. "It got better as I grew older. I learned to ignore people, it helped that they saw me as something less then a person, and that I'd already made the choice to keep my heart dead. Then I arrive here, one week to live unless a girl kills my clone, I really couldn't care as I'd never had a life anyway, I meet Chacha and… Despite everything I've done, I fall in love. And what's up with this obsession with the week? I mean you're going too keep me here for a week! Anyway, that week is up, I go blind, I'm sure I'm going to die, I confess my undying love, we kiss, and I'm alive."

"What was that about your clone?" Chinomin asked.

"He had to be killed by a girl." I explained shortly, bitterly almost.

"Well, he was."

"Oh." I said, not really listening. "That's nice."

We sat in silence for a bit.

"SAY WHAT?!" I shouted.

"Wow, slow. Chacha killed him." Chinomin said "He had a bazooka and she shot it at him. Then you showed up. Come on, they told you this."

"My gosh. I'm going to marry that girl." I said, awe and love pouring through me.

"So she kills some one, and instead of fear, you want to marry her?"

I nodded, grinning at him. "Did you even talk to my clone?" I asked, he shook his head, and I had to laugh. "Well lets say I would have gone gay for him, but I'd also would have liked to chop his head off."

"That was sort of Chacha's reaction to. She gave him a hug and then shot him."

"I love her." I said dreamily "And to think before she kissed me, I was going to find some way to die before I became darkness."

"You were going to commit suicide?" Chinomin asked in a husky voice.

"Yeah, I guess that is what it would be." I was examining my hands, watching the water collecting on my eye distort my vision. "I guess I… Can't take being happy. I mean by age twenty nine or thirty; I was done feeling like I needed to be around people. I was done living. I had spent all of my life traveling, making people's lives better. Then I had to leave. I got to see them again, some times. See them grow up, get married, have children. Twenty years of traveling… All I had to show for it was a backpack full of memorabilia, and calluses on my feet. I wanted out…"

"Twenty years hauling around a backpack?" Chino interrupted, looking at me with interest,his green eyes glittering with a plan.

"Um, well when I came here, my body got ten years knocked off of it, so more like ten." I corrected quickly, not wanting to spread falsity.

"Take off your shirt." Chino said. "Now!"

"Ok ok!" I said and started to pull off my shirt.

"So I take it you don't talk a lot." Chino asked me, a really strange question to ask.

I got my elbow stuck in the shirt, so it got stuck over my head. "Are you being sarcastic?" I asked as I worked on getting the shirt off.

"Not really, I just mean, you told me your life's story and I'm not exactly trying to be nice."

"AH HA!" I had gotten the shirt off.

"BY KLARIC! Look at that body!" Chinomin exclaimed "You should really think about walking around without a shirt."

"Are you gay by any chance?" I asked, slightly embarrassed.

"No." He said. "I know chino means gay in spanish, but my name is not pronounced 'chino' it's chin-o like… Your chin... Oh… But dude, you've got a body."

"Um, duh?" I was very confused.

"What I mean is hot body equal more kisses."

I looked away. "I don't want that." I said "If she wants me to kiss her I will. But I don't want to force her. I don't want to take advantage of her."

"Ah shoot." Chinomin seemed upset. "You're practically a Gary Stu aren't you?"

"A what now?" I asked pulling my shirt back on.

"It doesn't matter." Chinomin said "It's just any other guy confronted with a hot girl would be itching to get her to kiss them as much as they could."

"Other guys haven't been thrown into the far future, from a place where they've had to suppress their biological urges for over eighteen years, in a place where they only let me sleep indoors if I'd prove myself useful in some way. I'm pretty sure I'm not exactly what you would call, 'any other guy'." I said.

"Your right. You're just like any other manic depressive person. You've got issues." Chino said. "Go outside." I pulled myself up. "Get going." I sighed and opened the door.

It was night outside and starry. The moon was dark, and the stars blazed with a brilliance that I rarely had seen before in Japan.

"See the stars, Ginko?" Chinomin asked me.

"Yes?" I said.

"There are billions and billions of them. Each one you see only is one point of light in the sky. No one would notice if one of them where to go out, right? Let's say, if one of those went out, another one went out, because it couldn't stand being just another point of light without that one blazing beside it. No one would miss two, now would they? Now, because those two went out, there was a star that didn't even get to shine, and because that star never shone, more stars died. After awhile what do you get?"

"An empty sky." I said "A black cold empty sky."

"Exactly." Chinomin said. "Now make a pile of sand, and get some sleep."

Must. Not. Argue. I laid down on the sandy ground, shocked how cold it was. I stared up at the sky, thinking of the story Chinomin told.

Did he mean me? Was I the star that he said would go out and cause the empty sky? I didn't want to go out... I didn't want to leave Chacha. I wanted to make her happy… I fell asleep.