Disclaimer:

Let's just skip the giant disclaimer you can find in Chapter 1!


x.

FS

x.

x. ENCOUNTER in VENICE x.

(new version)

x.

Starry, starry night

Paint your palette blue and gray

Look out on a summer's day

With eyes that know the darkness in my soul

("Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)", by Don McLean)

x.

The bathroom…

(Saturday, November 3rd 20xx, from different points of view)

x.

The bathroom didn't contain anything of interest to Shinichi, and he has only learned that Ai shaves her legs like most women do. She also has lavender-coloured nail polish (which she probably uses on her toenails in summer since she has left her fingernails perfectly natural), jasmine-scented body lotion, and a pair of tweezers, which he didn't expect her to have. As he feared, she doesn't even have her own shampoo or shower gel, and Seiya and she are sharing a homemade liquid soap in a large bottle, which smells heavily of fragrant osmanthus and a complex mixture of orange blossoms, vanilla, roses, a variety of musks, and other indistinguishable, bittersweet scents…

Naturally, Shinichi didn't expect to find anything unusual—he gives Seiya enough credit to expect Seiya to get rid of all incriminating evidence before inviting a famous detective into his apartment. But sometimes, the absence of an object which should be there is almost as interesting as the existence of damning evidence. And until now, Shinichi hasn't seen any trace of APAH.

Since both Seiya and Ai are now waiting for him on the roof terrace, Shinichi can inspect the living room and the kitchen without fearing disturbance from them. After making sure that he has searched every nook and cranny of the bathroom, the kitchen, and the living room (he has even looked into the piano and leafed through the few books and scores on the bookshelf), Shinichi returns to the corridor to search the pockets of their jackets. As Ai's—and Seiya's—guest, Shinichi is abusing their hospitality and friendship. As a detective and Hattori's friend, however, Shinichi feels an obligation to solve this case even though he isn't authorized to investigate it. In this regard, Seiya and Ai are just uncooperative witnesses (or in Seiya's case: the number-one suspect), who need to be forced to cooperate.

Paper tissues, lip balm, pen, post its, a pocket calendar—Ai has always been minimalistic; and Shinichi can remember her scolding the Professor for ruining his pockets by stuffing them with candies and tools he was unlikely to need. While Ai, on the whole, succeeded in controlling the Professor when they lived together, she fails to manage her boyfriend: Seiya keeps a multifunction pocket knife, a lighter, dancer's tapes, two pocket editions of scores (one of The Phantom of the Opera and one of Mozart's Don Giovanni, a notebook, a music notebook, two pens, a pencil, an eraser, four different sets of make-up, four small packets of paper tissues, two scarves, two pairs of sunglasses, three pairs of earrings, a fake moustache, two caps, and even two wigs in the deep pockets of his newer leather jacket.

Leafing through Seiya's notebook (which must be a present from Ai, as she has drawn Seiya's initials on the first page just as she did with the notebook she gave Shinichi on his nineteenth birthday), Shinichi discovers to his anger and astonishment that Seiya has taken notes of the La Fenice case, not even from Seiya's point of view but from Shinichi's, collecting the facts Shinichi has learned during the interrogations in the backstage café. The singer doesn't only have creepily good ears and an excellent memory for dialogues—he also writes with fountain pen and black ink. Since Seiya has translated all the dialogues into Japanese and doesn't use the Roman alphabet in his notebook, Shinichi can't compare Seiya's handwriting to M's, but Shinichi routinely takes photos of the written pages of Seiya's notebook for further inspection.

There is only the bedroom left… If Shinichi wants to search it, he has to hurry lest Ai, growing impatient, sends Seiya to fetch him. For a moment, Shinichi hesitates—not because he is horrified by his actions (this wouldn't be the first time that he has illegally searched the apartment of a suspect) but because he is afraid of the things he may discover. If they're really a couple, Shinichi doesn't need to know further intimate details of their relationship. But the remembrance of singer's amused smile when he informed Shinichi that the case was closed eventually spurs Shinichi into action.

This may be his only chance of searching this apartment, and Shinichi isn't going to lose due to misplaced prudery and irrational fears. Bracing himself for the worst, Shinichi rips open the door to the bedroom and marches to the bedside table to study the contents of the drawers. There is no hint of APAH and—to Shinichi's great relief—no suggestion of any contraception either. Instead, he finds paper tissues and training equipment (small balls and loop bands, which ballet dancers use to improve their balance and their stretches), two full sketchbooks, a pencil, and lightfast India ink pens in twenty colours. Her sketchy doodles (she seems to do one every other day) can't be called "drawings" in the artistic sense, and Shinichi can't even tell whether they're the products of her fantasy or actual plans—but he has to smile when he realizes that they all illustrate radical ways of "punishing SK", who is only recognizable by his blue eyes or black sunglasses, his smiling mouth, and his long black ponytail.

Apart from the shared bed, there is nothing which suggests that they're a real couple, Shinichi muses, studying the contents of Ai's wardrobe and drawers with interest. She has two compartments of socks and stockings (thick winter socks, thin but soft summer socks, transparent and semi-transparent stockings and tights in nude and black) but only one small compartment for bras and panties. She has exactly eight slips if one counts the one she must be wearing and adds it to the three on the clothes rack on the balcony and the four in her underwear drawer (the laundry basket in the bathroom is empty). One slip for each day of the week plus a spare one—she must wash them by hand every day, just like her four bras. She is still ridiculously clean and neat, just as Shinichi has expected from her. What surprises him is the fact that Ai doesn't wear matching colours, as he would have imagined her to be fastidious and perfectionist enough to value such a detail. On the contrary, she seems to enjoy having a motley assortment of colours when it comes to slips while she only owns pink lace bras. There are pastel colours in shades of pink and lavender but also bold indigo and scarlet and the classic white and nude and black. She has a weakness for soft, fluffy, and smooth fabrics, and Shinichi is momentarily distracted by the fantasy of how her skin would feel beneath them before he pushes everything into place and resumes his search for APAH.

Knowing that he would suffer terrible consequences if Ai ever found out that he has been rummaging through her underwear drawer, Shinichi takes care to keep all her clothes in the exact order in which he has found them. In the compartment between the ones containing her underwear and her socks, Shinichi finds Ai's few pieces of jewellery: the necklace he has given her (she still has the pendant) and the love bracelet she wore last night—complete in two pieces, with a tiny screwdriver, which Shinichi could pocket in retaliation for this idiotic game of hide and seek she is still playing with him. Suppressing the urge to steal the screwdriver, Shinichi concedes that encountering Seiya has brought out all his hidden bad traits. Whenever he looks at the guy, he has the irrational feeling of facing his nemesis, the Moriarty to his Holmes; and the detail that the singer (why oh why did she have to fall in love with a singer out of all people?) has the same initials as him only adds insult to injury…

The mere thought of Seiya Kou successfully shuts down the sensible side of Shinichi's brain, whereupon Shinichi gleefully slips the platinum screwdriver into his jeans pocket. He is going to return it to Ai someday—after she has come to her senses and told him the truth about Pandora's Box and the reason why she went away.

Beneath the necklace and the bracelet lies a pink paper box, in which Ai keeps handwritten cards and notes—all of which she has received from her "employer", as Shinichi can deduce from the slanted Hiragana and Katakana and almost unreadable Kanji, which resemble the scribbles in Seiya's notebook. This time Shinichi refrains from reading the notes and only studies the handwriting without trying to comprehend the contents. After all, he is trying to find APTX and APAH and doesn't have the time to go through the random scribbles in which Seiya reminded Ai to eat breakfast or told her that he was going to the grocery store—if the first notes are a representative sample of the whole collection. After a few seconds of leafing through them, Shinichi can tell that they're all random and not at all romantic in the conventional sense of the word although he has to admit that they sound affectionate in a pragmatic or cocky way ("Don't skip breakfast again!" "If you don't get up in time for breakfast, I'll eat up your slice of cake!" "I'll be gone until next Wednesday. Are you going to miss me?")… Shinichi can tell with certainty that, if he had written these messages, Ai would have tossed them after reading them. She is completely besotted with her singer, which is most disturbing, as Shinichi can't think of a way to solve this case without wrecking her rose-coloured world.

In contrast to Ai, Seiya seems to have kept all the clothes he has bought in the last ten years (and thrown all of Ai's letters away, if she has written him any), and Shinichi suspects that the passionate actor disguises himself almost every time he goes out just for fun, as Seiya doesn't limit his wardrobe to a few high quality pieces but owns clothes of all qualities and styles. Just like Ai, Seiya has kept his drawers and wardrobe impressively clean—probably either out of fear of his (fake?) girlfriend's punishments or in order to please her. Hidden under Seiya's socks is a red jewellery box (gold-embossed with Cartier's name and decorative curved outline), which contains a pair of platinum rings—the one Shinichi saw on Seiya's finger at La Fenice yesterday (the singer isn't wearing any piece of jewellery today) and another, smaller one, which would fit Ai's finger, in Shinichi's estimation. Seiya has really offered marriage at least once and she has turned down his proposal, just as Seiya said. The existence of the second ring drastically reduces the probability that their relationship is only a charade but doesn't completely eliminate it. After all, Seiya could have proposed to her simply because he was in love with her while she turned it down because, despite her infatuation with the singer, she could see that a promiscuous actor like Seiya Kou was no husband material…

Frustrated by his inability to focus, Shinichi turns his attention to the battered accordion case, which is lying forlornly between the bed and the window. There is nothing in the accordion case but an old accordion and a small piece of paper from the Gritti Palace with Lucia's phone number, which has been written in an unmistakably feminine handwriting. "Lucia" must be a woman with whom Seiya had a flirt (and a rendezvous?) at the Gritti not long ago, being the inveterate playboy he is! If Seiya and Ai are really a couple, Ai will be very interested in Lucia's existence.

Seiya could have gone to the Gritti this morning to meet up with Chiba Mamoru, in which case Seiya must have seen Hakuba as well. In any case, Shinichi prefers hearing a report of the meeting from the reliable, detail-obsessed Hakuba to squeezing every little detail out of the puzzling singer while making an effort to separate fiction from truth.

Since Shinichi has convinced himself that Ai no longer has APAH at home—which is peculiar since he would have expected her to prepare enough to last her for a whole month—Shinichi grabs Hattori's lucky charm from the coffee table and hurries upstairs to join Ai and Seiya on the roof terrace. Slipping into his jacket with the grim air of a kamikaze pilot before his last flight, Shinichi lets his gaze roam his surroundings once more to check whether he has overlooked anything important until it lands on the morning paper on the magazine rack next to the glass door. The screaming headline "Has our Young Godfrey Norton finally found his Irene?" jumps at him the moment he allows himself to read it. On second glance, it wasn't the headline which caught his attention but the scribbles in the margin next to it. "I'm the singer and actor," the familiar handwriting in black ink says in English. "It's not you but me, who is Irene."

x.


Venice is one…

(Saturday, November 3rd 20xx, from different points of view)

x.

Venice is one of the cities which should be admired from above: far away from the maddening hordes of tourists and the souvenir stalls filled with worthless, tasteless junk; perched on a quiet roof which allows one to take in the panorama of the sky and the sea and the picturesque composition of pink and terra cotta buildings, towers, and palaces, winding streets and scattered canals and bridges—without being disturbed by the noises of the city. But then again, most things only look great from a distance; and even the most beautiful things betray their hideous flaws under a magnifying glass although the flaws, too, may reveal their beautiful, intricate patterns when you zoom in…

The width of the square wooden table on Seiya Kou's roof terrace is not short enough a distance to give away any of the flaws on Ai's face, and Shinichi notices once again that even her looks are intriguingly ambivalent. While she carries herself with the ease of a confident woman who is content with her life and who knows what she wants, she still has the pale complexion, drawn face, and dark-ringed eyes of someone who can't properly pace herself and works much too hard and too long. Sonoko did tell him that Ai is "the chief cook and bottle washer" in Kaioh Michiru's academy—but Shinichi doubts that a pile of paperwork and the intermediate ballet classes can exhaust a former Black Organization head scientist like Ai to such an extent. Seiya's notes in which Seiya reminds Ai of eating breakfast also come to mind. It seems that Ai, left to her own devices, will skip meals and work until dawn before she collapses into bed—a habit she cultivated while working on the antidote for Shinichi, according to the Professor.

After a short inquiry about their stalker, whom neither of them want to talk about ("She is just one of Seiya's fanatic fans, who send him love letters and roses and besiege the academy"), Shinichi openly asks Ai what her tasks as Tenoh Haruka's secretary were. "Sonoko said you didn't only work for Kaioh but for Tenoh as well, but I can't imagine why Tenoh needed a secretary. What exactly did you do for her?"

Ai sighs in exasperation, takes another sip of her orange juice, and leans back into the chair to give him a resigned smile.

"You can tell Suzuki-san that her spying skills are wasted in her art history studies!" she says at last. "Well, Tenoh-san hired me as her secretary right after I came to Venice and gave me random tasks like getting her an appointment at the hairdresser's or informing the artistic director of her quirks. To be honest, I have the feeling she only tried to find an excuse to pay me."

"Did she travel or meet up with anyone a few weeks before her death? Were you in charge of her calendar?"

"She didn't have a calendar." Ai shoots Seiya a dark look. "Just like Seiya! They only memorized their appointments or jotted it down on a scrap of paper, which they threw away afterwards, and they both claimed that it didn't make sense to cling to the past."

She knows that he tosses all her messages—Shinichi deduces—and she is hurt because she is the type that likes to have a touchable chronicle of their love story while he belongs to the few people who only live in the present and seldom keep anything they aren't going to need in the future. Although this theory seems to make sense, it's just another wild speculation, Shinichi concedes, annoyed by the distraction.

She has just shifted in her chair but is still keeping her feet tucked beneath Seiya's thighs, which are partly covered by her large wool blanket, in which she is cocooned like a queen bee in her cell and which she has artfully draped over Seiya's knees as if Seiya were an extension of herself. Giving her another irritated glance, Shinichi resolves to ignore their relationship or charade from now on. He doesn't let other people's relationships distract him from solving a case, and he isn't going to change just because an old friend of his is attracted to dangerous men.

"Do you know about Tenoh's mastectomy? When and where did she have it done?"

For a moment, Ai looks flustered by his question. Then she smiles and raises her hands in defeat while Seiya wordlessly refills her glass.

"I thought she has only bound her breasts," she admits. Despite being Tenoh Haruka's personal secretary, she knows surprisingly, suspiciously, little about Tenoh's travels and mastectomy. "Tenoh-san" was extremely impetuous and reckless in anything she did—Ai claims—and Tenoh-san wasn't talkative when it came to her private life even though she liked to mess with other people's relationships. "It wouldn't surprise me if Kaioh-san turns out to be the only person who knows about Tenoh-san's mastectomy," Ai remarks, flashing Shinichi another of her playful, wicked smirks. "You shouldn't ask me about this. If Tenoh-san's breasts interest you so much, you should ask someone who knows them well."

x.

It's a quarter to four on Shinichi's watch, and they've just drunk up the orange juice in the jug and are about to finish off the last potato chips in the bowl. In a few minutes, Seiya will have to leave for La Fenice, and Shinichi can finally talk to Ai alone.

Shinichi only needs to bridge the waiting time with an innocuous question or anecdote, but before his muddled brain can come up with something more fitting, he can already hear himself saying, "Hakuba is in Venice because someone has shot his falcon."

Seiya darts Shinichi an alert look while Ai's eyes widen in surprise. Evidently, this isn't the right topic for a lighthearted gossip, but whenever Shinichi is in the middle of a case, he fails to remember how to make small talk.

In a few concise sentences, he informs them about Hakuba's phone call, going into detail about Tenoh Akira alias Jean Black, who has planned to watch The Phantom of the Opera before flying to Tokyo on Monday. Ai visibly pales when she hears Tenoh Akira's name while Seiya only looks mildly interested. Perhaps it isn't fair of Shinichi to mention Tenoh Akira's name in front of Seiya although Ai has made it clear to Shinichi that she is trying to hide the watercolour card with Akira's name from her boyfriend. But Seiya has seen the card, anyway, and it irks Shinichi that Ai still insists on continuing this futile travesty instead of giving him an unvarnished account of the past three years and eleven months.

What can Seiya do to her in Shinichi's presence? The singer doesn't look violent at all (and even if Seiya assaulted her, no doubt Shinichi would protect her). Seiya may break up with her over some deep dark secret of hers he can't handle—but one should never stay with a partner who one can't be completely honest with. In fact, the faster Seiya learns about the things she is trying hide from him, the less time they're going to waste tiptoeing around each other like strangers during a blind date.

"What does Hakuba-san plan to do with that bastard after catching him?" Ai asks in English and instantly winces, blushing crimson while Seiya quickly, comfortingly, brushes the side of his index finger across her cheek. She never slipped into English even when she was talking about her British mother while she was living with the Professor, and Shinichi can deduce from the guilty expression in her usually calm gaze—an abnormally strong reaction to the merest slip of the tongue—that Seiya must have grown up bilingual as well (this would explain why Seiya wrote the one note in which he compared himself to Irene in English) and has (or more likely: had) a troubled relationship with his (late?) parents or foster parents.

"I don't know. Nothing too brutal, I suppose. Hakuba isn't the violent type. But since he loves his falcon and is one of the most efficient detectives I know, I doubt that we will have to wait for the outcome very long."

Meanwhile, Seiya has put the empty bowl, jug, and glasses into the basket and wiped the table with the last clean napkin. He doesn't sit down afterwards but lingers at the balustrade to gaze down at Shinichi and Ai with expectant eyes, and Shinichi inwardly sighs at the realization that the clingy singer wants Ai to come with him.

"It's time for me to go." The impertinent guy rubs her behind the ear in the same gesture in which other people tickle their cats. "You can stay home if you want, or you can come with me."

To Shinichi's tone-deaf ears, which can't be distracted by the melody of the sentence, Seiya's tiny emphasis on "come with me" is clearly audible. Although it wasn't only a rhetorical question, it's obvious that Seiya is asking her to watch him sing while leaving her the option to stay with her guest. The playboy is accustomed to manipulating her—and from the smile on Ai's face, Shinichi deduces that she knows it but likes the way he does it.

"Would you like to watch the musical with me from the backstage area?" Ai asks Shinichi, who would rather watch Seiya Kou drown in the Canal instead. Since Shinichi can't possibly tell her the brutal truth, he contents himself with listing the practical reasons why he can't watch the musical with her: He has to meet up with commissario Carrara, talk to Kaioh Michiru, and have dinner with Hakuba tonight—and he has to return to Sonoko's isle before midnight if he doesn't want to run the risk of being mistaken for a burglar by two sleepy karate champions, both of whom are itching for a fight after holidaying for too long.

"You can come with me, though," Shinichi suggests, surprised by the euphoria he feels at the prospect of working with her again instead of against her. He has missed their partnership more than he thought. And the bewildered yet flattered look in her eyes indicate that he must be staring at her with the same expression which Genta wears when Genta is waiting for grilled quality unagi.

"No, thank you. I'd rather watch the musical than meet up with the misogynist of a commissario and that time-obsessed detective."

She rises from the table and follows Seiya, who is carrying the basket and the blanket back inside. After opening the glass door for Seiya with a cryptic "wolves can't open doors with their paws", she stays at the magazine rack to chat with Shinichi. "It's the opening night, after all," she explains while they're waiting for Seiya to fetch her bag. "I can't miss the opening night, can I?"

If this is only an act, she is giving a perfect rendition of the devoted girlfriend who will always be waiting for her beloved in the wings even if it means to sacrifice solving a murder mystery with Japan's most famous detective for a second-rate musical which has been played to death. As distracting as it is, this thought also triggers the memory of Kaioh Michiru's smile when she told Shinichi that Tenoh and she had planned to watch Charade—an old movie which was more important to Tenoh and her than the world premiere of Tenoh's Opera.

"Kaioh-san didn't watch Tenoh-san's 'opera' because she knew better than anyone else that it was a practical joke. Tenoh-san churned out the notes in less than one week while practising Schumann's piano concerto. Any good movie would have been more worth watching than her song cycle!" Ai declares when Shinichi asks her. The memory of her warm head resting heavily against his arm when they were half lying, half sitting on the sofa, watching Charade together before he took the antidote emerges from a dim corner of Shinichi's mind. He has an inkling of why she doesn't want to tell him about Charade. But since he isn't sure about his guess and this is not the right moment to talk about it, he refrains from telling her.

"Can I have this?" he asks instead, rolling the morning newspaper with Seiya's scribbles together to hide the article about "Godfrey Norton" from her view. "I didn't have time to read the news this morning."

She throws him a sharp, calculating glance before her lips stretch into an amused smile, which light up her features like dawn after a long, dark night.

"If you want to collect the news about Seiya so badly, you can have it—as long as you don't sell it to other fans." Noticing that the singer has just returned with her bag, she mercilessly takes it up a notch, "Although I know that you find athletic people with dark hair and blue eyes attractive, I'd never have expected you to be a fan!"

x.


"Fans" were...

(Saturday, November 3rd 20xx, from different points of view)

x.

"Fans" were the music lovers and movie addicts who appreciated his work and supported him by visiting his concerts and watching his movies—or at least that was Kou Seiya's definition of "fans" in the beginning. Tiptoeing around the midnight-blue van in his latest disguise (no one paid attention to the diffident crew member with the blue baseball cap, whose clumsy, abrupt gestures didn't resemble Three Light's lead singer's in the least), Seiya brushed away a pang of guilt about leaving Taiki and Yaten alone with the deadly army of girls, most of whom had come for him if the "I heart Seiya-sama!" banners they were carrying were any indication. He had really liked the girls at first—warm, cheerful, pretty females who smiled and blushed at him whenever they met. But with every performance, the amount of this pleasant type of fan shrank in percentage as the reckless trampling hordes of ecstatically shouting, maniacally grinning, idol-eating sleepwalkers took over.

"Our fans pay our bills, Yaten!" Taiki had whispered before they climbed out of the van, unaware of Seiya, who was changing clothes behind them. "If they find out that you dump all their love letters without reading any, there will be a backlash—and we're going to return to the circus, where you'll have to feed the wild cats while I'll have to play the clown for the children."

Those women, who would kill to hear Seiya sing even if Yaten insulted them verbally, were far more dangerous than tigers and lions—Yaten, who had always got along with cats of all sorts—had retorted. And Taiki could only be so polite towards his own fans since Taiki got all the civilized, courteous, intelligent supporters whereas Yaten and Seiya got all the clinically disturbed cases, who went berserk whenever they sang. Even the most harmless looking girls shared their explicit fantasies online, ripped off their bras and panties after the concerts to throw them on the stage, stalked and guilt-tripped and threatened their idols, and—this had happened more than once!—even attacked them physically. Seiya, who had socialized indiscriminately with everyone at first, had been assaulted and groped and drugged and robbed until he developed a phobia of women while Yaten, who had both male and female groupies, had received disturbingly erotic photos of anatomically correct, voodoo-like tiny or (in one case) giant human-sized silicone ball-jointed dolls, all of whom bore an uncanny resemblance to him. Taiki, who only received love poems and watercolour portraits and porcelain dolls and rare flower seeds from his fans, had no right to reproach either of his less fortunate brothers, who had begun to suffer from recurring asthma attacks and shakes whenever they had to attend a public event!

"You're running away again?" Yaten, who had turned around to Seiya for emotional support, had stared in indignation at Seiya's new outfit, which insulted his sense of fashion, while Taiki had complained about running out of excuses for why Seiya always insisted on coming to the set alone.

"Just tell them I was too drunk to get out of bed this morning or have spent the night with a groupie and you two don't know where I am," Seiya had suggested. It was an explanation which would fit his public image and which would appease Igarashi-san, who had often tried to cure Seiya of his fear of women to no avail. Three Lights lacked the obligatory womanizing bad boy for a mainstream band—Igarashi-san observed. While it was easy to promote a lead singer who wasn't "only" a singing prodigy but also a gifted actor and dancer and drummer and athlete, they couldn't possibly let the public know that said singer spent all his free time writing sentimental song lyrics and unsent letters to his older foster sister. This sort of love might not be immoral but was eccentric enough to be regarded as nerdy or even creepy by the fans. The faster Seiya got over it and let go of his dream to live with Kakyuu some day—so Igarashi-san, to whom Kakyuu was only a pretty girl with strict parents, believed—the easier Seiya's life as an idol would be.

x.

After changing his disguise again in the public toilet (he had become paranoid after being stalked by a psychotic fan), Seiya stretched out on the park bench and watched the clouds above him pass. Freedom, quietness, the sound of the leaves rustling in the wind, the sight of the birds flapping their wings or sailing through the air… If he wanted to, he could blend out all the other noises until he forgot that he was only stealing a few minutes to relax in a metropolis in the rush hour, surrounded by passersby enjoying the last warm days before the last autumn flowers died.

It almost felt like last summer on Kinmoku. Although the sound of the waves and the screams of the seagulls were missing, Seiya could easily conjure them up. If he opened his eyes and reached behind him, Kakyuu would be sitting there, gathering dying flowers for her incense burner or sketching the twigs and stones on the path with a dip pen, a soft sable brush, and lightfast (she always insisted on lightfast) drawing inks. Taiki and Yaten would be reading (or, in Yaten's case, leafing through art and fashion magazines) on a nearby bench. In the distance, their parents would be watching them while sipping cocktails on the porch. And Seiya would drift into sleep while Kakyuu was talking in a low voice about her utopia in which all people and animals were living in everlasting contentment and peace—for no evil, which had escaped from Pandora's Box, had ever existed…

x.

Looks like painted shit! Smells like perfumed shit! Feels and tastes exactly like I'd expect sugared, hardened shit to feel and taste! Yaten beheld the cadmium-yellow bun, which he was holding between his index finger and his thumb, with an expression of deep melancholy. All my senses tell me that this stuff is shit! How low the world must have sunk if we three voluntarily eat shit!

Yaten! chided Taiki, whose face had taken on a sick hue. I expect a little bit more style from you, considering the upbringing you had!

My upbringing—Yaten's eyes narrowed as he dropped the bun into the trash—has taught me to say the truth! You can tell me that blackmailing the corrupt conglomerate bosses, controlling the incompetent politicians, using the dumb terrorists, and executing the traitors and moles who wreak havoc and cost the Organization money, which could have been used for educational and medical purposes, is cruel and wrong! But no one can convince me that this stuff doesn't taste like sugar-coated shit! He flipped his fragrant silver-white ponytail with an air of withering contempt before pointing his thumb accusingly behind his shoulder at their poster advertising Galaxia's Golden Sunkissed Bun. Not everything on Kinmoku Sei was ideal, but brainwashing people into eating sugar-coated shit is worse!

We can go back if you want, Taiki nonchalantly suggested, taking the wind out of Yaten's sail when Yaten had already prepared himself for a rant on why everything they had to do as idols was unethical.

Yaten didn't care to respond since he had already answered that question under different circumstances—when they didn't have either shelter or food and the thought of going back began to sound like a sensible option.

On the set, Igarashi-san and Akane-san were discussing the latest fly in the ointment: vandals who claimed that the advertisement for Galaxia's Golden Sunkissed Bun was sexist (or "reverse sexist"?), which was absurd since neither Igarashi-san nor Akane-san could see any moral problem in draping their protégés topless on the sand, much less in making them share a bun in a suggestive way to attract the customers who were expected to buy the product. Sexism or no sexism, the greater evil—Seiya figured—was the taste of the buns and the obvious health hazard of eating them, but no one seemed interested in such a simple, unsophisticated thought.

Three Lights had to devour the buns in the most seductive way possible, ignoring all the attractive girls on the beach—was this sexist or reverse sexist, Taiki wondered?—in order to focus on what was supposed to be the most tasty, most addictive dish Galaxia had ever created. In the background, Three Lights' first single Search for your Love, a hidden message to Kakyuu, would play—Yaten reminded them in bitterness—their promise of care and everlasting, selfless, platonic love, tainted by the commercial world beyond the borders of Kinmoku Sei…

Another can of black spray paint was smashed against their window frame, and a dark hooded figure disappeared behind the corner before Akane-san, who had lost her patience, ripped the door open to storm out. Intrigued by the incident, Seiya peered out of the window and discovered the graffiti, which the lanky man had sprayed with the help of a stencil on the wall on the other side of the street: a pair of giant black crows, surrounded by seven nestlings.

x.

You refuse because you don't want to? Her eyes had turned into narrow slits, framed by extremely long, extremely curved eyelashes, lit from the inside by a reddish-golden fire. Who do you think you are, Seiya? You aren't the last human being on earth, who can live without a sense of obligation—you have moral and social responsibilities and a destiny to fulfil, just like anyone else on this planet! You've been born into a society, without which you would never have survived. It doesn't matter whether you like it or not! As a human being, you have your damn debt to pay off!

Seiya had tried to be amiable and considerate at first, even joked that he would be a lousy leader because he would force all the members to dance and sing. Instead of scolding him, she should feel relieved that he didn't plan to become a detective. In that case, his work and family responsibilities would clash for sure.

You're always smiling and joking around, brimming with confidence and optimism—but you know what? In truth, you're an ever-worrying, ever-pessimistic, cynical, cold bastard who is too much of a coward to believe that this world is worth our hard work and that even a butterfly like you could make a difference if only you tried!

Seiya, who wasn't accustomed to verbalize his feelings and thoughts, didn't know why he was stung by her words. But for some obscure reason, he was beside himself with cold fury. Soon enough, his sarcastic side, which seldom lacked a riposte, took over and provided him with the words his gentler side would never have said: He was fed up with Kinmoku Sei, their artificial paradise, in which he and his siblings had been kept for over fifteen years. He was sick of their exaggerated care and love, which bordered on mania. He was tired of having to trick bodyguards and steal a motorboat every time he went out to experience the sort of life normal teenagers (those who didn't have insane parents plotting to impose eternal childhood on the world) were living. Who did she think she was? The golden queen of the galaxy, whose every wish was other people's command? Why should other people, who liked their own way of life, sacrifice their freedom to live the life she believed to be the best for them while she wasn't better than the average idiot of terrorist leader who waged war for a silly imaginary god and killed out of religious fanaticism?

There are children who have to learn everything the hard way, and humans don't value what they can easily have. You're just like Lucifer, the angel who was too arrogant and too stubborn to serve. I realize now that I've made the mistake of offering you the world on a silver plate!

Millions of people are dreaming of the opportunities which only you have—so many codename members would immediately kill to be you! But if you're so proud and think you're old and strong enough to choose your own future, I'm not going to hold you back! Don't believe that we're going to move a finger to support you, though. You've cost the Organization more than you can ever pay back. You should be glad that we're not going to execute you because you're not worth the bullet and the time…

I'm going to pack my bags then, he coldly returned. Since you don't want to see me around anymore, I'm going to leave the first thing tomorrow!

Infuriated by his retort, she fisted his hair when he strolled past her to the door, jerking so hard at it that he, wincing in pain, had to suppress the urge to hit her.

Pack? Raising her reddish-blonde brow, she turned to his father, who was nonchalantly mixing another cocktail for the evening. What do you possess which hasn't been given to you by us? What do you mean with "pack"?

The kid has been spoiled for too long, his father, who must be drunk as well, darkly remarked. It's time that he learns how real freedom tastes and that in the "normal" world, the dispossessed don't even get enough air and sunshine.

Vaguely, through a thick fog, Seiya could see Kakyuu hunching over her incense burner, which she had been cleaning, grasping at the edge of the mahogany table while large, round teardrops were running down her pale cheeks and landing on her sketchbook, staining her latest drawing of the sweet osmanthus blossoms he had collected for her. Yaten, who had just emerged from the shower after his nap, was standing in the corridor with narrowed eyes and clenched fists. Even Taiki, who had been immersed in his self-imposed task of memorizing Milton's Paradise Lost, was now staring past his leather-bound book into space. A shadow fell over the room as the light outside changed, and Seiya knew exactly whom they would follow, whose side they had chosen.

It was a gift he had never known that he possessed. Something in him triggered and fostered the sort of love which couldn't be bought with luxury, guilt trips, or even years of care. When he left the room, Yaten and Taiki instantly left it as well. Fifteen years, he could hear his mother saying to his father through the closed door as he was descending the stairs. Insolent, ungrateful, loveless bastards, who we've treated as if they were a gift from heaven! Fifteen years of raising the dirty little bastards of some womanizing lowlife and treating them like your own child; fifteen years of chasing after Seiya's back, grooming Taiki's garden, combing Yaten's hair, mixing their personalized perfumes—and they insult you and abandon you for the merest slip of the tongue when you're drunk and sad and asking them a favour for the very first time.

x.

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if "Anokata-mama" and "Anokata-papa" had invested in these buns just to spite us, Seiya darkly remarked, whereupon Taiki and Yaten groaned and sighed. They had to make it through the next shooting session alive and do their job well to earn enough for this winter in case they didn't get the roles in Detective Boy Holmes, a new live action series which could propel all of them into stardom.

The next day, under the admiring and envious glances of the crew, Three Lights nibbled at the inedible buns with a synchronized "Hmmm!" and sported a perfectly faked post-coital glow, in Igarashi Shizuka-san's words. Luckily, even the shrewd and observant daughter of their agent hadn't guessed that Seiya and Yaten had replaced all the original buns with the yellow-painted buns Taiki had prepared for breakfast.

x.

You're running away again, Seiya, as always—but no one can ever outrun their fate! Even if you lie to the world and deny your roots, you can't lie to yourself and deny that you've been raised by crows and are one of them. One day, when you realize that our dream will only make the world better and not worse, you will come back to Kinmoku Sei, where you and your brothers belong.

Her long, lush strawberry blonde curls, which she was wearing loose, gleamed golden and copper red in the setting sun. In the distance, Seiya could see Kakyuu's darker reddish-brown head through a window of the top floor, where she had been locked up lest she entertained the idea to flee with her foster brothers. Of course he was going to return to Kinmoku Sei someday—Seiya told his mother with a carefree smile—when he was independent and capable of giving Kakyuu the life she deserved. And all the four of them would be free and live happily ever after even if the secret services brought down the Organization and they had to flee to Venice for a showdown à la Casino Royale.

Venice was just a running joke, but they both knew that all the other things he said were meant to be taken at face value. His mother's frown deepened until it seemed carved forever into her chiseled bronze face. Bring down the Organization, she whispered and chuckled. The governments can never "bring down" dissent because dissatisfaction cannot be killed but only removed by treating its roots—something which the corrupt, well-fed bureaucrats and big names won't ever feel inclined to do.

We've seen worse times than this—she coolly contemplated—we're going to make it through!

Even if tragedy strikes and the Organization is dismantled, vigilantism will rise—she predicted, indicating the red sun on the horizon, which was setting but was going to rise again. No invention had ever been made to be forgotten, and a groundbreaking discovery like the Silver Bullet can never be stopped. Like the mythical golden-eyed bird, which burns itself to death at the end of its life to be resurrected, the Sherringford Society will grow stronger after burning in fire!

The green isle disappeared from Seiya's view as the night fell and the boat reached the shore, where their bodyguards were going to drop his brothers and him before they returned to Anokata's refuge. All he had now were Yaten and Taiki and Kakyuu's incense burner, which still smelled of wild roses and the first kinmokusei blossoms, which had bloomed and died too early. For the last time, Seiya let his thoughts wander and linger on his mother's parting words before he eventually brushed them aside to focus on the immediate tasks. Dealing with the consequences of his newfound freedom wouldn't be easy but also not too hard.

Someday—and it doesn't matter if it takes you so long that neither your father nor I will live to see it—when you've seen the dark, hideous side of the world and are ready to take over my work, the reborn phoenix will rise from its ashes to soar! You will be the Organization's last "Anokata", who will use the Silver Bullet to destroy the Werewolf… She was glowing with an intense inner fire as she told him her vision, and it occurred to Seiya for the very first time that she might be mad and not only enthusiastic and passionate.

…When this happens, the utopia we've designed will be created at last—and this tired old world will sink beneath the sea in a giant flood and be lost and forgotten. To you, all the other leaders and their supporters will only be cockroaches: ugly, inferior, bothersome bugs—the pesky little pest you have to remove from your home.

x.


A/N: Since some readers expect that writers self-insert when they write fics and that I do that as well (I used to receive comments indicating this was the case): No, I don't ever write myself into a fic (although I'm naturally inspired by everything I see in life).

In other words: I haven't been describing my own underwear in this chapter, in case you're wondering… XDXD