Disclaimer: Oh, just go read my other disclaimers. After all, nothing's changed.

Kayashima: Do I sense a bit of bitterness there?

Me: No, Kaya-chan, it's all in your imagination. rolls eyes

Kayashima: Oh. Ok, then.

Author's Note: The focus of most of this chapter is Kayashima. He's sexy and doesn't get enough story-line-time in the manga, so now's his time to shine! Let the chapter... BEGIN! Btw, sorry it took me so long to get chapters 3 and 4 up. Yeah... I have no excuse, I already had them written, I was just too lazy to actually type them up.

Chapter Four: Three Men

Nakatsu opened the bathroom door to see Kayashima deep in thought, cross-legged on the floor. "Hey, snap out of it, Kayashima. Your turn, and hurry up. I think everybody else is ready, by the racket in the hall."

The dark-haired boy got up, grabbed his black swim trunks, and went into the bathroom, letting the door click shut as he dropped his things on the floor.

Mizuki? A girl? It would make sense, I guess, he thought as he pulled his black turtleneck off over his head. Considering his pale chest in the mirror, he continued the train of thought. I mean, he—She?—is the only one I've never seen shirtless or pantsless in one way or another... Kayashima unzipped his pants and stepped out of them. And sometimes there's something... funny about Mizuki's aura...

He pulled his swim trunks up over his smooth, pale, surprisingly muscular thighs and let them come to rest just above his hipbones, showing off more of his abs than normal.

Maybe—oh, my God, I wonder if Sano knows?!

Pushing the door open absently with his hip, he grabbed the tickets from his pants pockets and headed to the pool with the other five.

The pool didn't have much time for thinking peacefully. It seemed like every time Kayashima started thinking about Mizuki again, someone distracted him.

Or maybe, if he IS a girl—

...Ouch. Someone had thrown a beach ball into his face. A young girl in a cute pink swimsuit with ruffles around the hips—he supposed it was supposed to be a skirt—walked up to get it. Kayashima tried to offer her a smile, but didn't think it had worked, as she grabbed the ball and ran.

—if she IS a girl, then maybe Sano—

"Kayashima, either have fun or get out of the water!" Noe's voice rang through his short reverie.

"Oh, um... right. Sorry," the aura-seeing boy apologized.

—Maybe if Sano knew?—

"I'm getting out. I need—um, I need a drink. I'll be right back, Noe."

Climbing out of the pool, Kayashima pushed his wet hair out of his face. Just as his thoughts returned to Mizuki (—Or maybe Sano didn't—), his face was buried in a pair of large, squishy...

BOOBS?!

He looked up, blushing. The owner of the huge breasts—and they WERE huge!—was a tall gaijin. "G-gomen nasai," he mumbled, bowing to the beautiful blonde girl. He stepped around her, trying to ignore his natural testosterone-inspired instincts. To his horror, though, his thoughts of Mizuki had now gone to imagining Mizuki's head on that... well-endowned gaijin's body. He clamped his hand over his nose.

"Kuso," Kayashima cursed. He hadn't had a nosebleed in a VERY long time.

"Here, use this," a kind, feminine voice said. The Japanese was strongly accented with an English lilt, but nevertheless Kayashima was surprised to look up and see the chest of the gaijin from before in his face.

"N-nani?" he stammered.

"No, not those, baka! This!" The girl held out a dark red handkerchief. When he took it, she crossed her arms beneath her breasts, pushing them up even farther, and said, "My name's Ashley."

"Ashley? Ash—iya..." Kuso! Something was wrong with him. This was not the Kayashima he knew. Snap out of it, he told himself sternly.

"No, AshLEY."

"Um, thank you, Ashi—ASHLEY!" KUSO! "I have to go." He ran to the men's room.

For some reason, his immediate thought was:

Maybe Sano found out Mizuki's a girl—if she IS a girl—and THAT'S why he left!

oOo

Back at the dorm that night, Kayashima followed Mizuki to her—her?—room after dinner. He was going to ask her THE QUESTION. He just HAD to know.

"Who's—oh, it's you. Come on in," Ashiya was drinking yet ANOTHER can of peach juice.

"Mizuki, I have an important question for you." Kayashima met her gaze with a strong, even gaze of his own.

"Yeah?"

"Promise you'll answer 100 truthfully?"

"Well, sure, I don't see why—"

It came out in an urgent rush:

"Mizuki-are-you-a-girl?"

oOo

Mizuki panicked. What else could she do? HE KNOWS?! Oh my God—Kami, he KNOWS! Wait, relax. He doesn't know, he suspects—OH GOD, HE KNOWS!

"A girl?" Her voice came out a pitch—or eight—too high. "Wh-why do you think that?" FUCK

"Well, I could be wrong, but..." Kayashima faltered. Mizuki's aura was one of panic, but he didn't need to see his friend's aura to tell that. "Well, I never see you shirtless, you never seem to be interested in girls, you get really flustered around guys sometimes... and, um, sometimes you almost seem to be having PMS." He realised how incredibly stupid he sounded. Maybe he was making it all up. "I'm just jumping to conclusions here—" he stopped. Mizuki was crying. Mizuki was... crying? Why? Was it really that upsetting? "And, um..." Kayashima regretted getting into this at all, but it was too late now. "So I thought maybe the reason Sano left is that you had a fight... or maybe he figured out your true gender." Deep breath. "So... are you? A girl?"

Mizuki said nothing. She had nothing to say. She COULD tell Kayashima the truth. And have my only dream shattered? She asked herself angrily.

Or she could lie. He had a strong case against her, in her eyes, but maybe...

"Of course not!" Mizuki hoped her aura didn't give her away. "I had a fight with Sano, yes. But it had nothing to do with gender. Sano knows I'm a boy." Or she thought he did, anyway.

"Oh... OK," Kayashima was not convinced, but he knew he had been stupid to ask straight out. Had he really thought she would tell him if she WERE a girl? Yes, she realized. But there had to be a reason she was going to an all-boy's school. Obviously if he was right in his accusation, it still had to be a secret. "Goodnight, Mizuki."

"Yeah, goodnight, Kayashima."

HOW DID HE KNOW?

oOo

"UMEDA!" Mizuki ran into the health center again. Umeda was writing something, which he immediately stowed away.

"Ashiya! Is Sano back?" The handsome doctor jumped to the obvious conclusion before he saw the panic written on the girl's face.

"Kayashima!" Mizuki panted. She had run straight from the dorm to Umeda's office once Nakatsu's roommate left.

"What about him?"

"He—he guessed! He asked if I was a girl!" Mizuki forced herself to lower her voice to protect from prying ears.

"Well, I certainly hope you said no!" Umeda was on his feet, looming menacingly. To tell the truth, he was surprised the whole dorm didn't know, and sure Kayashima couldn't be the only one who did.

"I—I did, Doctor, I really did, but I don't think he believed me."

"Ah... well then." Dr. Umeda sat. "The only thing for it is to go tell the boy the truth."

"But what if he tells?"

"Well, you'll swear him to secrecy, obviously. Kami, girls are so stupid."

"Right!"

Without further ado, Mizuki was once again a girl on a mission. It was with a purposeful stride that she went back to the dorm and rapped thrice on Kayashima's door.

"Who is it?" The psychic boy called.

"Mizuki. Please let me in, we have to ta—EEEEEEAUUGHHHHHHH!"

Mizuki screamed at the sudden cold on her side. Swivelling around, ready to hit, she fell into Sano's open arms.

Her voice was muffled, but she still managed to get her message to Kayashima ("Never mind... it can wait...").

"I'm sorry," Sano said. "I'm so, so sorry."

The silence in the hall was contented and stretched for upwards of ten minutes, until Sano spoke. It was so quiet that Mizuki thought she could have imagined it, but she could swear she heard Sano whisper:

"Daisuki..."