Hey guys new chapter, like I said I would. Wut. Also hey new summary. I wasn't sure the one it's had for three years really fit anymore - not sure how well this one fits, either... So sorry to jar you with the change outta the blue, but you know us writers with our flights of fancy...

Sooooooo yes. Amendment to what I said in a prior author note: From here on out is what happens when I let the Insane Writer Brain go wild during the first pass - and then I step back in with a red pen and go, "Yes, okay, no, okay, yeah, that's cute, ew, no way." The result may still have "Oops, that's not what I plotted at the start," but maybe characterization won't go soft for the sake of fancy. This is my hope. My readers decide what's what in the end product. :]

Yukumi just happened to be standing outside the door when I left the school building the next day, after classes. She jumped in surprise at the sight of me, as she always did, eyes bright when she asked how I was. "Fine," I said semi-automatically. As she fell into step beside me I tried to reevaluate her out the corner of my eye without her noticing. I tried to figure out what a girl like her might see in me. And, okay, I tried to convince myself that maybe she would be worth a return effort. To avoid Izumi's nagging.

"What did you do yesterday?" she asked. I shrugged.

"I met up with a friend."

"Oh?"

"I haven't been able to talk with her much, lately." Her smile faltered a little. "She goes to a school on the other side of town, and she's really busy."

"I see," Yukumi murmured, face casting down. I scanned the path ahead, feeling like I should be doing something. Without any say on my part, my feet halted before a vending machine. Yukumi realized I'd stopped, and planted herself a couple paces ahead. I focused my attention on the drink selection. Shifting on my feet, I made a quick glance at her, watching me, and returned to examining the machine.

"Want something?" I offered to the air, ignoring the way my chest rang. Without looking I searched in my pocket for loose change. I usually carried an extra few hundred yen in my jacket... Before she answered I pulled out a five-hundred yen coin and pushed it into the coin slot. I deliberated for a second, shrugged, and went with apple-infused green tea. It clunked out. Yukumi wordlessly stepped forward after I collected the change. A moment later, she twisted the top off a bottle of Calpis, took a sip, and we continued on our way.

After that we walked in awkward silence. First hurdle cleared, I hoped. Though I don't know what sort of hurdle that might have been. I still had enough control over all my muscles that I felt quite steady, but Yukumi for her part seemed to be consciously trying to walk naturally. Her heels hit the pavement just a little too hard. "You alright?"

"I'm okay," she piped, but she took her next sip of Calpis too quickly and spent the next several seconds coughing and clearing her throat. She looked very pink. I was ready to exact revenge against Izumi for all but forcing me into this. This couldn't have been the kinder option...

The bus stop was vacant. I checked the time and sat on the bench to wait. My apple-green tea was almost halfway gone. Yukumi joined a conspicuous distance away, busying herself with smoothing her skirt. "Yukumi?" She squeaked in reply. I wearily rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to mask it as an itch. When she gazed expectantly at me I figured her squeak had been a stand-in for "Yes." "What do you usually do in the evenings? After homework and everything?"

She told me in nervous fragments about playing with her new puppy, Caramel, taking the bus to play badminton at the park with her brother, maybe she might make keshigomu hanko as spontaneous gifts. "How about you?" Still blushing, though not as vividly. I shrugged. Usually after I did homework I just holed up in my room, nowadays. I didn't tell her that.

"I don't have much time for it anymore, but I used to practice guitar." I still don't know why I had to tell her that.

Her eyes went perfectly round. "I didn't know you play guitar!"

"Most people don't." It was lost beneath her exclamation of "That's so cool! Do you sing, too?" I blinked, startled. Embarrassed, she continued in a much quieter tone, "Did you ever write your own music?"

I adjusted into a more comfortable position on the bench. "I tried, a couple times," I thought aloud, remembering my attempts at original melodies. "I don't remember that any of them were any good."

"Did you keep anything?" I looked at her. She shrugged. "One of my cousins wanted to be a singer, and she wrote a lot of really deep, emotional stuff a couple years ago. She ended up throwing it all away, and now she really wishes she hadn't." Yukumi shrugged again. "Mi-chan said artists should never throw away anything they make, no matter how terrible it is." I cast back in my memories for what I might have done with those compositions. I had a vague recollection of sticking them all in a folder that I placed in a box that might have gone under my bed or in the garage... But that had been a couple years ago; I didn't remember much from that time.

"I'm not sure what might have happened to it. I guess I can look. Maybe my step-mother knows." Mention of my step-mother seemed to surprise Yukumi, but she said nothing about it. Most people immediately leaped into questions or lapsed into embarrassed silence, like a deep, secret shame had just been exposed and they were never meant to know. No; after the initial pause, Yukumi swept back into enthusiasm over my past creative endeavors. I took note; I decided I liked that.

"Well, if you do ever dig them up, do you think you'd be able to still play them?"

"Maybe, if I practiced for a couple hours."

Her mouth worked, but no sound came out. And then she blushed the deepest yet. I chanced a wild guess. "You're not going to ask if I can play them for you, are you?" She looked right up at me, the biggest grin imaginable stretching across her face. Her eyes looked even brighter.

"I'd like that very much!" she said just under control.

"Uh, that's-" I started to protest. Her smile twitched. I closed my mouth on the rest. Yukumi didn't stop gazing at me, doubt steadily clouding the open eagerness on her face. "Okay," I sighed out, closing my eyes in lieu of slapping a palm to my forehead for what I'd just blundered into. "But don't count on it any time soon."

I felt the bench quiver and opened my eyes to see Yukumi beside herself with fan-ish excitement. Was it really that big a deal? Perplexed, I kept my mouth shut about it and focused on the bottle that gradually grew warmer in my hands.

"Kouji," she uttered softly after I spotted my bus pulling in, "if you don't find your music soon, do you think we could still..."

Oh, crap; what had I done. Didn't I offer to get a drink together? Wasn't that enough? Dammit, Izumi...

"Uh..." A card was pressed into my hand.

"This... this has my number on it. Could you send me a text message with a good time? Or not, I mean, that's okay, too... Or you can wait until you find the music. Or not, it's okay, that... Well, I guess we'll see each other at school, anyway. Sorry, that was all really forward of me, wasn't it?" I prodded her shoulder to turn off her babbling. Bad idea; fire raced up her complexion again. I turned the card over in my hands.

What have I gotten myself into?

The bus doors opened and people started boarding. I took a breath. "I'll let you know."

The poor girl looked ready to die of joy. I was really glad she didn't. Then I decided I was never going to forgive Izumi for this.

–

By the end of the week, I decided that I maybe could forgive Izumi. Eventually.

Yukumi and I didn't do much. We got drinks from the vending machine on the way to the bus stop, a couple more times. A few days into the week, she worked up the courage to sit with me for lunch in the faraway corner of the cafeteria that no one else liked. She worked out quickly that I didn't like to talk much. So she patiently lingered, offering a thought once in a while, and learning not to be affronted if I didn't always respond. I should have gotten irritated with her – and part of me did want to push her out of my life as quickly as she'd slipped in. But for some reason, I never did. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. For some reason, I just couldn't manage to get annoyed enough with her.

That was my impression by the end of the week, anyway. Yukumi mellowed out a lot as she learned how to navigate herself around me, for which I honestly was grateful. I did not want her bouncing like a purse-dog every time I spoke to her. It made me nervous.

For the time being, I played things very cautiously. In my mind, I knew Izumi expected us to get all couple-y. But I had watched too many of my classmates pair up and almost instantly split up again for too long to entertain any small notion that this one might last just because it was mine.

–

A Cheshire Cat grin split across Izumi's face when I gave her a very pointed glare on approach. "You never texted me," she chided lightly. I batted her tutting hand away and dove into the details, because there would be no evading her questions. Ultimately she got to tease me about the way I just couldn't be surly about the whole thing. "See, I told you," she said, as of course she must, "This might be good for you."

"Yeah, yeah," I waved her off, but I secretly agreed. "If it lasts."

Izumi cocked her head, calculating eyebrow raised. "She's been eying you for, what, two months? Longer? And look at you; you're smitten!"

"Am not!"

Izumi let my protest speak for itself. I fumed very strongly at her. "Kouji," all teasing lilts dropped from her manner and she squeezed my shoulder, "I'm happy for you. I mean it."

I couldn't bring myself to argue.

–

"Thought you'd want an update on Shinya. I haven't noticed any new cuts, and we've actually been talking a bit. I guess he's getting better. :]"

I sighed at my phone. I almost didn't have the heart to tell him not necessarily. But the message did kind of kill my moment. Yukumi and I had missed a few buses back home talking about... something. I don't even remember. But now whatever lingering good feelings had vaporized, and it kind of ticked me off.

"Maybe." I thought for a few seconds about how to phrase my warning; I wanted Takuya to exercise caution, not be paranoid and smothering. That wouldn't be good for any of us. "Not out of the woods yet, though. Keep an eye on him."

No reply came. Takuya had definitely had his cell phone out, so he must have read it, at least. That was all I needed from him.

Still, I couldn't help feeling a little good at the thought that Shinya might actually really be getting better, that maybe Takuya and I'd had an impact on him. Leaning back comfortably in my desk chair at the thought, I felt like there was this little glowing ball of light swelling up inside my chest. How fitting. But it was made of moods. Part of it felt like pride, at the success, but there was also something sour mixed in that I didn't want to mull over much at all.

Jealousy. I hadn't seen Kouichi in over a month, not since he berated me for cutting again and vanished before I could explain myself fully. In the back of my mind I knew he was hanging around anyway, checking in without showing himself. I could sense him. That should have been comforting, but it wasn't. A part of me was angry that he didn't understand that self-mutilation isn't a just-snap-your-fingers-and-fix-yourself thing. But then again, he simply didn't have the right experiences behind him to be able to relate. It wasn't his fault...

"I guess you saw all that," I murmured, running a thumb over the faded cuts. Some of the pink-white lines were still there – new scars... "I guess I did right by Shinya. You were right..." About what, didn't immediately come to me as words. Something had gone unsaid in a conversation with him prior to the intervention, that I hadn't called him on or agreed with at the time. But whatever it was, something told me Kouichi had been right.

I tried to bring that little shining light back again. It felt peculiar, after so long, even though it twisted around that jealousy. It made me feel lonely... "Kouichi," I murmured, now that I'd caught myself in an introspective vein, "I know you've been watching me, and you've heard me apologize for what I did a thousand times. And you've seen that I'm not going to... do it again... Remember the last thing you forgave me for? Wasn't that so much bigger than this?"

I felt a wrench in my heart that had nothing to do with my own emotions. Kouichi remembered. When we'd first met, first tried to get along, he'd been so resentful of me and the better life I'd gotten to have. He tried to hide it, of course, but I felt it; his pain was my pain, his anger my anger. The disparity between our lives, because of the parent we each happened to live with, was the cruelest injustice of his life. But he'd forgiven me, so soon after we met. He'd forgiven me and then he'd started to love me, so unconditionally. And with that assurance that he'd never turn his back on me... I'd started to love him unconditionally as well.

I tugged my sleeve further down my wrist and sighed. "I know I broke a promise to you, Kouichi. And you know I'm sorry. This is killing me. Please, just... Please."

Without a sound he appeared out the corner of my eye, gaze downcast and radiating guilt. I'm sorry, Kouji, he whispered. I shouldn't have acted like that. But I've never been that angry before, and it scared me. After a pause he looked up with a small, placating smile. I forgive you. He took my wrist in his hands and examined it, turning it over to carefully run his fingertips over the scars. This time, he added with a smirk. It's hard not to laugh when Kouichi smirks. On his face, I don't think it looks nearly as threatening as it does on mine. Don't ask me why when we have the same face.

He does look damn scary when he's enraged, though...

Without another word Kouichi dropped my hand in favor of perching on the bed. And I did see that, he added, switching the topic so smoothly I barely noticed at first. He smiled, and I got the feeling from the way his eyes lit up that he had that same little glowing ball in his chest I did, unadulterated. Good job.

I shrugged, "Takuya's done most of it. I just gave him a place to start."

Don't discount yourself like that, Kouji, he replied without missing a beat, still holding that smile though the shine of his eyes dimmed. I don't think you give yourself nearly enough credit anymore.

I didn't know what to say to that, but I guess he was right, again. Kouichi had grown pretty damn insightful, with all that time to sit and think. The next time I looked back at him he was tossing a tennis ball between his hands, just as he always did when he visited.

"Maybe I don't," I said at last under my breath. I spun idly in my chair a few times, to alleviate the silence

Penny for your thoughts? Kouichi asked lightly. I shrugged.

"...I'm not sure what I should do next." I looked briefly at my wrist, remembering how blood had saturated it just a month ago. It felt so wrong to know that I'd done that to myself just weeks ago. It felt even worse to know that I had fallen back into it in a moment of weakness after two years, when I used to do it all the time...

Kouichi was staring placidly at me when I finally turned to him again. The tennis ball rested comfortably against the arch of his foot, and he leaned his elbows on his knees. You want to know what I think? he asked me, just a bit of a teasing lilt in his voice. I raised an eyebrow at him, inviting him to either go on or keep quiet, it honestly could have gone either way. He grinned and leaned back again. I think you need to stop worrying.

...

Throwing back with a laugh at my bemused expression, he continued, Think about it. What else can you do right now? Things are okay with Takuya – he'll ask for your help if he needs it again. You're all caught up with your schoolwork. You've got a new girlfriend-

"She's not my girlfriend," I interjected.

Kouichi's smile grew wider. I suspect it was related to the heat crawling over my face. Whatever you say, Otouto-chan.

I threw a pen at him; it passed right through. Unfazed, Kouichi carried on. You've hardly gone out of the house for anything but school. I don't care what curfew Dad put on you; I think you need to get out of the house for a few hours and just, I don't know... he leaned back a little more, seeing something in the plain white ceiling that I'd never discern. Try to enjoy life, he finished, a blissful smile on his face as he closed his eyes and breathed some relaxing scent that couldn't have been my stuffy bedroom. Lost for a reply, I merely looked at the floor.

Enjoying life the way Kouichi seemed to be referring to didn't seem feasible. Between that curfew (Kouichi never had to live with Dad; he definitely was not the authority on how Dad would take me blatantly violating his stipulations), and the other tensions with Dad and Satomi, and not to mention whether Shinya was truly better or just going through an eye of the storm... Even my relationship with Yukumi had its stresses.

I didn't want to fret. I didn't want to catch myself up in worries again after a week of just being. Having something (seeing Yukumi) to look forward to every day. I wasn't sure how I felt about her, yet. I knew I liked her – more than I had liked any other girl. (Seeing as I had barely paid any attention to any girls before her save Izumi, this wasn't an impressive declaration.) After a moment's careful consideration, I decided that was all I needed to know.

My phone finally buzzed again, but it wasn't from Takuya. Kouichi lowered his chin down from the ceiling so he could watch me.

"My parents want you to come over for dinner. Saturday night work for you? :)"

I still hadn't told Dad and Satomi about Yukumi. I supposed this was my cue. No reservations, now that it had been over two weeks...

"Sounds good. I'll ask my parents." My ears burned; Kouichi was watching, and the elation in his eyes told me that somehow he knew. I sent the text and put my phone on my desk.

Well done, Kouichi intoned with a devilish smirk, and then he vanished. I scowled at where he had been sitting just a second ago. But it was no good glaring at empty air if it didn't at least glare back.

The room still felt stuffy.

I opened my window.

Just a crack.

So we're at the point where I want to move the plot along already, and while I could just say "One month later..." or something, that simply would not work for the story I'm trying to tell. So unfortunately we get filler. It won't last much longer, but unfortunately it's also gonna be kinda predictable...

I like having Kouji be a n00b about dating. And having him grouse about it because he won't admit he enjoys it. Why am I even allowing this at all you guys are gonna hate this story now oh well.

Calpis is, so I hear, a fermented milk beverage-type thing. Kinda like kefir, I guess? I should have tried some while I was in Japan. ;_;

I'm pretty sure someone in our group got green tea from a vending machine which was infused with apple... Don't quite remember. |D

I made keshigomu hanko with one of my host families - eraser stamps. Basically, you draw/transfer a design onto a rubber eraser and then you carve it out with cutting tools. Quite fun, but it also makes a mess. XD

Thanks for reading. Next update soon!