Sup. So….turns out that I am alive, miraculously, but I have been shoved in the face with assignment after assignment, and all of my writing has been set back at least three months. On the bright side of life…actually, there's not much on that side, except that I'm 18, so I can legally buy alcohol. Fun.

I'll shut up now.

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"So, Naru…how does it feel to be twenty?"

Monk grinned at Naru, amusement colouring his tone. The small alcove that they were all huddled in was tucked away from most of the racket that echoed around the bar, and it enabled conversation to be spoken in only-slightly-elevated decibel levels. Naru, currently examining the contents of his shot glass (no drink should be able to be that colour green; it looked like vomit), snapped his head up, looking startled.

"Huh?"

John, sitting next to him, sniggered into his lemonade, and Naru shot him a filthy glare. Monk's grin turned into a smirk, and he repeated his question, the amusement much more prominent in his tone. Naru shrugged.

"The same as being nineteen, I guess, but I'm not technically twenty yet. Although, this is better than my eighteenth was, at any rate."

"Oh?' Yasu leaned forward, John moving his drink out of the way before he knocked it over, "And what was wrong with your eighteenth?"

Naru flicked his eyes down, examining his drink once more.

"Gene's…funeral was in three days, and it hit me that…well…I wouldn't be able to celebrate our birthday with him. I…uh…actually spent most of it holed up in the library with a bottle of vodka."

"What he fails to mention,' Lin interrupted, sliding into the booth with ease, balancing two drinks along his arm, 'was that this was after Nollene had left for a friends place, and Martin and Luella had an emergency meeting at Cambridge. Mei had gone out with friends, and everyone's nerves were shot to hell and back."

"Lin…" Naru groaned, "Don't. Please."

"And it wasn't one bottle of vodka, it was three, and he'd already finished one and a half by the time I found him. He was crying to."

"Lin." Naru's head thumped onto the table. "Let me retain some form of dignity."

"So, what did you do? After you found him?" Yasu smirked, itching to get some blackmail. Lin looked at him, eyebrow raised.

"I did what any friend would have done. I helped him finish the vodka off, and then talked really loudly the next morning."

The table burst out laughing, and Naru sunk into his seat even further, head in his hands as a light blush dusted his cheeks. Lin placed a bottle of some form of beer in front of Naru, who eyed it apprehensively.

"Please tell me that I'm not going to die of alcohol poisoning if I drink this."

Lin rolled his eyes, and grabbed Naru's abandoned drink, taking a sip before examining it.

"Why on earth did you get a Wicked Envy? You hate gin, and citrus."

Naru looked pointedly at Yasu, who smirked, and Lin rolled his eyes.

"Typical. You shouldn't drink what Yasu gives you anyway. The stuff he drinks puts Ruka to shame in terms of alcohol content."

"How did your trip go, Monk? You didn't say much about." Naru swiftly changed the subject, tactfully ignoring the indignant noise that came from Yasu. Monk examined his beer, and bit his lip; a nervous trait he hadn't quite gotten rid of yet.

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"I…I apologized to my father and grandfather for a mistake I made eight years ago, and for leaving the temple without telling them or asking for their blessing. Then, I got my ears boxed by my mother for making her worry."

Yasu sniggered, and muttered "Momma's boy" before John kicked him in the shin, giving Yasu a confused look when he hissed at him. Lin raised an eyebrow at the pair, and shook his head in amusement.

"Your mother sounds like mine." Naru muttered, and Lin nodded in agreement, shuddering slightly. Monk leaned forward slightly.

"Oh, how so?"

"Luella was most displeased when I left for Japan the first time. The only reason I got off lightly was because Lin had come with me, and he knew his way around Japan. My Japanese was pretty bad; I had the most atrocious accent."

"So that's why you told me not to speak in a Kansai dialect; it had happened to you!" John exclaimed, an imaginary lightbulb clicking on above his head. Lin sniggered, and Naru glared at the Chinese man.

"Well, I'm sorry for being an 'ignorant American', Mr I–lived-in-Japan-for-years-and-didn't-mention-it-to-me."

"Ah, but Noll,' Lin smirked, 'It was so much fun watching you trip over your feet for the first week. After that, it was just pitiful."

Naru's head thumped onto the table, a slight blush visible on his cheeks.

"Shut up, Lin."

Monk grinned at the antics, and exchanged a glance with Yasu, who smirked devilishly.

"Even Mai picked up on it, Naru. When you first met, you apparently answered her question wrong. She asked what year you were, and you replied that you were seventeen that year. That, and you said 'Shibuya Psychic research' in English, not Japanese."

"She told me that when you two first met, she knew something was off, because your smile didn't reach your eyes." Monk added, watching with glee as the normally unflappable Naru hunched his shoulders and hid his face, a blush now creeping up the side of his neck.

"Shut. Up."

"And,' John joined in, eyes glinting,' let's not forget the case we took at my church. I was standing right next to you after we'd finished. You recited the scripture in English under your breath. I almost didn't catch it, until you said 'Amen'. British accents are very easy to pick up."

Naru buried his head in his arms, and placed his hands over his ears, muttering something under his breath. Lin looked at them and winked…before he jabbed Naru in the ribs with his fingers. Naru let out a high-pitched yelp that had the rest of them laughing, John catching Yasu's drink before he knocked it over. Naru's face burned red, before it slowly started to recede.

"Yes, yes, go on and laugh. It's not like any of you have made any mistakes travelling to a foreign country."

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John stopped laughing, and grinned brightly at the rest of them.

"You mean apart from speaking with a Kansai dialect? I insulted someone when I meant to apologize. Thankfully, they recognized that I wasn't a native Japanese speaker, and forgave me easily…if not with a long lecture about proper manners and how foreigners should behave when speaking to their betters."

Laughter broke out again, and Monk noticed a small smile lingering in Lin's lips. Lin noticed him staring, and it disappeared quickly, but not before Monk saw the flash of pain that flickered across his eyes, before it was tucked away behind the normal shuttered look.

"I didn't even speak Japanese." Lin contributed, eyes swinging towards him. "The first words I learnt were insults. And yes, they were intentional." Yasu sniggered.

"You should have heard Mai when she started to learn English at school. Her pronunciation was awful."

Naru's lips quirked, meeting Yasu's gaze.

"Believe me, I am well aware on how awful her pronunciation is."

Naru checked his watch suddenly, swearing under his breath, before he relaxed slightly, and grabbed his untouched drink, eyeing his watch intently. Monk looked on, confused, and when Naru's watch alarm went off, Naru raised his bottle.

"Happy birthday, Gene." He whispered, and John raised his, and clinked it against Naru's.

"Happy birthday, Gene." He echoed, and Naru shot him a grateful smile. Monk jumped when another alarm went off a minute later, and blinked when Lin raised his bottle of dubious liquid, and gestured in Naru's direction.

"Happy Birthday, Noll."

It was echoed by the rest of them, and Monk narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the wet glint in Naru's eyes, before Naru took a sip of his drink and started coughing, muttering foul things about Lin under his breath in English. John flushed slightly, and Yasu immediately took it upon himself to mercilessly tease John about 'having such delicate hearing', while Lin smirked in his corner, his fringe casting the rest of his face in shadow and giving him a slightly demonic look.

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And if Monk noticed that Naru used the coughing fit to swipe at his eyes discreetly, he would just pass it off as an alcohol-induced hallucination.

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Yasu woke the next morning with the thought that either the neighbours were being particularly loud, or that a colony of dwarves had decided to take up residence in his head and start mining his brain matter. The second though was that his mouth and throat felt like the Sahara Desert, or he'd been eating gravel again (okay, he'd done it once as a kid, and his throat had been so cut up he'd had to go to hospital, but he certainly didn't do it on a regular basis).

Everything was vague and he had blurry recollections of a few things after toasting Naru's birthday. There was an unclear memory about how many drinks he'd had, which was never a good sign, but he did remember John dragging him up the stairs with more strength than he'd thought was possible for the small Australian. He also remembered trying to sing, before Monk had wrapped him in a headlock, and giving some crude suggestions to Naru that involved Mai that resulted in his throat seizing up suddenly, and Naru's midnight blue orbs blazing gold for a few seconds.

But there was one thing that stayed true throughout the entire evening.

A grey eye watching them all with an amused glint, and demonic smirk that twisted the taciturn lips, and an angular face that was cast in half-shadows the entire night. All of these things manifested into one person who had seen Yasu make a fool out of himself numerous times during the evening, yet had not once cracked a smile.

Koujo Lin, the Silent Giant.

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Yasu was unsure whether his time in the rings (and gods, he still had nightmares about some of the things Lin went through; the nasty ones that left you paralyzed and in a cold sweat, unable to wake up) had permanently damaged his sense of humour, or whether Lin had a really embarrassing smile that he refused to use, but surely the Chinese assistant had a smile deep, deep down, right? Or were his jokes just not funny anymore?

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Yasu groaned suddenly as a shaft of sunlight pierced through a hole in his curtains, and landed squarely on his face, another shaft reflecting off his glasses on the bedside table to shine in his eyes. The groan was echoed by something attempting to knock his door down with a sledge hammer, and Yasu dragged his covers over his head attempting to drown out both the noise and the sunlight.

"Yasu! If you don't come out right now, you don't get breakfast!"

It was then that the delicious aroma of bacon, eggs and something buttery (Yasu hoped to whatever deities that were out there that John had fried the leftover potatoes, because whatever he did to them was divine) drifted under the small crack in the door, and his mouth watered, because despite having a raging headache, sore eyes and a hangover that rivalled all hangovers, he was still a growing boy.

He tumbled out of bed, cursing when his toe hit something hard and wooden, and fumbled for his glasses, poking himself in the eye before he managed to jam them onto his nose. His room came into focus, and he winced. There were clothes strewn everywhere, and his normally OCD-clean desk was covered in a haphazard, towering stack of papers that looked as if it would topple at any given moment. He looked at the door, and then the mess his room was in, before coming to a decision.

"Shower first."

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He moaned around a mouthful of cheesy buttery potato, offset by the tang of bacon, and closed his eyes in bliss. A shower had done wonders, but he swore to heaven and back that John's food could create miracles. There was a huff from John, who was buttering his third slice of toast with a look of pleased satisfaction.

"Surely my food isn't that good."

"John!" Yasu cried, remembering to swallow his food before he choked on it "Your food is divine! Even…some famous chef who's always on TV couldn't be this good."

John raised an eyebrow in disbelief, and Yasu shuddered as a horrid thought came over him.

"You know, none of us used to raise our eyebrows before we met Naru, and now we do it all the time! Maybe…" his voice dropped to a whisper, "Naru is taking over our bodies slowly but surely. Next thing you know, we'll all have black hair and blue eyes, and were black all the time and…"

"Yasu." John interrupted, holding his hands up in the universal 'calm down' gesture. "You're babbling."

Yasu rubbed the back of his neck.

"Sorry. Nervous habit. But it could be true! Then he'd have an army of Naru-clones to take over the world. Even Mai has started to raise her eyebrow constantly."

John flushed, and ducked his head.

"Yeah, about Mai…" Yasu flinched, and leaned back in his chair.

"I said something stupid last night, didn't I?"

John nodded, tapping his fingers on the table.

"Thankfully, Naru shut you up before you could do any damage, but I never want to see him that angry again." John shuddered. "The temperature dropped about 6 degrees, and his bottle iced over."

Yasu slumped in his seat, glad that he had finished eating breakfast before John had broached this topic; his appetite had fled as quickly as his common sense had last night. He nodded, and the two flatmates stood in unison, clearing the table efficiently with the ease of continuous practise.

"Do we have a case? Need to be in for anything today?" Yasu broke the silence while they were doing dishes. John shook his head.

"Nothing yet. Besides, you know that Lin will most likely text us if there is anything."

"I can't believe he has my number." Yasu winced. "Especially since he didn't ask for it. I had a whole list of pick-up lines I was going to use on him."

John gave him his 'you-are-so-weird-but-you're-my-flatmate-so-I-put-up-with-you' look.

"Knowing him, he'd probably stare you into silence, and make you feel unbearably stupid and foolish."

Yasu scowled.

"He does that anyway."

John gave Yasu a rather soapy pat on the back in sympathy…before he stole the towel that Yasu was holding and whipping Yasu on the legs.

"Lighten up, mate. He does that to everyone."

Yasu carefully placed the plate he was holding on the rack to dry, before he grabbed the towel hanging on the oven and whipped John in return, catching him square on the thighs. John yelped, and held up his towel.

"Surrender!" Yasu pouted.

"You're no fun." John smirked at him.

"I just don't want to break anything exacting my revenge upon your pitiful being."

"You know what this means, then, don't you?" Yasu mock-whispered. John narrowed his eyes.

"Death. By. Zombies."

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"Oh, come on!" The groan came from John, as a wave of zombies poured out of an 'abandoned' building, and a teammate shot one of them. Yasu cursed, and reloaded his gun.

"This is why I hate it when we get newbies on our team. They always screw everything up."

John hummed in agreement, eyes fixed on the screen, thumbs blurring over the keys as he tried to prevent a teammate from dying. Yasu glanced at John's predicament, before shaking his head, and cackling madly when he found a grenade. John hissed in annoyance, and a notification that their teammate had died flashed on the screen.

"Crap." John muttered, and turned to Yasu as the second teammate died. "Run?"

"Run." Yasu agreed. On the screen, two characters sprinted away from the horde of zombies, only to come to a dead end; a lake with no boat. Yasu groaned, and dropped his controller on the couch next to him, even as the screen flashed a red 'GAME OVER' across the gory scene. John slumped on the couch, sighing, as his own controller landed next to Yasu's.

"Stupid newbies." Yasu muttered, John making a non-committal noise, but not articulating anything further. Yasu frowned, and glanced at John out of the corner of his eye. The Catholic Priest was fiddling with his phone; locking it and then unlocking it over and over again, preoccupied with the simple, repetitive action. His eyes narrowed.

"Something on your mind?" Yasu made sure that his voice was open, inviting even, and John looked up at him, opening his mouth to say something, and then closing it as he thought of something.

"I'm fine." He finally answered, and Yasu snorted in disbelief.

"Your lock-screen isn't that exciting." He pointed out, and John rolled his eyes, before staring that the lock screen.

"Actually,' John began, 'maybe you could help me with this...puzzle that's been bothering me for a while."

Yasu sat up straighter, gaze fixed on his flatmate, who stared doggedly at his cellphone.

"Enlighten me."

"So,' John launched into his situation, ' in a totally hypothetical situation, what would you do if a guy wanted to call his brother who lives on the other side of the world, but he can't do so because his father, whom he is avoiding after an argument, monitors all the phone calls, emails and even mail. The brother can't sneak off on his own, and all secret codes were taught to them by their father, so those are out. The father has a way of tracing calls to their point of origin, and the guy wanted to make sure that this didn't happen, because he has no desire to go back into an organization that branded him like cattle."

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Yasu blinked, dumbfounded and speechless for quite possibly the first time in his life. John sunk onto the couch, finding the coffee table particularly interesting, despite the fact that it was falling apart, and avoided his gaze like a seasoned professional.

"Are disposable phones use…never mind? Payphones are out of the question, and mail takes too long anyway. What to do…" Yasu pondered this question, thinking of it as something he would help a friend do (because that was precisely what he was doing), instead of an isolated problem.

'Payphones are out because they can be traced, as well as cellphones and mail. What to do, what to do…a friend's problem, not an isolated problem…problem…numbers…phone…my flatmate…my…mine. Bingo.'

"You could use my phone to call him." Yasu blurted out before he had thought it through properly. "I mean, your father wouldn't recognise the number, and it can always be deleted straight afterwards anyway. And even if you father saw it, we could make up a story about a pen friend with the wrong number."

Yasu looked at his flatmate, who was staring at him with a mixture of shock (he had spoken rather loudly), admiration (who wouldn't look at him in admiration?) and what looked like budding hope.

"Really?" John's voice was soft, and for a moment, Yasu didn't have any trouble imagining him as a small kid; all blue eyed innocence hidden behind light blonde hair, staring unassumingly up at someone. Yasu grinned brightly, and pulled out his phone, handing it to the slightly unresponsive John.

"Yep. Call him now! It should be about…6:30pm over there, so you should be fine!"

John gave him a wobbly smile, and unlocked Yasu's phone, before punching in a series of numbers that seemed almost automatic to him. Yasu scooted closer to John, and pressed the speaker button. John swallowed nervously as the phone rang, and rang, and rang…it was picked up just before John was about to hang up, and a smooth tenor, similar to John's answered.

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"Mark Brown, demon hunting and car repairs. I'm currently unable to answer the phone right now, but please leave your message, name and number, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Cheers!"

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John choked, and Yasu noticed the tell-tale glint of tears, even as John wrapped his arms around himself, biting his knuckles. Yasu rolled his eyes, and cleared his throat.

"Hello,' he began, enunciating the English words carefully,' my name is Yasuhara Omasu; I am a friend of John Brown's? Please delete this number after the message is complete."

Yasu nudged John, as his indication that it was his turn to start speaking.

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"Hi, Mark, it's me. I'm…alive, and fine. Yes, I'm eating, so don't worry about me starving. I'm…helping at the orphanage in a church in Japan, and investigating the paranormal as a side job, with an offshoot of the BSPR. Um…I'm glad that you're all fine, and tell Matt congrats on his girlfriend…" John trailed off, and sniffed, wiping his eyes.

"It's great that Aunt Miriam is having a kid, after all her heart surgery. I think that it's going to be a boy, and they should call it Timothy, because going through school with a name like Titus will be hard. I hope Luke and Esther got back from their hunt okay, and…that they take you along with them next time, so you're not stuck with Peter all the time. Maybe…maybe if I come back, we could go surfing? It's been a while; I'm sure to fall off lots of times. Um…"

John looked at Yasu for guidance, and Yasu mouthed 'cases', giving John a look that suggested that he tell his brother what he'd been up to for the past three or four years.

"So, um...my flatmate Yasu seems to think I should tell you about the cases we've been on, so…the first one I actually met the guy in charge, who went by Kazuya Shibuya, but we found out that he was actually Oliver Davis a few cases on…"

Yasu sat on the couch as John recounted their cases, amazed at the amount of detail that John could remember, even from the case at his high school, and how John had recognized that the teacher was a threat from the start because her eyes were off or something like that. There were colloquialisms that went right over Yasu's head, and a fair few words that Yasu didn't even know existed in English, but he didn't bother to ask John about them. His flatmate had tears streaming down his face that he clearly didn't notice, and his voice was getting a little hoarse, but he ploughed on, seemingly desperate to impart this knowledge onto his favourite brother.

"…that's all I've done so far, what about you?" John's laugh was slightly forced and a bit wet, but he either didn't notice or didn't care.

"I miss you all,' John choked on tears, and his voice cracked, 'and I love you too. Stay safe. Bye."

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He pressed the end button, and drew his knees up, burying his head in his arms, crying silently. Yasu blinked, and hovered unsurely, not used to seeing this level of emotion from one of his guy friends. He settled for awkwardly patting John on the back, which moved into the soothing circles he did for Mai whenever she'd have a nightmare or a scare at school with a malicious spirit.

"Sorry." Came the muffled apology from John. "I didn't mean to lose it so much."

Yasu shrugged.

"What are flatmates for? But that's not the point. The point is, do you feel better?"

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John looked up at him, eyes bloodshot and cheeks red, but his smile was brighter than Yasu had ever seen it before.

"Much better. Thank you."

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TA DA! Sorry it took me so long, but you know the drill.

Read – You've done that

Review- Please

Fav – Optional

Follow- Optional

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Cheers,

Siofra