A/N: Two chapters in one day. My, my, aren't you lucky? Eh, this story idea is just too cute. I couldn't resist continuing immediately. I think I may have to fix the description...it was rather long...I should probably just use keywords and say that the details are on my profile. Anyways, in this chapter, they meet Ken. That's...basically it. Er, here there be shounen-ai. Kenkeru, to be exact. And hints of Daiken. I think that's all I need to say. I won't be including the disclaimer for this and the following chapters, since it's in the first chapter. Well, enjoy.
"Takeru, I'm hungry! Can we find some more of those yummy berries you showed me?"
"We've stopped to eat five times already! How can you possibly still be hungry?"
Takeru cast the shorter boy an irritated glare, clenching his teeth, but Daisuke seemed oblivious to the look. He was already looking for berry patches.
"Are these the ones?"
Takeru saw Daisuke poking around at a bush that was full of poisonous berries. He toyed with the idea of telling Daisuke they were edible just to get the redhead out of his hair, but his conscience kicked in and he sighed.
"No, those are poisonous. Look, these over here, these are the ones."
Takeru sat down on the floor as he watched Daisuke yank berries off of the bush, plopping them all into his mouth without even taking time to swallow the ones already inside. He was about to make a sarcastic remark about Daisuke's eating habits when they heard a twig snap loudly nearby. Both spun around, Daisuke with wide, confused eyes, and Takeru with narrowed, alert eyes. Takeru leapt to his feet and began inching towards the bushes that were rustling. Just as he was about to swipe at the branch concealing whatever was behind it, Daisuke leapt out from behind him with a wild cry, tackling the bush. Takeru heard a grunting sound and he sighed loudly as the sounds of a scuffle escaped from the shaking bushes.
Soon, Daisuke was thrown out of the bushes, pummeling into Takeru and knocked both of them over. Takeru roughly shoved Daisuke off of him and rolled to his feet, ready to attack the person emerging from the bushes. His eyes widened and he straightened up as he watched a tall boy with long indigo hair step out from behind it, pulling twigs and leaves out from his hair.
"I thought I heard your voice," the newcomer grumbled, brushing himself off.
"Ken?!" Takeru asked incredulously, stepping forward to help the boy with his hair.
Ken laughed and smiled at Takeru. "Long time no see, huh?"
Daisuke stared up at them from where he lay sprawled on the ground, raising his eyebrows. "You know each other?"
"Gosh, Ken, I missed you," Takeru said softly, hugging the taller boy.
Ken laughed and hugged him back. "Same here. I was going to visit you soon, really, I was."
"Yeah, sure you were," Takeru replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
"I was!" Ken cried indignantly, though still smiling.
Daisuke stood and brushed himself off, giving Ken a good look-over. Ken had shoulder-length indigo hair, a black shirt, and black pants. He had black nail polish and black socks, and on his feet, he wore black, pointy shoes. Daisuke raised an eyebrow at the long black coat that looked like some sort of a dress with the way it puffed out under the gold belt, and the odd, pointy black hat Ken wore on his head with a gold buckle in the center. He may have been dressed oddly, but Daisuke found Ken amazingly attractive. His soft, pouty lips, long eyelashes, delicate bone structure, and pale, flawless skin made him look rather feminine, which was the only type of boy he was ever attracted to. Takeru looked slightly girly, but he still had a slight build and the fact that he walked around half-naked immediately gave away the fact that he was definitely male.
He was starting to get a bit jealous of the way Takeru and Ken still hadn't let each other go, and were talking animatedly about what had happened to them the past few months.
He poked Takeru's back.
"Hey, Takeru, aren't you going to introduce me to your hot friend?"
Takeru gave him a dry look and turned back to Ken, lifting a hand to point at Daisuke.
"This is Daisuke. He found me and won't stop following me. Could you please hex him?"
Ken laughed. "I don't hex people, Takeru. Nice to meet you, Daisuke."
Daisuke heartily shook Ken's hand. "Nice to meet you, too, Ken. May I add that your dress looks wonderful on you?"
Ken looked down at himself, grinning. "Well, it's not exactly a dress...but thank you for the compliment anyways."
Takeru glared at Daisuke and stepped to the side to shove him out of the way. He beamed at Ken. "So where are you going now?"
"I'm off to find the land of milk and honey," Ken replied, smiling in that charming way of his.
"What?"
"You know, paradise."
Takeru smirked. "Well, you always have wanted to find your paradise. Since I have nowhere else to go, would you mind if I accompanied you? I wouldn't mind finding paradise."
"Of course I wouldn't mind! I'd love to have you along! I've missed your company dearly."
"And I've missed yours," Takeru replied, smiling warmly.
"Don't forget about me! I'm still here, you know!" Daisuke informed Takeru, poking him again.
Takeru whirled around and whacked Daisuke's hand away. "Quit touching me!"
"You can come, too," Ken told Daisuke.
Daisuke turned and stuck his tongue out at Takeru. Takeru slapped his arm and sighed in frustration, rubbing his forehead.
"Are you sure about that?" he asked Ken wearily.
"Daisuke can come along if he wants to," Ken said firmly, giving the shortest of the three a sincere smile.
"I do want to," Daisuke replied, grinning happily.
"Great," Takeru grumbled.
~ ~ ~ ~
"So, Ken, how do you know Takeru?"
The three travelers had found their way out of the forest and were walking down a dirt road, heading towards the next town or village. They had decided to find a place to stay for the night and then make plans on where to go and what to do the next morning.
"I hung around his village for about five months," Ken told Daisuke. "For the past few years I've been visiting different villages, gathering information about the country and the world. I'm on a search for paradise, you see. I want to find a place I can truly call home for the rest of my life. I ran away from home because I didn't want to be a part of my family anymore."
"Why not?"
"They're witches that practice the art of black magic. I don't want to use my magic for evil things. I wanted to practice white magic, but my family strongly disapproved. I decided I needed to get away to another place if I didn't want to either conform to their ways and become an evil witch or get killed for not wanting to follow in their footsteps."
"They really would do that to you?"
"If they fail to bring me up as a witch who is excellent in the ways of black magic, they can simply have another child, and they would have no use for me. They don't form any attachments to offspring in my old town, so, just in case they screw up with a kid, they can kill him or her and move on."
"That seems a bit harsh..."
"Not to them. They were just brought up thinking that way. So, anyways, I ran away, and I'm looking for my own little paradise. I dropped by Takeru's village about a year ago, and I ended up staying longer than I'd planned to..."
"Why?"
Ken grinned and pointed at Takeru. "It was his fault."
Takeru laughed to himself. "It was not, you liar. It was totally your fault. You didn't have to stay."
Ken turned back to Daisuke to explain. "Normally I don't befriend anyone in any of the villages I go to, so I don't have a reason to stay there any longer than a month or two, but Takeru here insisted on becoming my friend-"
"You're the one that came to me, professing undying love for me-"
"-and I ended up staying around so I could continue to be with him. Eventually, I realized that my family could have easily tracked me down in that amount of time, and since my village isn't too far from his, I decided I needed to move on. I left during the night, without telling Takeru, because I knew if I had to go and say goodbye to him, I'd never be able to take one step away from him. After I was gone for about a month I wrote him a letter telling him I was alright and sent it with a man that was going to Takeru's village."
"Okay, backtrack a little," Daisuke said, holding his hands up. "Professing undying love for him?"
"Yeah, I sort of...did something I shouldn't."
Ken gave Takeru a guilty grin and Takeru smiled back in a much more gentle way than Daisuke had ever thought Takeru could smile.
"You fell in love with him," Daisuke facefaulted. He guessed he didn't have a chance with Ken after all.
"That's basically it, yes," Ken said, rubbing his cheek with a finger as he blushed slightly.
"That was another of the main reasons I was leaving the village," Takeru told Daisuke. "I wanted to go and find Ken. I guess I found him."
"I guess you did," Ken said, turning to grin at him, "but didn't I tell you specifically not to come looking for me?"
"Ken, I was dying there," Takeru told him. "Besides, you were taking too long to come back."
"Well, I was on my way back when Daisuke tackled me," Ken said dryly.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that, Ken," Daisuke said, grinning sheepishly.
"Not a problem. You helped me find Takeru. If you hadn't been with him, I'd have never found him. He's so at home in the forest that his footsteps make virtually no sound no matter what he's stepping on. Since you were annoying him, he was off-guard and talking rather loudly, and I was able to recognize his voice and trace it over to where you two were."
"See? You're going to get us killed," Takeru told Daisuke.
Daisuke narrowed his eyes. "Didn't he say you were talking loudly and off-guard?"
"I think we're getting to the next village," Ken said slowly, pointing forward.
Takeru and Daisuke looked forward and all three of them stopped in their tracks.
A couple of miles ahead of them, they saw what looked like dark smoke clouds reaching up towards the darkening sky.
