25; rollercoaster

I buried myself underneath the sheets of my bed for the rest of Sunday afternoon. My mind was in a dither as I drifted in and out of consciousness. All my thoughts were simply racing back and forth.

Firstly, who would have known? Axel's childhood seemed to be no less shitty than my own. Apart from his somewhat bad temper that's seemed to carry on into who he is today; he's seemed to have dealt with what happened on his own terms and moved on with his life. We were alike in more ways than I realized.

Axel checked on me a couple of times during the rest of the day. He finally got me out of bed when Sora was finished cooking his 'extravagant' dinner which could have been a three course meal, considering the amount of food he had cooked. Well, he definitely wouldn't be doing any cooking for the rest of the week.

Things with Axel and I went back to normal the following day. The uneasy, mellowed out feeling gave way to Axel's usual charm and rambunctious nature. He was out and about, doing what he usually did, and I went back to being sarcastic Roxas. …Sarcastic love sick Roxas, that is.

Jeez. He would be gone …in a month.

Axel would fall out of my life just as he had entered it. A fleeting whirlwind that came and managed to fix nearly everything that had been going wrong. Now it was going to leave everything in shambles as they had been before. I was being prompted to act and therein laid my need to take charge.

The house was finally cleared of our guests on Monday afternoon. Axel finally went back downtown because the media storm had died down and Riku had some photo shoot to attend to. Sora was disappointed there was no one left in the house to make huge dishes for, so he cheered himself up by baking cakes like nobody's business. Hell, he shipped Axel off with a complete Angel Food Cake one day.

It was time for me to do some research. Yes, I know, leave it to me to research relationships like they're some type of school topic. How many times must I repeat myself, I'm sexually frigid, damn it.

First, I researched books. I came across a lot of material, but nothing seemed to help any. There was this interesting one though called 101 Nights of Grrreat Romance: Secret Sealed Seductions for Fun-Loving Couples. Mmm, fun-loving couples? What if you're a sadistic couple? Would you still be able to seduce each other properly? Why was I even thinking about seducing him? For Christ sakes, I was just trying to tell him that I liked him, not seduce him. Though seduction …might be appreciated in the long run.

I can't seem to get myself out of the gutter.

After books had failed me, I went online, but every site that I went to basically told me the same thing. Watch for body language; listen to the way they address you, how close can you get to them without having them draw away from you, do they talk about you and to you all the time and no one else?

Why the hell was there so many rules for finding out if someone liked you or not? Maybe I should just write the following out on a piece of paper: "Axel, won't you please be my tall gay flaming knight in shining rainbow armor and whisk me away on a gay magical adventure so that we may romp and—" …I command my imagination to stop there, this is demeaning.

I got to put some 'research' into effect in the following week, though.

Axel didn't mind being touched by me; I was the one that always pulled away from him. It wasn't particularly easy for me to redress his sutured hand with gauze when I was always pulling away from him in an attempt to keep distance between us. I did the same thing when we sat on the couch. We never sat side by side anymore. Axel was usually stretched along the length of the couch, his feet usually at my side while I was scrunched into a ball at the other side, always wary to keep a small space between his feet and where they would touch my upper thigh.

He would probably be thinking something like, "Oh, I'm just invading Roxy's personal space bubble." Or something equally …Axel like.

Axel always kept eye contact with me unless he was thinking or doing something else during a conversation. I don't really know what to make of that, because as far as I know he keeps eye contact with just about everyone he talks to. That is unless they're annoying him …and I have a little bit of experience with that. Otherwise, he always smiles a lot and laughs when he's with me …but I think that's just a part of Axel's personality.

Either way, his body language did little to help me in any way. That eventually led me to establish that I needed to make the first move. You must know I'm not too well versed on the whole …asking someone out thing. Hayner? He took the initiative to claim me in the possessive way that he did. I mean, I had that little relationship going on with Naminé when I was in my early teens, but that …in and of itself was awkward and didn't last for very long.

Apart from Axel, who took up ninety nine percent of my thought capacity, I had other thoughts on my mind. For instance, I still hadn't seen my father and talked to him about his business proposal to me. I'd been mulling it over in my head for days and I had finally come to my conclusion. I went up to my parent's house the following weekend and sat down to talk to my father about what I had decided.

I established with him that I would take up the business later in the year because it wasn't one of my main priorities at the moment. We, however, did settle that by the end of the summer and somewhere in the beginning of autumn, I'd be working alongside him. It was a compromise. For once in my life I had something set in concrete instead of a fleeting ideal.

Like Axel. If I didn't do something soon about Axel, he would become a fleeting ideal.

…I needed to focus on Axel …

Shit.

xXx

"I heard you had a rather busy week."

"I'm used to it by now." I shrugged.

"Ah …" Ansem said, drawing a hand underneath his chin in thought.

I wanted to cut right to the chase. "Axel told me about your decision."

"I figured he might have." Ansem began, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "And what do you think about it?"

I gritted my teeth, "First off, I think it would have been nice if I had had a say in the matter before the two of you decided anything." I crossed my arms, "But then again, you're the expert."

"You are angry."

I closed my eyes, raising my eyebrows and lowering my head slightly to my chest, "No, I'm just irritated …"

"Why?"

I opened my eyes to look at him, "Because," I started, but didn't bother to finish.

What I wanted to say was …you're taking away the one source of normality in my life.

The only person since I met Hayner, that hasn't judged me before he even knew me. A person who was able to show me the better things in life, who was able to treat me as an individual, rather than some delicate piece of glass that was bound to break at any moment.

Yeah, he pushed my buttons, but those buttons needed to be pressed because everyone else was too fucking scared to do it. I …I can't …do this in a month. It feels like I've had these feelings for forever, but I …I don't know if I can work up enough courage to do it in a month. You say that I've changed, Ansem, but …god, why isn't this change helping me now?

Ansem relaxed into his chair, "I …presume you have reasons but you do not wish to voice them to me, and that …is alright." Ansem sighed, "…I cannot control this situation anymore than you wish to. Axel does have other parts of his life that he needs to attend to. Even though he has been with you for quite some time …a time that felt like it was bound to go on forever, it must now come to an end."

But I don't want it to.

"It does not signify that this is the end of your time being with one another, or in the company of the other. It simply means that while your roads may now be going on in different directions, you still will be walking side by side, except …not on the same road anymore." He looked up at me, "Do you understand?"

"Yeah." I answered, running my hand through my hair irritably. To put it in less Ansem-ified terms, Axel was resuming his normal schedule of being Mr. Rock Star while I had a job to resume as Less Fucked Up Little Rich Boy. We would still be able to stay friends, but our relationship as live-in and patient …or whatever the hell I was …was over.

"You do not sound too convinced." Ansem sighed, "Roxas, this is just about as hard for you as it is for Axel. He's grown quite attached to what he refers to as his 'emotionally stunted midget', a terminology you may later …discuss …with him. He was …rather—is—adamant about leaving you. I've come to understand that he cares about you …perhaps beyond the bonds of what he really should."

…What was Ansem saying?

"I know that it would agonize him …to hear that something had happened to you while he was away." Ansem looked back to me, a soft smile on his face, his eyes crinkling, "Perhaps I should start doing this with some of my other patients. Perhaps they would find a friend in someone else like you've found a friend in Axel. Some stability in their lives. It's a wondrous thing, Roxas. Having a friend to lean on when times get rough. There are a lot of lonely people in this world …and many of us are blessed to have but one friend or person that we may turn to in times when …we feel lost."

"…It's going to feel strange without him being around all the time." I said, reclining a bit.

"It will for quite a long time …" Ansem said, nodding his head. "But for the time being, just enjoy the time that you have together. I can promise you nothing else; you must make the best out of the time that you still have left with each other."

"…I know." I murmured. I looked out of the window behind me and down to where the lush green trees were swaying gently in the wind.

Flower petals were beginning to fall.

Time was running out.

xXx

On the first Monday of June, Axel was set to go back to the hospital.

Axel stretched, yawning loudly. "You don't know how happy I am to finally be able to get these shits taken out." He murmured, holding his left hand out in front of him. It was finally time for him to get his sutures taken out and to check the progress of how his hand had healed. He looked up at me. "You've done a spectacular job of looking after me, my dear Nurse Roxy."

I glanced at him, "Mmm …"

He dropped his hand to his side, "Are we almost there yet?"

"Two more stops." I muttered, readjusting my sunglasses.

Axel sighed, look away from me. "I'm bored."

"Well occupy yourself with something." I said, my voice still low.

"Humor me?" He asked hopefully, raising his eyebrows.

I looked at him briefly, and then turned away. "With what?"

"I don't know …do something Roxas-ish." He waved a hand nonchalantly and rested his chin against the back of his right hand. "You've been really quiet for this entire week. I miss my daily Roxas-isms."

"Hm." I shrugged, looking out of the window.

"Roxxxxyyy." He whined, leaning in close to me so that I was cramped between the wall of the bus and him.

I turned to glare at him, as he leaned in. "No, damn it. Now stop acting like a little kid." I could feel my face heating up so I looked away from him. I think this is what some people might refer to as sexual tension. And the other thing would be me getting surly at Axel because I am sexually frustrated. Ha! Me! Sexually frustrated, now that's a new one.

…Was my libido finally working?

"Something the matter?" He asked.

"On the bus, in the vicinity of others…" I looked pointedly over my shoulder at a group of girls that were busy giggling and looking in our direction, "…isn't the best place to discuss personal problems, now is it, Axel?" I said, turning to look back at him.

He followed where I was looking, waved at the girls who in turn shrieked a little too loudly for my ears. He turned to look at me, grinning, "Yeah, you're right. Later then?"

I let out a loud exasperated sigh, and drew my hand over my head and sunk lower into the corner of the bus. Axel probably took that as a sign of me saying silently to him, "Don't talk to Roxas right now, or he'll rip your entrails out." so he kept to himself for the rest of the bus ride.

Stupid ass sexual frustration …tension …or whatever the hell this was.

The walk to the hospital was short and quiet. Axel had left me alone to become preoccupied with my own thoughts while he hummed lowly to himself as we neared our destination. When we reached the hospital, we waited momentarily before Axel was called in to be seen by a doctor.

Axel sat on top of the examination table, kicking his legs back and forth like a two year old child. I sat on a plush chair away from the door with my arms folded over my chest, staring off into space. The door opened shortly and a petite, wide eyed doctor with long chestnut hair held back into a braid entered the room.

Her name was Dr. Aerith Gainsborough, and she definitely looked too young for her job. She looked down at the charts in her hands as she sat down in a chair and then looked up at Axel, smiling. "Mr. Ramirez is it?" Aerith asked, flipping through the pages on her chart, "I understand you're in for …suture removal and to have your boxer's fracture checked out?"

"That would be correct." He replied.

"Well," She reached over on the desk to go retrieve some plastic gloves and pulled them onto her hands. "Let me just check your hand for a moment …" She gently probed Axel's hand, flipping it back and forth, and looking at it from different angles. "Ahaa …" She rolled her chair back over to the desk and wrote something down on his charts.

"Well?" He asked, raising his eyebrows.

"It's documented here that your hand had quite a bit of swelling since you were admitted. But …that has significantly gone down since you've last been here. We'll have to get those sutures out and then I'll check on that fracture of yours." She stood up, "I'll be right back."

As soon as Aerith left, Axel sighed and rested his head on the wall behind him. He turned to look at me, "Rox, ever had sutures?"

"Once." I answered, looking away from him at the thought of the memory.

He leaned forward, "On a scale of one to ten how badly does it hurt when you get them removed?"

I crossed my arms, "It's nothing, really …more annoying than anything else."

Aerith came back into the room, two silver objects in her hand, a cloth glove, and a pan tucked underneath her arm. She set the glove down, sat down in her chair and wheeled herself over to Axel, "Alright then, hold still alright?"

He looked at me then back at her, "…Sure." He held his hand out to Aerith and she set to work. He looked away for the most part, making little faces ever so often when Aerith would tug at his hand to loosen up the strings.

When she was done, she sterilized the wound again and put adhesive tape over where the sutures had been and smiled, looking up at him. "All done. That wasn't so bad, now was it?"

He looked at his hand, then back up at her, "Not …really."

She looked up at him, "Can you try and make a fist for me please?" He did as she asked and Aerith felt around softly over his skin. She looked back up at him, "I would say the fracture is almost completely healed. Your charts did mention that the damage wasn't extensive at all …"

"So what does that mean?" Axel asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Well …" She removed her rubber gloves and deposited them into a garbage can by her desk, "Your hand has healed pretty well …but you'll need a little more protection while you're out and about and it's still recuperating." She leaned over her desk and held up the glove she had carried in before.

"A hand brace." He said as if he were already expecting it.

"Yes." She smiled, looking up at him. "A hand brace. As I read from your past medical information, you've had to wear quite a few in the past, haven't you?"

Axel shrugged, "Hey, I prefer them over a cast any day."

She laughed as she ran her hand over his arm and wrapped the brace around his hand. "Well …that's all that there is to do, Mr. Ramirez. Exercise that hand daily and come and see me again in another two weeks and I'll check your progress." She reached for the knob to the door and let the both of us out. "Have a good day!"

Axel gave her a word of thanks, as I followed him out of the room. The minute we were out of the hospital, Axel let out a long sigh and stretched. "Well, the worst is over."

I rolled my eyes at him, "Are you always this whiny, or is my memory failing me?"

He wrinkled his nose, "No, I just hate hospitals."

"You think you're the only one …" I mumbled to myself softly, and sighed.

"You said something?" He asked as he looked up from fiddling with his hand brace.

I shook my head, adjusting my glasses and looked away from him. "No."

xXx

I sighed loudly.

I was currently sitting cross legged on the floor in my room in front of the floor length mirror erected on the door of my closet. Ever since we'd come back to the hospital, I had been sulking around in my room, just sitting around in front of my mirror and staring at myself. I was trying to figure out why I always had to make things so much more difficult than they already were. However, nothing was coming to me. Of course.

As I shifted to the side slightly, something glinted at me out of the corner of my eye and I drew my eyes to the barbell locked into the skin of my left eyebrow. I propped a hand underneath my chin and squinted at myself long and hard.

Spur of the moment was definitely the correct terminology to describe why I had gotten my eyebrow pierced in the first place. I don't even know why I did it now that I think about it. …I was feeling impulsive, wasn't I? Impulsive. …Wish I could feel fucking impulsive now …that'd be fucking nice. I let out a guttural snarl and slouched a bit in further frustration.

"Oh, Roxxxxyy." Axel's voice floated in from by my door. "What are you doing?"

I pushed on the door to my closet, so that the mirror moved and landed on him. I looked up at him, "Looking at my eyebrows."

"They're fine." Axel said, waving his hand brace clad arm. "Be thankful that yours grow."

I turned away from the mirror to look at him, "What?"

He pointed toward his eyebrows and frowning slightly, "Ever noticed how my eyebrows are ridiculously short?"

Now that he mentioned it …Axel's eyebrows were nearly nonexistent. What the hell? "Did you …do something to them?" I asked, looking at him wearily.

"…I …kind of burned them off." Axel answered, laughing a bit hesitantly. He waved his hands, defensively in front of him. "Don't give me that look; I already told you, I was Mr. Pyromaniac when I was a teenager."

"And they never grew back?" I asked him incredulously.

"Nope." He said, "I burned my skin so badly that they never grew back in. If you look at pictures of myself from about …seventeen or eighteen and forward, you'll notice that my eyebrows have never changed."

"You're a walking catastrophe aren't you?" I shook my head, standing up and lowering my gaze.

Axel shrugged, "I'm a bit accident prone I guess. But aren't we all?"

I paused, folding my arms over my chest and looked at the floor. The jingle of Soro's tags and Axel turning away from me knocked me out of my reverie. He bent down to pick the dog off of the floor and pulled her into his arms. She whined at him and made a move to jump out of his arms and walked over to me.

"What?" I asked, as she began to paw at my legs and look up at me with large black eyes. "You want food, I'm guessing? Didn't Sora feed you this morning?"

"Rrraarrff!" She barked back at me.

"Guess he didn't." I sighed. I looked up at Axel and he was already walking out of my room. Soro followed me as I walked into the kitchen, "Always leaving everything up to me …" I found her dog food and poured it out into her dish and Soro toddled over to me happily and started to eat. I filled the water bowl up at her side, and stayed staring at her for a moment. "Hey, Axel?" I called from the kitchen, still kneeled by Soro's side as she devoured her food.

"Yeeeaaah?" Axel asked, sounding like he had just gotten out of bed. He was probably sprawled out over the couch as usual.

I bit my lip, "I've been meaning to ask you this for awhile, but it's been slipping my mind." I paused, "…What happened to Marluxia after he was arrested that night?"

It was quiet for a moment, until I heard Axel's footsteps nearing the kitchen. He appeared in the doorway, one hand linked into the belt loop of his pants, his other elbow balanced against the side of the wall. "Well …" He looked from Soro, then back up to me, "First things, first … I guess you didn't hear about the restraining order…"

"Restraining order?" I asked, looking up at him.

He walked away from the entry way and sat down at the table, "Yeah. Zexion's idea. Enforced by Cid." Axel drummed his fingers down on the table. "It's still in negotiations …but …we've got this whole icky case going. It applies to all three of us and …" He looked away briefly, tapping his fingers again, "You."

I frowned, "Axel."

He held out both his hands, defensively. "It wasn't my idea! Honest!" He shook his head, "Zexion was …pretty adamant about it. He knows how close in proximity you are with me all the time and it would only make sense that the order apply to you, considering all the times you've had the pleasure of 'making his acquaintance'." He grimaced at the thought.

I massaged the bridge of my nose and stood up, feeling an impending headache building in my temples. I needed distraction, a big time distraction. My eyes landed on the sink and I instantly walked over to it and began filling it up with water.

"Are …you angry?" He asked, hesitantly.

"No." I answered, picking up a scrubber off of the shelf above my head and picked a plate up and started to scrub at it. "Continue."

"Well …" Axel started again, " …the person who he got into the fight with decided not to press charges and …they had him down at the precinct for awhile before they released him. I've heard rumors that he's sitting down for an interview with Blender coming out next month. Wonder what that's going to turn out like?"

"Hm …" I began stacking plates. I didn't stop when I heard Axel walking up beside me and appeared at my side.

"I'll stack." He said.

"Alright." I mumbled. I continued to scrub the dishes on in silence; while Axel put the dishes away in the dish washer. "Can you tell me something else?"

"Hm?"

"Should I kill you for calling me an emotionally stunted midget?"

Axel paused momentarily to look at me, and then broke out in a loud laugh. "Ansem told you I said that?"

"Who else would?" I asked, glaring at him.

"Awww, are you angry?" He asked, his grin only widening.

"…No." I said, feeling my cheeks already heating up. He had nicknames for me. Nicknames I didn't even know about. "…Guess you realized if you ever said any of those nicknames to my face, I would have punched the living day lights out of you."

"Yes, because I've learned that if you can't solve things with biting words, you're next instinct is to threaten me with extreme bodily abuse or harm." He leaned in, "Not that I mind, though. It's hot when you do it."

My heart skipped a beat. …Hot?

I instantly stiffened, and the plate I was handing off to Axel slipped from my grasp. He instantly leaned forward, caught it and laughed. "Careful." He bent over to put the plate into dish washer, "I have more actually. Blondie, Sunshine, Tinkerbell, Thumbelina, the Prince …I could go all day, Rox." He wiped his right hand off on a paper towel, when he saw that I was finished.

I still had my hands submerged inside the water, staring straight ahead of me. I could feel the color flooding to my face, the inability to breathe and my arms turning to stone. Axel was going to be the death of me.

"Roxas?"

I turned to look at him, feeling my stomach churn the instant our eyes met. They were soft, curious with his eyebrows high on his forehead. His lips were in a soft pout, like he was about to say something. His body was relaxed with his good hand propped against his hip and his other arm lying idle at his thigh. My eyes wandered a little further and …

That's when my cheeks were starting to burn.

"Rrrraarrf!" I shook my head to clear my mind and turned to look down at the floor. Soro was walking in-between my legs and curling up by my feet, wagging her tail back and forth.

"Trying to steal Rox's attention again, aren't you?" Axel leaned down to pick Soro off of the floor and she barked affectionately at him. He scratched her behind the ears and she whimpered some more, "Attention hog."

I withdrew my hands from the water and stumbled over to the dish towel to dry them off. I could still feel the heat spreading over my face.

"Rox, you okay?" Axel asked, "You look a little worse—"

"I'm fine." I instantly snapped, cradling my forehead in my hands. "I'm …going to go lay down."

I was out of the kitchen before Axel could even give me an answer.

xXx

The month was off to a wonderful start.

…If you haven't guessed by now, that was sarcasm.

For one, those dreams I had been having before? Oh, they just loved to plague my mind every god forsaken night that I went to bed. Of course, the morning after was always splendid when I woke up with a perpetual hard-on and Axel waiting to greet me with his usual cheery smile in the next room over. Seriously, I was waiting for my door to fly off its hinges the next time I tried to open or close it.

Axel seemed to catch on that something was bugging me, he just didn't know what. He'd often frown at me when I'd zone out or got quiet for whatever reason. Oh, if he only knew what the problem was. But then again, I forgot Axel could be as dense as a fucking bush. It was no wonder he wasn't catching on. Or maybe he was, and he just didn't want to say anything.

Also, I was starting to wish that I didn't live with Sora.

It would make it a hell of a lot easier to deal with …sexual problems. As oblivious as Sora was, he was sometimes keen on picking up certain things. Axel must have been talking to him, because Sora started giving me the same looks that Axel had been …except Sora was worse. Instead of being discreet about anything, Sora was all over the place, asking me a million questions on the hour: Roxas, are you okay? Roxas, you seem kind of quiet, do you want to talk about something? Roxas, why aren't you eating? You're looking kind of flushed, are you sick? Roxas?

It was enough to drive me to drink, and I haven't touched alcohol since Hayner passed. Probably the most embarrassing issue he brought up was the topic of laundry. Sora and I have a usual weekly trade off on laundry. He does it one week, and I do it the next, so on and so forth. However, when I started to do my own laundry, Sora was there on my tail asking me a million questions as usual: Roxas, why are you doing your own laundry? Is something wrong with how I wash your clothes? I'm not using too much fabric softener am I? Are your colors bleeding? Are you going somewhere?

I made up some stupid lie about being independent to get him off my back, and I know he didn't completely buy it, but …it was enough to save me from some Sora's never ending questions.

I would have to say; my only somewhat normal—albeit random—day with Axel that involved no one running away like a love sick retard (really, that was only me) was when he randomly gave me a goldfish. The story behind it?

"Random story, I got it on the train going back down town yesterday afternoon." Axel said, scratching his head and looking just as confused as I was. "Some random Russian dude just …sort of gave it to me. You want it?"

I didn't necessarily want the thing to die so I took it after Axel told me what Demyx did to it. He said he had given it to Demyx when he came back home because he didn't want it. Demyx took the fish out partying the other day and Axel knew then and there that it was seriously a bad idea to let Demyx have the fish. …Why you would take a goldfish out …partying is beyond me.

So we went out to the pet store and got the fish a tank and set up a little fish home on the corner of my desk. The fish was possibly the laziest and stupidest thing I'd ever seen. If you tapped on the glass, it would basically ignore you and often got trapped in the filter and didn't know how to swim out from behind it. Oddly, I felt myself growing attached to it though …as dumb as the fish was.

…It was kind of cute, actually.

I asked Axel on the day he gave it to me, "Are you sure Demyx didn't give it any brain damage while …partying with it?"

Axel just looked at me and shrugged, "It's possible." He was sitting on my desk chair, arms crossed over his chest, looking at the fish while I was standing at his side with my hands on my knees watching it also. The fish got caught in the filter again and was struggling to swim out. He shook his head, and snorted. "Did you think of a name?"

"No." I said, shaking my head.

He looked at the fish, then at me and grinned widely, "What about Roxy?"

I glared at him, "I think Axel suits it better, don't you?" I turned away when he started smiling at me. "It's retarded …just like another Axel I know."

"Axie?"

"…No." I said, looking at the fish. "Axel."

"Aw, naming a retarded fish after me, I feel honored." He laughed, turning to look at me again and smiled. "I never knew you liked me so much."

My breath got caught in my throat, and I had to excuse myself before I passed out on my floor and started having a seizure or something. Axel followed after me a little while later, staring at me with that usual frown he always did when I went off and started with my erratic behavior, but didn't say anything about it.

I won't deny it.

I was so hopeless—hopeless enough to waste the entire half of June dancing circles around Axel. I was a complete and total failure. The first half of June had been spent on nothing but solving the problem of perpetual morning wood, trying not to get caught up in Axel's smiles because they just had a habit of turning me to into a giant puddle of mush, and my inability to form coherent four word sentences past the words, 'yes' and or 'no'.

But my saving grace came to me finally. Yes, after waiting for it for so long, in the second half of June, things got interesting.

A lot more interesting.