At lunch, as usual, Shun, Melinda, and Tim gathered at a table and got out their lunches, and the conversation went full throttle, with Melinda discussing how Panera Bread has some great food and Tim agreeing. But Shun was a bit quieter than usual; he was wondering when he should tell Tim and his other friends, and where. Both Melinda and Tim noticed that Shun wasn't talking that much; Tim wondered why, but Melinda knew why but said nothing.

Suddenly a deep male voice said, "Dude, I got good news! I got a copy of that new Tomb Raider game!" It was Jacob Wang, with excitement lighting up his eyes. He was holding a brown bag with his lunch.

"Whoa!" Tim said, "and is it good?"

Ken approached the group and said, "I played it at Jacob's house. It's fucking awesome!" He had a tray from the cafeteria. Phil had followed Ken in; he Jacob, and Ken had been in the group. Then Mina and Chelsea approached. Everybody had trays, bags, or lunchboxes, and as they opened, the conversation flowed freely.

Mina said, "Aren't we going to have another party at your house, Tim?"

"I guess," Tim said.

Chelsea said, "That was actually fun, the first time, and then last weekend he got us to play video games. And maybe Shun can come, right?" Turning to Shun, she said "I heard you are really good!"

"My dad said I could come when I'm done my project," Shun answered. Shun was at the library and the restaurant, and doing studying and work on his project, so he did not attend Tim's party last weekend. But he also felt uneasy about going to another party, as he wondered what would happen if he came out.

"Well, get that project done so you can come back. I've been missing you," Tim said with a pained smile.

Mina said, "Yeah, Jacob said you're good! I'd like to see what you can do!"

"So we're all going, right?" Ken asked.

"As long as it's not a bunch of guys looking at porn," Melinda said with a small giggle.

"Very funny," said Tim before he took a bite of his peanut butter sandwich.

Turning to Shun, Jacob asked, "Hey, Shun, aren't you going to download that Lara Croft porn that people on the internet are inevitably going to put out?"

"No…" Shun said.

"But she's freaking hot!" Jacob cried, with his hands wide open, an expression of his shock.

"But I'm gay!" Shun then covered his mouth with his little hands. Oops. Tim dropped his sandwich, covered with tooth-marks right before he could take another bite. Ken dropped the spoon that had some chicken noodle soup on it, causing the spoon to fall into the bowl and overturn it, making a chicken soup spill. Mina dropped the carrot with ranch sauce that she was holding in her hand.

"Really?" Tim said as the rest of the group went silent and focused its attention on Shun. Shun's face lost all of its color as all of his friends silently awaited his answer. Was it a joke? Shun decided that there was no use denying it now.

"Yes… I am gay," Shun said after placing his hands on the table, in a tone that made it clear that it was no joke. A short silence overcame the table, and Shun's body froze, fearing what his classmates would say. The boys looked at each other in disbelief before returning their gaze to Shun.

"You're gay?" Chelsea asked.

"Shun's gay!" Jacob cried.

"Huh, no wonder you didn't seem to respond to Sora Aoi," said Ken.

"I bet you that was a watershed moment, Ken. Maybe he found out he was gay the moment he didn't get a boner," said Phil.

"Phil, that's gross!" cried Mina, who looked like she sucked on a lemon.

"I'm glad for you!" Chelsea said. "Did the principal's message help you with that?"

"Yes, it did," Shun said, with a small smile appearing on his face. The other teenagers began eating as normal, or cleaned up the messes that had been made by the moment of surprise.

"Seriously, I think we should celebrate or something," Jacob said.

"Why don't we celebrate in that party Tim's going to throw?" Mina asked. Shun's smile grew and he sighed in relief. While everyone else's attention was on Shun, Tim was studying Melinda's face, looking for something that wasn't here.

"Melinda, you don't look terribly surprised…" Tim said. Her lips began to form a smile, and she winked once. "Huh, he must have told you first!" he cried. The other boys laughed.

"Tim, why don't we get a new kind of pizza at your party?" Melinda asked.

"Why? Tim asked.

"To celebrate Shun's coming out!" Melinda said.

"Sure," Tim said.

Shun had inadvertently come out to his school, but the good news is that, at least in Tim's circle of friends, it seemed to go okay.

And so, he was on to his class after lunch, past a tidal wave of students, quickly walking so he doesn't get detention.

"I heard you just came out!" a soft Valley Girl-ish voice said. The wolf-boy turned around and saw a tall teenage girl with curly dark red hair, in a blue denim capri and a pink shirt, looking glamorous.

"Come out?" Shun asked.

"You said you were gay, right?" she asked. Shun's little announcement had coursed through the halls of Lakeside High School at warp speed.

"Yes, I did," Shun said, now with eagerness, relieved that it seemed to be going well. Shun's English was gaining all sorts of interesting expressions.

"That's totally awesome! Can you, like, be my gay best friend?" the girl asked.

"Gay best friend?" Shun asked.

"Yeah, because it would be totally awesome to, go shopping and stuff," she said.

"Shopping for video games?" Shun asked with a big smile.

"No, clothes! Don't you know about clothes?"

"I don't really like to do go shopping for clothes," Shun said.

"So, what television shows do you watch?"

"Well, I don't watch much TV," Shun said.
"Huh, I thought you would watch Queer as Folk," she said. Then... "You don't look gay," she muttered, seemingly out of the blue.

"What is looking gay?" Shun asked.

"Aren't you going to put on makeup? Add eyeliner?" the girl asked.

"Funyuu! I don't want to do that! I'm a boy!" Shun cried.

"Shun! You'll be late for class!" a voice called out. It was Melinda, tapping her foot.

"Coming!" he cried before he said "I will see you later, I have to go!" to the confused girl.

As Shun walked with Melinda, she asked, "Do you know her?"

"No…," the wolf-boy answered.

"Shun, she has no understanding of who you are as a person. She just sees you as 'gay'. She'll be pretty disappointed if you go with her," Melinda said.

"Well, she still seemed nice even if she thought I would be girly," Shun muttered.

"Wait a week, okay? If she's still interested, I guess you can hang out with her," Melinda said.

After school ended, Shun the pick-up area where students wait for their rides. Gaku texted him saying that he was going to be late. As Shun sat down and saw cars come and go, with the numbers of students dwindling down, a familiar face came and sat on the other side of the bench.

"Tim! What are you doing here?"

"My car battery's dead. My dad's going to pick it up, so I'm waiting for him." He didn't smile and seemed unenthusiastic.

"I am sorry to hear that," Shun said.

"You know, Shun, I don't know what to think about it," sighed Tim.

"Think about it?" Shun asked.

"You're not going to hit on me, are you?" The optimism of his friends had masked Tim's uneasy feelings.

"Hit on you? I'm not going to hit you!"

"No, like ask me on a date!"

"Hafu! I'm not going to ask you on a date!"

"Shun's not going to hit on you, Tim! He knows you're straight, and he's not interested in you anyway," said a female voice. It was Melinda, arms folded, standing against a brick wall. She was waiting for her boyfriend.

"How do you know who he's into?" Tim asked Melinda.

"I told her," Shun said, causing Tim to refocus his attention on Shun, "I have a crush on somebody, and he doesn't go to this school." Shun knows what "crush" means: he's a quick learner. Tim sighed in relief, now knowing that Shun wasn't going to hit on him.

"Who is it?" Tim asked.

"Well… You know the university student I see at the library in Detroit?"

"A college student? That guy you're seeing at the library, who took you to the restaurants... you have a crush on him?"

"Yes," Shun said softly, with a blush.

"Do you know if he's gay?" Tim asked.

"No," said Shun, not wanting to contemplate the idea of Kouya telling him he's not interested.

"Even if he was gay... He seems a bit old," Tim said with a sternness.

"Well my boyfriend's 18 and that guy's only 19." Melinda said, uncrossing her arms.

"But that boyfriend of yours got held back once, and he's still in high school," Tim said.

"That's true," Melinda said.

"Is he telling the truth about his age?" Tim asked.

Shun said, "I saw his passport, and the date of birth says he is 19. My dad said that Japanese passports have special chips and are impossible to fake. He saw my passport too, so he knows my age."

"Okay, so he's not lying about his age, good," Melinda said. "I don't want to dampen your feelings, but you need to be careful. I mean, be careful with any date, Shun, but he's in college and is older and probably knows more about things than you. If you do become his boyfriend, make sure he doesn't do anything that you don't know about." Shun said that he understood. The wolf-boy was glad that his friends were watching out for him.

Meanwhile, at Wayne State, Kouya learned to do something fun after his shift at Tim Horton's ended. After he overheard someone hearing him scream in the bathroom and yelling "be quiet!" (Kouya thought it was empty) he realized that maybe that tactic wasn't going to work. So he went to the fitness center and signed up for the boxing class. Instead of yelling his frustrations away, he could punch them away. Whenever a customer got short with him, or his manager complained, Kouya punched the red bag with extra gusto, extra force. The aggression left his system, and when he left the class, he had a large smile on his face, refreshed, free of tension.

After walked out of the fitness center, he went to his usual hangout at the Olympic Grill. All that boxing made him hungry, and a nice coney dog would do the trick. When he sat down after ordering a coney dog, a familiar face yelled, "Yo!" He turned around and saw a 21-year old black man with cornrows, dressed in blue jeans and baggy white T-shirt with the words "MOB." The man approached the table.

"Albert," Kouya said with a sigh.

"Kouya, my man!" the man called as he put out his fist.

"You are cutting class again, aren't you?" Kouya said as he did a fistbump.

"That nigga always cuts classes!" said another familiar voice. Kouya saw Dante approaching from the other direction.

"'Sup, Dante," Albert said as he did a fistbump with Dante. "How are you doin', my man?"

"I'm doin' good. I heard that Kouya's takin' boxing."

"I am," Kouya said as he rested his arm on the table, "and it feels so good."

"I bet you are going to pick up a nice chick there," Albert said before making a bellowing laugh.

"Huh?" Kouya asked.

"Kouya, I bet you get a lot of pussy!" Albert said as he continued to laugh. "You must have a lot of hoes out there, all at the same time!" Kouya's over-masculine appearance gave Albert the wrong ideas.

"No, I'm gay," Kouya said. "I don't date women, and I'm single right now."

After a beat, Albert cried, "You're a homo?" as he stomped his hands on Kouya's table.

"Yeah, I'm gay," Kouya said without a change in his tone.

"I can't believe that you do that homo shit," Albert said as his mouth looking like it was frothing.

"I do," Kouya said as he crossed his arms.

"Then I don't want nothin' to do with you."

"That's just too bad," Kouya said, "and who will you turn to when you need notes for that class? I don't think anyone else is willing to just give them away to somebody who never shows up." Kouya knew the many of the churches in Detroit preached homophobia, and Albert came from a rough east side neighborhood dotted with churches. Kouya wasn't terribly surprised that there were homophobic people around Detroit, so he was prepared for that moment.

"You know something? You are not a man!"

"Albert, my man, Kouya's just as much of a man as you and I," Dante said, trying to cool tensions.

"Is he?" Albert cried.

"Quite so," Kouya replied, giving an air of indifference.

"I'm out of here," Albert said.

"Suit yourself," Kouya said as Albert walked out. To Dante he said, "I tell you, when it comes test time, he's going to come back to me and ask me to sell him my notes. I guess I should tack on another five dollars for him!"

"Kouya, you are too fucking funny!" Dante said as he laughed.

Shun's nerves tensed when Gaku took him home that evening. He tried played his 3DS at the dinner table, but his Tetris game wasn't going so well. Something else was on his mind... His heart pounded, hoping for his father to come home so he could get it overwith. Despite the anxiety coursing through Shun's veins, he knew he needed to get it overwith. He had accidentally told the whole school he was gay. If he didn't say something to his dad, someone else would... if they hadn't already. Gaku was watching the news in the living room, not looking at Ryo, patiently waiting for the inevitable.

Shun's heart skipped a beat when he heard the door creak open and the "Shun, I'm home!" at 6:30 PM. Ryo Kodori came in with his briefcase, suit and tie. Gaku dialed down the volume in anticipation of Shun's confession. Shun put his DS down on the table.

"Dad..." Shun said, still not facing his father.

"How did school go today?" Ryo asked, still standing in the doorway.

"Dad, I, uh, have something to say," Shun said, as his body tensed.

"What is it, Shun?" The wolf-boy hesitated for one moment, but he then turned to his father and forced it out...

"Dad, I found out I'm gay!"

"You're gay?" Ryo cried as he dropped his briefcase. The loud sound of the briefcase hitting the floor echoed the wolf-man's shock.

"Yes, Dad. I... I like guys..." Shun said as sweat began to dampen his clothes.

"You just found out?" Shun's father cried, causing his son to shudder. Ryo turned to Gaku, but found no surprise whatsoever on his nephew's face. It's as if he expected this scene.

"I... I realized it days ago..." Shun said.

"Shun, did you tell anyone else?" Ryo asked, as he looked at Gaku, who remained silent and watched the television, before returning his attention to Shun.

"Daddy, Gaku-san knows already, my classmates know already." He wasn't surprised by the first revelation, but as for the second...

"You are telling me after them? I mean, why did you tell other people first? I'm your father!" His words caused Shun's eyes to produce tears.

"It was on accident, Daddy. I didn't mean to, but I said it on accident to them..." Shun's father paused for a moment, trying to digest the revelation about his dear son. "I was afraid of how other people would think, and I ... I didn't want you to get mad at me..."

"Shun... no matter who you like, you are my son. I love you." Shun smiled.

"Daddy, thank you..." Shun said. The silence caused the air around them to feel heavy. Shun asked, "What will Mommy think?"

"Shun, Mom will be fine with it. I'll tell her on the phone when she calls next time."

"What about Iwao-sama?" Shun asked, with fear in his eyes, wondering what his grandfather would think.

"Iwao-sama doesn't need to know, at least for now. He'll probably find out on his own."

"He doesn't?" Shun asked, "but isn't he the head of this family?"

"He's back in Japan, Shun. You are in this household now. I know he means well, but I think it's time for him to relax. You are here with me, and so I am raising you. What he doesn't know won't hurt him."

"Daddy, I'm so relieved that you are not angry with me," Shun said, with tears of happiness.

"I love you, Shun. I am not angry at you. Next time, if there is something important, please tell me. Anyhow, I need to look over some papers from work in my bedroom, but let me know if you need anything." Ryo picked up the briefcase and walked back into his bedroom.

Shun felt a sense of relief drenching him, now knowing that the important people in his life who are in America know about his orientation... Wait! There was one more person to come out to. He wondered whether he waited, but he wondered what it would be like if Kouya also revealed that he was gay... that thought made him cautiously optimistic, so...

Shun dialed Kouya's number on his cell phone.

"Hello," Kouya said in English.

"Kouya-san! It's me, Shun."

"What's up, Shun-kun?" Kouya asked in Japanese.

"Well... I think I..." Shun started. His heart pounded, clamoring to burst out of his body. What will his crush think?

"Hmm?" a confused Kouya asked.

"I'm gay, Kouya-san." And the wolf-boy's heart began beating faster and faster, in anguish over how Kouya would react.

"You're gay?"

"Y-yes." Kouya paused for just a moment.

"That's something," Kouya said in amazement. "I'm gay too."

"Really?" Shun asked excitedly, his anxiety dissolving into sheer joy.

"That's right," Kouya said, with confidence in his voice. Shun's inner cupid was brimming in happiness. Kouya's gay too! Shun restrained himself from squealing in joy. Shun had a chance to be his boyfriend! Should he ask Kouya out now?

But Shun stopped himself. He felt too anxious... he didn't want to ruin the possibility, and as his friends said, Kouya might not be interested in him. Shun decided that maybe he should wait up and see if Kouya seems interested in him in a way that was more than just friends... maybe he would get to know Kouya a bit more. Shun's head went warm, and he pondered what it would be like if Kouya told him that he wanted him as his boyfriend. When would they hold hands? Have a first kiss? Have a first time in bed? Get married? Adopt kids?

"You there, Shun-kun?" Kouya asked, breaking the wolf-boy's line of thought.

"Hafu!" he said. "Sorry, I was just thinking..."

"I'm glad to hear you are open about it," Kouya said. "I came out in high school. How did it go?"

"Well, my friends are happy with who I am," Shun said, "so I'm happy about it."

"Do you want to hang out on Friday?" Kouya asked.

"Well..." Shun started, wondering if he should ditch the invitation to the party and not say anything to Kouya, but he realized that it would be rude. "My friends invited me to a party on Friday."

"That's nice of them!" Kouya said, "Are you done your project? It seemed like we covered almost everything."

"We did..." Shun said.

"Have fun with your friends! We'll see each other on Saturday, won't we?" Kouya asked.

"Yes, I guess we can go over the test next week," Shun said. He liked playing video games with his friends, but he really, really looked forward to seeing Kouya again, seeing his cool, confident way about him.

"That's right, the test. We'll talk about it on Saturday. Anyway, Shun-kun, I have something I'm curious about," Kouya asked.

"What is it, Kouya-san?" Shun asked.

"What music do you like to listen to?" Kouya asked.

"Uhmm..." Shun started, "I do not listen to a lot of music. I like video game music, though."

"You like guitar music?" Kouya asked.

Shun smiled upon remembering a rock concert his Dad once took him to, and said, "Yeah, I like rock music."

"I'll bring my guitar on Saturday and show you."

"You play the guitar?" Shun said.

"Yeah, I do."

"Do you do it just for fun?" Shun asked.

"Well... I have a band performance I need to do a jam session for, so I will be coming back from there to see you."

"FUNYUU! YOU'RE IN A BAND?" cried Shun.

"Yeah. I'm in a rock band with three Americans. We're not big, but we perform in Detroit and in the suburbs. In fact we've got a performance coming up Saturday night." This was great. Kouya was tall, handsome, a college student, openly gay, and also a member of a rock band! As far as Shun was concerned, Kouya was getting sexier and sexier each time he revealed a little more of himself. "We're trying to see if the venue will let in people under eighteen," Kouya continued, "a lot of our performances bar people who are under eighteen, or even twenty-one... and I'm only nineteen." Kouya finished with a sigh, thinking about how so many his age can't even go to some of his gigs. "If they do, maybe you could see us perform," Kouya suggested, causing little Shun's heart to melt. Now that Shun was comfortable in his sexuality, he was ready to get to know his crush a little bit more.