Part III

Shin looked down at the unconscious boy worriedly, he had been out of it for three days now and he had a terrible fever. Not only was he concerned about this boy, Nausti was constantly on his mind as well. She left, walked out on him. She had the consideration to write him a nice note, saying that she would come back when he decided to change his ways. The note told him that she'd be at the temple, why she would go there, he had know idea. He knew this day would come and he had been dreading it since the day he became a thief. His older sister was only doing this out her love for him and she had every right to walk out like this, hell, Shin probably would've done it earlier if the roles had been reversed. Nausti didn't understand though, he didn't go around stealing money from people because he wanted to, he had a debt to pay off that their father left behind and he almost paid it all off. One more robbery, then he could pay off the ninja clan, he'd be forever free of the burden. Once Nausti was home again, Shin would feel more at ease and he kind of needed her to help him with this boy, but she knew nothing of him. Putting the cold washcloth back on the boy's forehead, Shin wondered how long it would take until the fever went down. He was curious as to where he came from and what was his name. The boy was very handsome, tanned skin, dark hair and when Shin first saw him, he got a glimpse of tiger blue eyes. He was in excellent shape too, otherwise, he probably would've drowned in the river.
"W-Where am I?" a raspy voice asked.
Looking down at the boy, Shin said softly, "You're at my house. Stay still, you're injured. Here drink this." He gave the boy a little bit of tea to sip on.
When he was finished with his tea, he asked, "Where's Ikari? Did you find Ikari?"
There was another one? Shin felt sorry for the boy, he had only found him and no one else. "I'm sorry, I only found you."
Tears ran down the boy's cheeks. "Oh god, where is she?" There was silence until the boy stopped crying. He wiped his face and apologized. "Sorry about that, I'm sure she's all right, she's really tough. By the way, I'm Sanada Ryo."
"Mouri Shin. Sanada, huh? You mean the ninja clan?"
"Yeah."
"Hm, I've had a few encounters with some friends of yours. Naaza's clan."
"Naaza?! Naaza's still alive?! I thought that bastard was killed a long time ago," Ryo was shocked to hear that. Naaza's clan was a rival to his own, they were ninjas too, but their main weapon was poison. It had been rumored that the leader of the clan, Naaza, died ironically of his own poison, but apparently it had only been a rumor.
"Well, last time I saw him he definitely wasn't dead, though I wish he was. So, what's a Sanada ninja doing around in these parts?"
"Ikari, my best friend, and I are on our first job alone," Ryo smirked. "She was so excited about it, I hope I can find her in time to finish the job."
Shin nodded, though he wasn't sure if he could agree with killing someone for money. Who was he to talk? He stole from people all the time and felt little guilt about it. "Out for someone's life?" he asked quietly.
"No," Ryo shook his head. "This is a kidnapping, but I've only seen a picture of the person, don't know his name or anything, Ikari has all that information."
Shin had to laugh at that, "If that's all you have, then I just have to say that you're screwed."
Ryo chuckled too, knowing that Shin was right. He needed to find Ikari and then they could finish the job. The young ninja didn't think he'd be able to leave anytime soon though, his savior probably would want to keep him there for awhile until all of his injuries were healed. Blushing, Ryo thought of how the sea-blue eyed, young man saved him. It wasn't something that he had to do for Ryo, however he just did it. Not only that, Shin was also taking care of him that very minute.
"Do you live here all alone?" Ryo couldn't believe that he just asked that, yet he had to know if Shin had a girlfriend.
"My older sister used to live here, she's gone until I clean up my act."
The ninja was about to say something, but a big yawn came out instead.
"I think you need to get some more rest," Shin insisted.
Ryo nodded and whispered, "Thank you, Shin-san." And drifted off to sleep.
"Don't mention it, Ryo-kun," Shin replied quietly as he brushed the hair out of the sleeping boy's face.



Touma had four good days of rest already and he was bouncing off the walls in the hotel, constantly hinting to Seiji that he wanted to get out. After two days of the blond babying him just because of his fainting spell, he finally got tired of it and needed to just to get outside. Seiji was wary to go right away, he still thought that the younger boy might need to take it easy for a little longer. Touma finally persuaded him that it was time to go when he wrote that Kayura might find them in that town if they stayed to long. That sold Seiji in an instant. Now instead of bouncing off the walls in a hotel room, he was bouncing along on the sidewalk at Seiji's side.
Seiji could only shake his head, Touma could be such a child at times, although he found those moments to be incredibly sweet. Touma wanted to see the town before they left, where ever they went, he always managed to find something amusing about it. The blond could find nothing special about this town though, it was small, had some shops here and there, nothing that they haven't seen before. When Touma stopped moving all together, Seiji was instinctively concerned.
"Are you feeling all right?" he asked, hoping that his companion was still in good health.
There was a giant grin on Touma's face and he nodded, indicating he was just fine. He then pointed to the temple in front of them and made a sign to ask if they could go in.
Seiji wondered what was so unique about this one, they had seen many temples before and Touma hardly ever paid attention to them. Still, how could Seiji say no when he was giving him the puppy dog eyes. Gods, he hated it when he caved like this, however he'd do anything just to get a smile on Touma's face. "All right, let's go in."
Touma's grin widened and he gave Seiji a kiss on the lips before skipping down the path to the temple. He didn't even wait for Seiji to catch up with him, he just went inside.
"May I help you?" a monk asked. Touma nodded, took out his note pad, wrote down what he wanted to say and showed it to the monk. The monk read the note and said, "Yes, the Good Brother is still here. Oh, there he is now. Brother! You have a visitor."
Brother Shu looked towards the monk that was calling him. His eyes went directly to the blue haired boy standing next to the older monk. "Rowen-kun!?" Touma ran up to Shu and flung his arms around his neck, giving him a big hug. Shu eagerly returned the hug and gave the shorter boy a kiss on the cheek. After they pulled away, Shu examined his friend, "My goodness, you've changed a lot! Look at you! You're taller, you look a lot stronger and damn, your hair is a lot shorter. It's great to see you, Rowen-kun."
Seiji bit his lip when he saw the monk give Touma a kiss, exactly who was this guy and how did he know Touma? He almost twitched every time he heard the monk call his Touma "Rowen-kun". Really, what kind of name was Rowen anyway? Granted Touma wasn't his real name, Seiji had given the name to the younger boy, but it was still a hell of a lot better than Rowen. He wondered what was this monk to Touma, were they just friends? Or were they more than that? Seiji winced as the monk held Touma's hands as he was talking to him. He cursed to himself when he noticed Touma leading the monk over to him.
"Hello, I'm Brother Shu, but any friend of Rowen-kun's can call me Shu. And you are?"
"Seiji," he replied in the most pleasant tone he could had at the moment. "And his name is Touma."
"Forgive me, when he first came to this temple he had no name, so we started calling him Rowen. Sorry about that, Touma-kun," Shu smiled down at Touma and Seiji wanted to be sick. "How long are you two going to stay? I would love to be able to talk to Touma-kun for awhile."
I bet you would, Seiji thought to himself. He wanted to say that they had to leave that second, but how could he say that when Touma was giving him the puppy dog eyes again? Sighing, he answered, "For as long as Touma-chan likes."
"That's great! You guys can stay the night and we have a new cook for the time being. Dinner should be ready in an hour, let's talk till then." The monk took them to private room where they sat down and Touma and Shu caught up on each other's lives. Touma proudly showed his old friend that he could write, Shu seemed very impressed and that disgusted Seiji. The blond for the most part was silent during the whole conversation, not wanting anything to do with it. He forged interest as Shu told him how they met. When Touma was eleven, this was after his escape from Kayura, he ended up at the temple, needing help. Of course the monks took him in and the only person that was nearest to Touma's age was Shu. So they became really good friends and that's about when Seiji quit listening. He hated feeling jealous, but he just couldn't get the image of Shu giving Touma a kiss out of his head.
Touma noticed that Seiji was acting strangely and gave his friend a uneasy glance, he had no idea what was wrong with the blond. Seiji was too quiet, sure he usually didn't say a lot, it was just that he was too quiet for Touma's liking. To Seiji's standards, he was being down right rude as a guest. The younger boy decided that he would have to wait till later that night to talk to his friend. Until then, he would finish up talking with Shu.
"Brother Shu, dinner is ready," a young lady came into the room. "Oh, I didn't know you had company, I'm sorry."
"It's all right, my dear. I'm starving right now and I just can't seem to get enough of your cooking." Shu stood up and introduced her. "Touma-kun, Seiji-san, this is Mouri Nausti, she's our new cook, or at least until she goes back home. Nausti-san, this is Touma, a good friend of mine and his friend, Seiji."
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Nausti gave them a bow.
"The pleasure is all mine," Seiji gave her a graceful bow.
Touma glared quickly at Seiji, then smiled at Nausti. Dinner went by nicely enough, Touma could hardly eat though, with Seiji shamelessly flirting with Nausti. She would blush and giggle, Touma wanted to do nothing more than to shut her up. He would've screamed if he wasn't mute, that was probably one of the few advantages of not being able to talk, it prevented him, several times before, from saying things he'd regret later on.
"I would like to talk some more, Touma-kun, but I have chores to finish and Nausti is going to bed," Shu said after dinner. "You and Seiji-san will have to share a room, but I assume that won't be much of a problem. I'll show you to the room."
When they were in the room, Seiji took off his shoes and shirt and laid on the bed without a word to Touma. Sitting down next to the blond, Touma took his pad of paper and began to write. His hand hurt from writing for so long earlier that day, but he had to talk to Seiji and he had the feeling that the blond wouldn't pay any attention to his signs. He shoved the paper in Seiji's face and let him read it. "What's the matter?" it asked.
"It's nothing," Seiji muttered.
That wasn't the answer Touma was looking for. Scribbling down another message, he had Seiji read it. This one asked "What did I do wrong?"
"Nothing, now go to sleep, Touma."
"No, we have to talk about things," the next message said.
Seiji took a deep breath. "If you want to, you can stay here with Shu."
"Why would I do that?" Touma had wrote on the paper.
"You just seem really close with Shu." The blond turned on his side, looking away from Touma.
The younger boy grabbed Seiji's arm and jerked him so he was looking at him. Touma could be very strong when he wanted to. Taking the note pad with the next message on it, Seiji read this that was on it, "Shu is a brother to me. I love you, Seiji-kun, I want to be with you." Seiji sat up, rereading the last sentence over and over again. This was the first time either of them ever said anything like this.
"Do you mean this, Touma-chan?" Seiji asked softly.
Touma nodded and mouthed, "Yes." He would've tried to write something else down too, but Seiji claimed his lips in an aggressive kiss and Touma couldn't remember what he was thinking two seconds ago. Before he knew it, Seiji had pushed him down on the bed and started taking off his clothes.
After Seiji undressed both of them, he looked over Touma's naked body. This was perfection, the lithe body, pale skin, stormy blue eyes, the blue, unruly hair and the beautiful soul that completed it all. Straddling Touma's slim waist, he ran his hand down the pale chest in front of him. "I love you too, Touma-chan, and I want you to always be at my side." Taking Touma's hand, he kissed his palm and moved his mouth down to his wrist. Giving his palm one more kiss, Seiji placed Touma's hand to rest on his thigh and ran his fingers through the short, blue hair. Grinning, he asked, "Is it a sin to have sex in a temple, Touma-chan?"
Touma looked up at Seiji and made sure that the blond would be able to read his lips as he mouthed, "For tonight it's not."
Lowering himself on his Touma-chan, he said right in Touma's ear, "That's good enough for me, my love."



Waking up in Seiji's arms hours later, Touma laid completely still, forcing himself not to tense up. He could've sworn he heard someone talking to him, but he dismissed that off as a dream or Seiji was talking in his sleep again. It had to be early if Seiji wasn't awake, so he got comfortable again and shut his eyes.
//Touma . . . I know you're in here somewhere. Come out, come out, where ever you are.//
Opening his eyes right away, he knew that voice wasn't a dream or Seiji talking in his sleep.
//You can't hide from me, I will find you.//
That's when Touma realized what it was, he hadn't heard it in years, not since he escaped from Kayura. It was mind speech. But only people with magic could do use and hear it. He didn't think any of the monks had any and he doubted that Nausti did.
//Who are you?// he demanded.
//Come and find out, Touma.//
Untangling himself from Seiji's arms, he made sure that Seiji was still asleep when he got out of the bed. He hurriedly put on a shirt and a pair of pants, he knew that it would take only a minute or two for Seiji to realize that he wasn't in bed, even in his sleep, Seiji was very overprotective. Now he knew that it was only because the blond loved him. After brushing a light kiss on Seiji's forehead, he got his staff and took something out of his pouch and put it in his pocket before leaving the room. Wandering down the halls of the temple, Touma listened for footsteps.
//Where are you?// Touma asked.
//Look to your left.//
Turning to his left, he saw a figure standing in the hallway, smirking at him. //Who are you? And how do you know me?// he questioned.
//That doesn't matter. You will succumb to me, NOW!//
A sharp pain tore through Touma's mind, knocking him over. He grasped his head, trying to will the pain away.
The figure started walking towards him, chuckling. //You aren't so tough, are you? Be a good little boy and come with me.//
//SEIJI! Please . . . help me . . .//



Is Ryo starting to have feelings for his savior? Is Shin starting to have feelings for the boy he saved? Would Shin make a good aggressor in a relationship with Ryo? Why Shu always so nice to Nausti? Why is the temple acting like a freaking hotel? Who is this person hurting our little Touma-chan? Is it Kayura? What will happen to Touma? Will Seiji come to save him? Why can't I write lemon scene with Seiji and Touma, or anyone for that matter? Do you people even read these questions? Find out in Part IV and many other parts in "The Paths We Take".