Disclaimer – ½ Prince and all of the characters—aside from my OC's—belong to Yu Wo

There was a problem growing in my mind, irritating and worrying me endlessly. It was the sort of problem that I was dying for an answer to, yet was far too embarrassed to ask about. Not once had I ever worried about something like this before. The situation was completely alien to me. But here I was, stuck in the middle of it.

Once again I mentally asked myself, "How did you not notice something so obvious?"

Okay, so I was a little dense…or maybe a lot.

I gave a very small glance to Jiū—she was walking along nearby, cheerily talking to her sisters—and then switched my attention back to the scenery, half-listening to Dib while he excitedly rambled on about something involving our nightly training.

Dib. He was the reason I'd noticed my problem. That made me at least a little bit grateful that he'd said and done all that weird stuff earlier in the guest room. However, just because I'd noticed the problem didn't mean I was anywhere near a solution. After all, this problem had been going on for a very long time.

The source of the problem was laughing at something Xiu Chen said moments before, and was now brushing her long, curly white hair over one shoulder.

Thinking about how Dib had, in a somewhat vague way, told me that he had feelings for me, it was obvious that Jiū did not. While Dib openly showed his affection for me at every possible opportunity, Jiū treated me like she treated her siblings. And basically, I didn't really mind that, but I wasn't supposed to be a sibling; I was supposed to be a husband.

How long had it been since I'd met her? I couldn't remember directly, but from what I'd heard from the others, it had to have been at least two months. I'd even been living with her and her family, yet it seemed that I had made no progress in getting beyond the "friend" stage. Not that I had been trying very hard to woo her, but still, it was discouraging.

In the past, countless people had been attracted to me, with no effort on my part at all. It was fending them off and getting them to leave me alone that was the difficult part. And yet Jiū hadn't once shown any interest in furthering our relationship to a place beyond that of friends.

And so I was worried, trying to figure out what it was about me that she didn't like. But the longer I wondered what was unlikable about me, the longer the mental list of my negative traits got, until it completely overshadowed the measly number of positive traits, and at that moment I came to a conclusion; it was no wonder she didn't like me; I didn't even like me.

Heart pounding, I tapped the tips of my fingers on the metal buckle on my quiver strap and frowned down at the ground, trying to think of some way to speak to her about it. With as scared as I was feeling while simply envisioning the conversation, I wanted to never do it, but I also wanted to get it out of the way as soon as possible.

We had around an hour until we were going to arrive at the training spot we were aiming for—a gully full of giants, which Dib was oddly excited about killing, regardless of how teeny he was. I had the time right now, and nothing important was going on that I would interrupt, and the problem would never go away unless I just faced it, so…

A muffled giggle and a small laugh broke into my attempts at scraping together my courage to ask Jiū for a moment alone, and I turned to questioningly look at Wei Bo. His eyes widened and he quickly looked away from me, trying and failing to suppress an amused smile. The three women also were sending many looks and giggles in my direction, so I paused in my steps and gave a sigh, raising a hand to my ear.

Something was tickling it.

Closing my fingers around something smooth and flat, I pulled off the thing and blankly stared down at it.

A pink flower.

I nearly threw it away, but instead my grip tightened as I ran a finger over one of the silky, rounded petals. "Why are…" I slowly began, but my voice dropped off, a different moment overlapping with what was happening.

"Why are you putting plants in my hair?"

"They aren't plants! They're flowers!"

"Flowers are plants. I do not want leaves tangled in my hair, so please, stop."

"It'll look pretty when I'm finished! And I'm not tangling it, so quit your complaining!"

"I do not want to be pretty!"

"Too bad, 'cause you're gonna be pretty whether you want to or not! You're already pretty and girly, even without flowers adding to your looks, anyway, so just let me do your hair!"

…Dib had done this before.

The breathless excitement I had over my abrupt remembrance of something only lasted a few moments before it was erased by an unexpected wave of sharp pain that stabbed through my head. The flower was crushed in my hand and I squeezed my eyes shut, hands flying to my forehead. "Ah…ow…!"

"Al?" Dib's worried voice sounded so small and far away. "Al, what's wrong?"

I slowly shook my head, not opening my eyes just yet as a dull throb began. A slight feeling of confusion filled my aching mind when I tried to remember what I'd just been about to say to him. The words kept evasively slipping out of my grasp, succeeding in their attempts to elude me.

"Hey, Twig. You okay?" Wei Bo asked, moving to stand in front of me. "Did one of the flowers have a thorn or something?"

Cracking open my eyes, I stared downward and took a deep breath. "I'm fine. It's nothing. Just a headache."

"Headache?"

"It's nothing," I repeated in a whisper, lowering my hands. My eyes widened slightly when I saw that I was holding a squished flower, pale pink petals folded over on themselves, stem broken in several spots. All the more confused, I opened my hand and let the blossom fall to the ground, watching as it landed soundlessly in the grass at my boots.

"Al?" Dib gave a light tug to my hair to get my attention.

My hair…that's where it had come from.

I raised my hand again and ran it over my hair, which at some point Dib had braided and decorated with numerous flowers. Trying to keep my rising irritation to a minimum—how did I not notice something like that happening?—I tilted my decorated head back to look up at the halfling. "Dib."

"Yeah?" he asked, eyes wide with concern.

Raising both hands, I grabbed him under his arms and lifted him off my shoulders. "You can say 'goodbye' to your shoulder-riding privileges. Walk on your own."

"Huh? What‽ NO-O-O-O!" he screamed, holding tightly onto my wrists so I couldn't set him down. "DON'T WANNA-A-A! NO! NO! NO-O-O! YOU JERK!"

Irritation blasting sky-high, I watched while he flailed around, shaking his head and yelling, "NO!" over and over as if he thought that throwing a temper tantrum would make me change my mind. Rather than making me want to let him continue to sit on me, all of the screaming and bratty behavior was making me want to knock him unconscious so he'd be quiet, but I did my best to resist the urge.

"Dib."

"NOPE, NOPE, NOPE!" He held on even tighter, eyes squeezed shut. I took advantage of the fact that he couldn't see what I was doing, and quickly unbuckled my arm's bracers, shaking them off. Dib fell to the ground, hands still clutched tightly around the pieces of armor. Finally not screaming anymore, his eyes popped open, a surprised look on his face as he glanced down at the bracers.

"After we train, I will carry you all the way back to the city," I promised, "so walk by yourself on the way to the giants."

"Why-y-y-y‽" he whined, irritably throwing one of the black leather armor pieces at my leg.

"I just…" I murmured, feeling my face heat up with renewed embarrassment, "want to talk to Jiū alone for a little while, if she agrees."

"Talk about what‽" he demanded, eyes narrowing.

"Um, I don't mind, but if it's about your hair," Jiū herself suddenly cut in, looking somewhat defensive, "it was all Dib's idea!"

"S-so what if it was‽" Dib snapped, giving her an angry look. "You handed me three of the flowers! You're an accomplice!"

Sighing, I shook my head, wincing when a flower suddenly fell in my eyes and dropped to the ground. "It's not about my hair. And you," I added, frowning down at Dib as I took back my thick bracers and buckled them onto my forearms, "don't have to know what it's about." Straightening up as I adjusted the bracers, I gave a nod to Wei Bo. "Walk on ahead. I'll fly Jiū and I over once we're done."

Glaring mistrustfully at me, he crossed his arms and planted himself a few centimeters away, face shoved obnoxiously into mine. "Talk alone? Why do we have to leave? Planning something sneaky‽ Planning on molesting my sister while I'm not here‽"

"Of course not." I returned his glare and shook my head. "I would never do that. I just want to talk to her."

Much to my surprise, he looked angrier after I denied his accusation. "What, is something wrong with her‽ You don't like her‽ Not good enough for you‽"

Leaning away a little bit, I shook my head again. "That isn't what I meant at all." There was simply no winning against Wei Bo when he had his Protective Older Brother switch set to the ON mode.

"You…!" Whatever he was going to say was cut off when Avila clobbered him with the flat of her sword, then helped Xiu Chen drag him away.

Inwardly rolling my eyes at his silly behavior, I glanced back down at Dib. He gave me a very reluctant, grumpy frown. "Will you be long?"

"I doubt it." Turning away from him before he could stall me any longer, I strode off in a north-east direction. Jiū followed me a moment later and a glance back told me Dib had finally stood up and was slowly, with dragging feet, following the other three while they headed east toward the gully of giants.

After several minutes of walking, I sat down in the grass and gave a somewhat annoyed look up to Jiū. "Would you help me dismantle my hair, please?"

Her gray eyes crinkled into one of her amused smiles as she knelt down behind me and started gathering together the numerous flower-dotted braids. "Are you sure you want to put it back the way it was? All the flowers make you look so pretty."

Frowning at her playful remark, I took one of the braids over my shoulder and started undoing the sections. "Was that meant to be insulting?"

"No. Did you take is as an insult?"

"I hate being called pretty," I mumbled, tossing aside several blue flowers.

"Why?" she quietly asked, fingers gently tugging at the hair. "It's a compliment."

"Back in college," I explained, feeling my face grow hot from embarrassment, "from the first day to the last, people kept calling me 'Princess' and told me I was pretty. And from them, it was not a compliment. They always had such mocking expressions on their faces whenever they said it…Sarcastically asking things like 'My lady, may I carry your bag?' whenever they saw me in the hallways…It's not my fault my looks are so effeminate," I ended in a dark tone, feeling all of that old hate start to swirl up. They had been so persistent, it was like they had nothing at all more worthwhile to do than make fun of me all day long.

"People like that always stick themselves to a person who has an advantage in one area or another," Jiū observed. "Bullying others is their way of making them feel better about themselves. They were just insecure. Or maybe they secretly liked you and wanted your attention."

"That makes me no more sympathetic than I was before," I grumbled, forcefully tearing a flower stem out of a messy knot in my hair.

"Well, I wasn't trying to make you sympathetic." Jiū gave a small laugh. "I meant you shouldn't pay attention to what they say, since all that does is make you angry. Instead you should listen to what your friends say, and accept their words for what they are; I was complimenting you, not mocking you."

"Then in that case, thank you," I replied, smiling faintly. Of course, I still didn't like having "pretty" attached to me, but I supposed that hearing it from Jiū wasn't as bad as it had been when the people in the past had only meant it in a malicious way.

"Now then, I assume you didn't ask to speak to me about your femininity, so what is it?"

I watched as she dropped several tiny white flowers to the grass at my side and I took a deep breath, feeling heat creep across my cheeks again. After what we'd just discussed, asking if she liked me or not seemed like it would make me appear even more girlish, which was not what I wanted at all. But still, it was worrying me.

"Promise you'll try not to laugh," I requested, drawing my eyebrows together in firm concentration as I stared down at the ground, shakily undoing another braid. Three leaves fell out of the strands and came to a rest on top of my knee. I forcefully brushed them away in a want to keep my hands busy.

"I'll try," she agreed, curiosity coloring her tone.

"Well, I…um…was wondering…since earlier…if you…like…me at all," I slowly, hesitantly and very, very quietly said, my whole face burning like it had been set on fire from the embarrassing words. All of those people who had confessed to me in the past must have had nerves of steel. Here I was simply asking if Jiū liked me, if only a little bit, and my poor heart was about to explode from the anxiety.

Several minutes passed by in thick, awkward silence, then Jiū finally said in a strained voice, "I assume you mean 'like' as in the sort between a man and a woman."

"Y-yeah."

Another long, silent moment crawled went by.

And then Jiū suddenly started giggling, making me blush even more. "Oh, I'm sorry…Ha-ha-ha! I tried, but something … something like that…Here you are saying how you hate being called 'pretty,' and then you go and ask something so girl-like."

"Well, sorry for asking!" I yelled, glaring down at the ground while she continued to laugh. It had taken me so much courage to bring it up, and this was how she reacted…I wished with all of my might that I had kept my mouth shut.

"No, don't…don't apologize," she gasped, roughly patting my shoulder as she did her best to stop her mirth from leaking out. Taking one last deep, shuddering breath, she quieted herself. Mostly. "I'm sorry for laughing, it was mean and I shouldn't have." Giving my shoulder a much more gentle pat, she busied herself with my hair again and fell silent for a bit, supposedly thinking up an answer.

"To put it bluntly," she began, her careful tone giving me a sinking feeling in my stomach, "no. I don't like you in that way. I do think you're a very nice person, of course, but, um, no."

"I thought not," I mumbled, tangling my fingers in the ends of my hair while I wondered if being "a very nice person" was enough. Then again, that was basically how I thought of her.

"Oh, come on," she reproved, "don't give me that disappointed tone. I've wondered about this same thing, you know. You also don't like me in that way, do you?"

Feeling somewhat confused, I shrugged. "I…I don't know. I mean, I guess not. I don't really have anything to compare it to."

"Well, hm…" She paused, running her fingers down the length of my hair. "Have you ever thought about kissing me or something like that?" she asked. "Dàgē says men think about those sorts of things a lot, even when the other person isn't someone they necessarily want to have a relationship with."

"I haven't," I answered, lightly shaking my head. "And to be honest, the thought of kissing you in a romantic way sounds a bit creepy…"

"Not once have you made any moves on me or flirted even a tiny bit, so I suspected that you didn't like me. It was pretty obvious. And also, not to insult you again," she warned, pulling my head back so she could see my face, "but are you gay?"

My eyes went very wide at her question and my face paled slightly. "I-I don't know," I blurted before I had much time to think. "I mean, I've never thought perverted things about men before." Pausing, I mentally recalled the moment I spent staring at Heng's chest earlier that afternoon, contradicting what I'd just said. Feeling somewhat horrified, I pushed that from mind and shook my head. "But, um, I've also never thought about those things about women…I guess I don't like either gender. Or something."

Jiū quirked an eyebrow in a bemused way. "So in conclusion; you're asexual."

While that sounded plausible—if I wasn't heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual, what else was left?—that also made me feel extremely worried; saying I was asexual made it sound like I was impotent, and being impotent was very bad; my father was obviously expecting me to make an heir to whom I would pass on the company whenever the time came for me to retire, but how was I supposed to make an heir if I had no sex drive whatsoever? Adoption was out of the question; my father would never allow his precious company to be passed to someone out of the direct blood line. That was a given fact, seeing as how he'd made me—the person he apparently hated the most—his heir when he could have chosen one of my cousins or one of his employees.

This was terrible.

And completely unforeseen.

"HEY!" screamed an unexpected person called over our team channel.

Oh, thank goodness. A distraction.

"Who's that?" Wei Bo's voice added quickly after.

"Lolidragon!" she replied.

"How did you get into our team channel?" I asked, feeling confused as my head rang with the obnoxiously loud volume of her voice. I'd thought only team members would be able to come into a team channel. Then again, the six of us still weren't an official team, so maybe that had some sort of impact on our channel's security.

"STOP ASKING SO MANY QUESTIONS!"

"Geeze, you sure are grumpy. They only asked two," Dib remarked.

"SHOOSH!" she rudely told him. "Come back to the city! We need you guys!"

"Yu Lian didn't give me more work, did she?" I wearily inquired. "I only just finished making those damned short bows for her. All one hundred of them. And the five hundred arrows before that. And the random pieces of archer's armor before that. And the two hundred health potions before–"

"JUST COME BACK!" she snappishly ordered. "WE'LL EXPLAIN WHEN YOU GET HERE!"

"Okay. We'll be back in an hour or so," Jiū assured.

When Lolidragon disappeared from our team chat, I stood up and sighed, reluctantly looking to the west, not wanting to return so soon, especially when we hadn't even had a chance to train at all. I held out my hand to Jiū. "I would fly you and I straight back to the city, but then Dib would complain, so let's go join them."

Giving a small laugh, she took my hand. "Alright. This is my first time flying, so please be gentle with me." Smiling, I carefully picked her up, unfurling my wings and jumping into the air. Only around two minutes had passed before we spotted the others down on the ground, and I landed, switched Jiū with the sour-faced Dib, and then we continued over the hilly land in a westward direction, back to Infinite City.

Slightly less than an hour later, we were filing into one of the largest meeting halls of the central tower, and the members of the Odd Squad—still sans Prince, it seemed—Dark Phantom, and that one tattoo-faced, pokey-haired warrior whose name I couldn't remember all turned in our direction, anxiety smothering their faces.

"What's wrong? Why have you called us?" I asked, looking at each person in turn as we came to a stop.

"Fan is leading an army to attack Infinite City," the unknown warrior informed quietly. "They'll be here in a few days."

I stared at him for a moment, wondering if that announcement was supposed to make sense. It didn't, in several ways.

"Who's Fan?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"He was one of the three leaders during the Grand Melee," Dib explained, tilting his head back to look up at me. "The competing teams were all clumped into three groups. Nan Gong Zui here was one alliance's leader, and Fan was another."

"Oh," I said, feeling relieved that Dib had unintentionally answered two of my questions.

"Why's he attacking the city?" Wei Bo inquired.

"He doesn't like Zui," Doll answered, sighing slightly from her chair. "They're rivals."

"The city…is being attacked by an army because of something as trivial as a rivalry…?" I stared at Nan Gong Zui in utter disbelief. What in the world was the matter with these people? This was just a game. How ridiculous could they get, starting an entire war with one another for some stupid reason like that?

When Nan Gong Zui's face fell into one of extreme offense at the word "trivial," Doll added, "Fan doesn't like Prince-gēge very much, either. Since he's the city lord and all, it adds to Fan's motive for stealing the city."

Was that continuation supposed to make me see all of this as less idiotic? If anything, that made me think this Fan person and his battle was even more pointless than I had initially.

"We only just got word about all of this," Yu Lian said, "so we called you all back to help us spend the next few days preparing the city and yourselves for the attack." She looked over the five of my teammates, but then surprised me by suddenly staring at me as well. "Aeolus, I know you're not in the military, but…" She paused when I began to shake my head in refusal for what she was going to say next. There was no way I wanted to take part in a war, much less one being fought for such stupid reasons.

"I don't want to fight. That was the reason I declined joining the military department in the first place," I said, giving her a stubborn glance. I couldn't actually remember when I'd been assigned to my position, but knowing myself, that had definitely been why.

An icy glower settled on her face and she stepped forward with deliberate forcefulness. The sight was absolutely terrifying, but I stood my ground, determined to win against her. "Aeolus, you are not in a position to decline our request for help when the city is in the danger it's in. As a member of the Odd Squad and as one of the city owners, I have the authority to command you in any way I so choose. As one of Infinite City's citizens and a subordinate to the Odd Squad, you can hardly refuse. However, since you are Gui's younger brother, I would prefer not to use drastic measures to change your mind, for his sake, not for yours."

"I've already done what you asked of me and made you a great deal of weapons, armor, and potions. I refuse to fight," I answered as steadily as I could manage, attempting not to wonder what she meant by "drastic measures." Knowing Yu Lian, it was probably something horrible, like throwing me in a torture chamber and doing unspeakable things to me until I agreed.

With a long sigh, she crossed her arms and stared up at me, a calculating expression falling over her eyes. "We'll give your team a room in the castle if you agree."

"No, thank you. I don't want a room."

"You already offered that to us a long time ago," Wei Bo added, looking a bit annoyed. "And we declined."

"We don't spend much time in the city," Xiu Chen agreed, "so we don't really need housing for our team."

Doll scampered up to Yu Lian's side and offered me a partially eaten cookie. "I'll give you this!"

"No, thank you," I declined, shaking my head. She immediately shrugged her shoulders and stuffed the snack into her mouth.

"As if food bribes would work on Al," Dib snorted, scowling at the girl.

Staring at Yu Lian again, I put on a very firm frown. "I'm not fighting, and that's my final—OUCH!" Whirling around to look for the source of the sharp, stinging pain in my shoulder blade, I glared furiously down at Lolidragon. She waved a fistful of tiny black feathers at me, then threw them at my face. Reaching a hand around behind myself, I rubbed my feathered skin through the holes in my leather top. There was a large bald spot interrupting the thin lines of plumage running across my back. "Why are you ripping out my feathers?" I demanded angrily, hoping they would grow back soon. Since when had she been behind me, anyway?

"Cooperate, or else I'll pluck every single one of your precious little feathers!" she threatened, stabbing her finger at my nose. "There's no time to stand around here and argue until you agree, stupid! We don't have nearly enough archers for the city defense, so you're gonna help us whether you want to or not!"

"Why should I involve myself in Nan Gong Zui's battle for superiority over this Fan person?"

"Because it isn't just Zui's battle anymore!" she yelled, grabbing a lock of my hair and roughly tugging on it until I slapped her hand away. "All the rest of Infinity City has been pulled into it, and we've got to fight or we'll lose the city, and there's no way I'm gonna let that prissy man get his mits on the Odd Squad's property!"

"Why are you so reluctant to help us?" Ugly Wolf asked quietly in the silence following Lolidragon's words. I clamped my mouth shut in a refusal to explain myself. As if I would blurt out such personal things in front of a large crowd of people I barely knew.

Lolidragon lobbed one last glare at me, stomped over to her team, grabbed Gui by his shirt front, and then dragged him back to my team and I. "Convince him!" she ordered, pushing us both toward a nearby doorway.

"Let's get the rest of you organized," Yu Lian suggested to the others, and they were promptly herded outside. I stared after them, and then glanced at Gui, not feeling at all prepared to suddenly speak to him. We'd been plenty friendly with one another as of late, if one could call it that, but that didn't mean I was okay with having a spontaneous heart-to-heart talk. He didn't look very enthusiastic over the idea, either.

Gui sighed slightly and turned in a very reluctant manner toward the door Lolidragon had shoved us at. Giving one more longing look in the direction of where everyone had left, I followed after him, closing the small meeting room's door behind myself. A very long stretch of silence took place, and I glanced awkwardly between Gui and the stone floor.

"I guess I'm supposed to be saying something convincing," he mused. Sighing again, he leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. "So why are you so reluctant?"

"I don't like violence," I muttered, resting myself on the closed door as I continued to stare downward. "It reminds me of him," I answered quietly, feeling somewhat surprised that I'd said it so easily.

"I assume you're talking about father, but he has nothing to do with this," Gui pointed out, tilting his head to one side as he looked me over.

I laughed lightly, briefly shaking my head at him. "Says the person who hasn't lived with father's constant torment for his entire life. You have no idea what it was like, so please, don't say such things so casually as if you're completely understanding of what I've gone through."

Anger flashed across Gui's eyes, and it seemed as though he was about to yell something, but he looked away, forcibly calmer than before, and nodded. "No, I don't understand," he said carefully, "but I would appreciate it if you would stop talking to me as though you're the only person who suffered while we were growing up. My childhood was nowhere near wonderful, either. All the damn pressure to be perfect every single second, I could hardly even…" Gui paused and took a deep breath, letting his head fall back to rest on the wall. "Okay, we're getting off-topic. Not a good place to be."

His eyes darted about the ceiling for a moment, and then he stared at me with a guarded expression. "Don't think I'm calling you wimpy or anything like that, because I'm not, but you're plenty fine with killing monsters, to the point of looking like you're completely bored while training. And the pain level is only thirty percent of that in real life. So, well, um, I know getting injured still hurts and all, but–"

"If I was afraid of pain, I wouldn't play Second Life," I interrupted, smirking slightly at his perplexed frown.

"What's the problem, then?" he asked.

Exhaling slowly, I went back to staring at the patch of stone floor between my boots. "Monsters are just part of the Second Life program, it's not like I'm actually hurting them whenever I train. However, these are real people we're talking about killing. I don't want to hurt anyone," I whispered. "I know it may not seem like a big deal to you or other people, since this is just a game and it's not like I'll really be killing them, but…but that doesn't mean they don't feel pain.

"The thought of…being like him, of hurting people," I said, my breath quickening as I pressed a hand to my eyes. "I don't want to be anything like him…but sometimes I reflect on how I've behaved, and I wonder why in the world I acted like that. Whenever I lose my temper over tiny, insignificant things, and when I get angry with people when they don't do things the way I want them to be done, and how judgmental and condescending I am…I see him in me and it makes me so sick…It makes me so sick."

Pressing both hands to my eyes as hard as I could, I gritted my teeth and tried to beat down the urge to cry. But, before I knew what was happening, Gui's arms were around me and he wordlessly hugged me with all his strength. Whether out of shock at his actions or the fact that he was squeezing me so tightly, I suddenly couldn't breathe. The unexpected onslaught of brotherliness caught me completely off-guard. It had been the one and only thing I'd ever wanted so desperately from him, but now that I had it, I wasn't sure how to deal with it.

"You moron," Gui snapped. My eyes widened in surprise and I stared at the side of his head, wondering what he was so angry about all of the sudden. Without letting go of me, he continued, "Eleven years may have passed since I've last been around father, but I can say without a doubt you're nothing like him at all. Everyone deals with anger issues at some point or another." He leaned away from me and slapped his hands on either side of my face. "You need to stop being so pessimistic," he scolded. Sighing slightly, he continued in a softer tone, "You've got plenty of prominent, positive traits that make you completely different from him."

"…Like what?" I inquired hopefully as he proceeded to squish my face. I'd been mentally listing all of my negative traits just earlier that evening, and was extremely happy that someone had said I had some good ones as well.

"Well, for one, you're hopelessly compassionate," he answered, smiling slightly. "And you're kind, and selfless, and whiny, and silly, and embarrassing, and obnoxious, and childish, and–"

"Okay, okay, I get it," I grumbled, cutting off his ongoing list of "positive traits." Since when had I been whiny? He was the whiny one.

He laughed for a moment, smiling warmly as he finally let my slightly sore face go, and then he grabbed my shoulders instead. After a few minutes of silent staring, a hopeful look slipped over his eyes. "So, do–"

"No," I interrupted.

Gui briefly glared at me, but quickly replaced it with another bright smile. "Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"If you don't want me to tell all of your embarrassing childhood stories to your teammates, you'll agree to fight," he threatened with a dark scowl.

I thought for a moment, wondering to which embarrassing moment he was referring. "I don't have any of those," I muttered, raising an eyebrow at him.

He made an almost inaudible "tsk" noise and glanced away, lips pressed together in annoyance. Apparently the threat had been empty. Either that, or he was going to make something up.

"Okay," he sighed and stared at me again. "Well, what about this; what would you do if someone was attacking Jiū?"

"Stop them," I answered at once. "Though she would probably beat me to it. She's taken self-defense lessons and can get pretty fierce."

"What about Dib? Would you help him if he was in trouble?"

"Of course," I answered again, somewhat reluctantly. I could see where he was going with this.

"What about someone you didn't even know? A stranger on the street who you just happened to be passing by when they were getting mugged or something of that sort?"

"Yes…I would."

"If so, why are you contradicting yourself by refusing to fight alongside an entire city of people who need your help?" he finally asked.

Darn it.

Stupid perspectives.

I stood silently for a minute, and then finally sighed, looking back at him, determined not to give in so easily without gaining something in return. "Get Yu Lian to hire more people into the supply production department, so I'll actually have time for other things. Even when I'm outside the city, I'm still working on Yu Lian's tasks while my teammates are training. Tonight was the first night in so long that I've had no work to do…" And that Fan person ruined it.

Gui blankly gazed at me and suddenly laughed at my terms, shaking his head in amusement. "Deal," he agreed, still laughing slightly as we left the meeting room to head outside. He glanced at me while we headed for the tower's main entrance. "Though, you know, there are actually several people in that department."

"Then why does it seem as though I am the only one who ever does any work?" I asked, frowning as we stepped into the bright sunlight and directed our steps toward the north gate. "Even with my teammates' help, the lists Yu Lian gives me are so long, it takes forever for us to work through even one of the tasks."

"Well," he muttered, shrugging slightly, "there are different sections in that department; one for people who make melee items; one for magic; one for archery—that's the one you're in, and yes, you're the only one so far—one for things like furnishings; one for supplying the city restaurant with ingredients, and so on and so forth. But at the moment, most of Infinite City's citizens are in the military. Once the population expands more, I'm sure Yu Lian will be able to hire more people into all of those departments. They're all understaffed, really, not just the archery section.

"Our finances are pretty tight at the moment, especially with the preparations for this battle, so just be a bit understanding with Yu Lian and her decisions. Though she seems cruel for having you work alone, we don't really have any funds for hiring more people just yet."

"Well, she could take my pay and use it for a second worker," I said. "I rarely buy things, and I have quite a bit saved up. My team's expenses aren't very large, either."

Gui laughed again. "She'll like that offer, I'm sure," he murmured.

He and I fell silent as we approached the northern gate, and the mass of people came into view. I looked about myself with rising apprehension, searching the crowds for my teammates. I couldn't see them anywhere, but the Odd Squad, Dark Phantom, and several other people from various teams turned to watch us walk toward them, and Yu Lian smiled with relief at my presence. As Gui and I stopped beside the teams, I stared down at her. "What do you need me to do?"

She gestured to a blond-haired elven archer dressed all in green. "This is Legolas from Team Rose. He's the one in command of the archers."

I expectantly looked to him instead. "Ah, yeah," he said with a nod. "Come with me." He led me away from the gate, to a wide, rectangular field set between two buildings, then waved a hand toward the round targets placed at regular intervals at one end of the grass. "We don't have enough archers, so we have to use some of the warriors. Just help them get used to using a bow."

At my disbelieving stare, he faintly chuckled. "Don't worry. I'm not asking you to make them archery masters in a measly three days." He walked over to where the line of warriors were standing, shooting haphazardly at the targets. Attempting not to give them all critical frowns for their messy shots, I sighed and looked back to Legolas. He pointed at one of the targets. "Yu Lian may think you have skill, but let's see what you've got."

Feeling annoyed at his superior tone, I pulled out my bow and an arrow, settled into my stance as I lifted the weapon, carefully drew back the arrow and aimed, then let it fly. It buried itself in the center of the target, so I gave the other archer a questioning stare, wordlessly demanding a critique.

"Hm…" He pressed his lips together and raised an eyebrow. "You're not so bad."

"Thank you," I replied somewhat sarcastically.

"But you're way too slow," he added and crossed his arms, abruptly throwing me further into my bad mood. "If you shoot like that during the battle, you'll be no use to us at all. The enemies aren't going to spend time planning where they'll stab our troops, you know. You have to be fast as well as accurate! In the middle of a war, there's no time to be leisurely!"

Just to make him shut up, with a burst of speed I effortlessly shot five more arrows in a fraction of the time that I'd shot one, each forming another corner of an evenly-spaced pentagon that surrounded the original arrow. I then glared at Legolas' mildly surprised expression and went to fetch all of the arrows from the center of the target. When I returned to the line, he finally smiled and patted me on the shoulder. "I guess you'll do."

Refraining from giving him another sarcastic remark, I simply nodded.

"Alright, you take the ten over here, I'll take the other ten. Later tonight we can switch these guys out for new ones," he instructed, pointing at my new pupils, who were most likely going to come to hate me before the night was over; I was not a patient teacher at all. But I tried my hardest to keep my irritation to a minimum when I gave Legolas another nod, and then turned to watch while the ten warriors wandered over to me, lost and confused looks mixing with the worry on their faces.

Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to smile and focus my mind on the task at hand rather than all of the other problems that kept digging their way into my thoughts. "Let's get to work, then, shall we?"

Just to clear up something; the sexual orientation of asexuality is not the same as the process of asexual reproduction. xD Al is not a bacterium, plant, fungus, or whatever else which reproduces asexually.

Asexuality (sometimes referred to as nonsexuality), in its broadest sense, is the lack of sexual attraction and, in some cases, the lack of interest in sex. Sometimes, it is considered a lack of a sexual orientation.