A/N: Well, I never expected to write something like this about my fetish when it comes to to DouWata, as in the more modern-based setting and all, but it kinda flowed naturally. Actually, it was either write or lose my mind, so that may have been a greater motivation. In any case, I hope any potential readers enjoy this. I've raised the rating to reflect language use and probable mature themes.

Jelly.

Or rather, agar agar jelly.

The columns of brightly coloured neon lights drowned out the shadows that lurked between them in the rows of curtained window panels and the dank alleyways. Watanuki fought to focus on his wobbling vision of the carnival hues through a fog of consciousness tinted with crimson pain. When was the last time he made any agar agar jelly? Five… six years ago? A nervous eleven-year-old carefully pouring the fifth layer in an ambitious deca-layered project using a custom-made mould of the Tower of Babel. It would have worked too if those damn demons hadn't chosen that precise moment to shatter the kitchen windows in a sudden ambush. At least he had been able to lead them away before they could get to his legal guardian back then.

His late adoptive parents hadn't been that lucky.

"Shou-san… Kyousuke-san…" He couldn't cry. It would be too much of an indulgence to allow that guilt to simply slip away into the filthy puddles and grating grime beneath his weightless steps. After all, yet again, he had survived; survived on the sacrifice of those who loved him.

He hadn't asked for his heritage… he hadn't asked for his powers, or for the curse laid upon him by the sin of his ancestors- but he had asked to be loved.

"That's why… never again…"

…will I ask to be loved.

The searing stab of pain in his side was welcome agony, as the dark pavement closed wildly up to him.

…

"Oh but you're such a naughty boy Honda-san… you call me your blossoming moon, but I promptly turn into an invisible new moon when you've filled my milk bottle-" I lamented with a theatrical sigh cast into the heavy aroma of coffee beans and alcohol.

Raucous laughter greeted my exaggerated pout, and my tipsy patron favoured me with a wistful smile.

"Would I believe that you could love a plump, balding, salaryman, I'd carry you over my shoulder back to my apartment in a heartbeat," he countered with accommodating drama, stroking my cheek while his eyes glinted affectionately behind the silvery outline of his rimless glasses.

"Oh no- if anyone's going to redeem Keiki, it's going to be me-" Honda-san's lawyer friend and college buddy interjected playfully, starting off a fresh bout of mirth from the last member of their group.

"Do I smell a bidding war?" Yamada-san quipped, while Saeki, my barely legal fellow host, clung to the sleeve of the property agent's business suit like a spoiled kitten.

"Yamada-san- you haven't been paying attention to me all evening-" he whined like the annoying tiny brat he was, his tight bubble butt, tightly sheathed in faded blue denims, threatening to pop.

A deep baritone cut across the cheeky banter, lightly reproving.

"Now, now gentlemen, this is a respectable establishment, not a whorehouse. My boys aren't sex slaves."

Magically, the fumes of coffee and liquor turned instantly into the spiced scent of spring.

Ah, spring! Spring was Mr. Engel Occido Trust, Master of this avant-garde coffee pub. Spring was an elegant European stroke in the modern Japanese gay bar scene in Ni-choume, Shinjuku. Spring was in his deep-set pale green eyes that were the colour of tender young shoots, while his glorious flaxen mane and grainy stubble gave him the appearance of a young lion fresh in his manhood. The commanding bridge of his nose harmonized beautifully with his finely balanced chin that was cut in a line that melted the borders of strength and flexibility. Then there was the heavenly craftsmanship in that powerful yet subtle frame, and-

"Master, you're always like that," the lawyer, Kenichi-san, complained. "You'll have to give up your boys one of these days."

Not bloody likely.

I spared the lanky, sharp-eyed advocate a scornful glare by burying it into a casual sip of Engel-sama's special blend. Oh… if Master made love the way he brewed coffee, those rumours of him having a big shot yakuza lover aren't so incredible after all.

The welcoming chime saved me from the rest of the conversation as the front door swung open-

"Kurou!" I gasped, my relief jolting into alarm as I recognized my senior straining to keep his balance in the doorway. Hunched in his short bomber jacket, a limp body was draped loosely over his back.

"You killed someone!" Saeki moaned idiotically.

"Saeki-" I began testily as I hurried over to a panting Kurou.

"Kurou wouldn't do that- at least he wouldn't bring the body back," Engel-sama smoothly intervened as he brought up the flank consisting of Honda-san and Yamada-san (towing an attached Saeki). My heart skipped a beat as Engel-sama brushed past.

"Thanks." Kurou returned wryly, his languid dark eyes turning to find me. "A little help here?"

"I'll help," Engel-sama offered. "Keiki-kun is still in the middle of entertaining."

"Where did you find him?" I distantly heard Honda-san ask as I admired the fluid shift of muscles beneath Engel-sama's shirt.

"In the alley between the private video parlour and the old vacant love hotel." Kurou straightened up in relief as Engel-sama effortlessly lifted the pale, unconscious youth- princess style. Kurou caught my frown and returned me one of his own. "I didn't do anything to him… he was like that when I found him."

"Why are you telling me that?" I retorted, mildly confused. My scowl only deepened as he shook his head and turned a rare nervous plea to Engel-sama.

"I can give him my futon. I'll spread some newspapers and sleep in the corridor." He begged quietly.

Engel-sama was already heading toward the stairs leading to the rooms.

"And have us play hopscotch every time we need to get to the bathroom? I don't think so. We've got spare rooms."

Such chivalry, such generosity, such-

"Now get back to work." He added as he climbed up the carpeted steps.

…

"Oi… you've gotta be kidding, right?" –that was the first thing Kouichi Furuyama, part-time undergrad at Waseda University, part-time bedroom miracle to horny campus babes, blurted when he first saw the man his father had ordered him to meet.

The priestly pure white joue in iridescent silk that seemed to shimmer with an aura of celestial blue, more than just stood out against the backdrop of drunken university students, some of whom obliged tradition by teetering in loud snatches of suggestive songs. Kouichi raised his eyes from the hanging corded sleeves buffeting wildly beside the flapping royal purple hakama, to the peaked cloth cap tied around the otherwise normal youthful face of a seventeen-year-old. The chill of early spring was starting to numb his tongue, but nothing seemed to remedy the gaping disbelief. He was even wearing those black lacquered clogs.

In front of Takadanobaba Station in the town area of Shinjuku City?!

"Furuyama-san?" Those impassive gold eyes seemed to size him up in one glance and pin him against the suddenly palpable night.

"Shi… Shizuka-sama?" The honorific simply tumbled out, despite the fact that Kouichi had spent a good ten minutes whining to his dad about addressing some backward village boy up in the mountains with such ceremony.

"Doumeki will be more appropriate," the stoic young man informed him stiffly. "I am to blend in with the other sybaritic degenerates of the town."

"Sybaritic degenerates." Kouichi echoed, not even with much rancour.

"Yes. I have to be accepted by your kind. It is of the utmost importance."

"I see." Kouichi replied coolly as he watched the perfectly poised youth return a calm, unperturbed stare. "And what might a Shinto priest find so important to do in our humble, filthy little town?"

There wasn't even the hint of a smile in the collected golden gaze.

"To slay a progenitor of evil- the Doe-eyed Asura."

TBC