© 2002 Copyright Original Storyline by Gold (E-mail: )

Disclaimer: -- I am one woman. CLAMP is/are four women. This is not for profit or commercial anything.

Another day, another chapter, another tired me. The time now is 12 midnight where I am, more or less.

This one's for Skuld-chan and Mikuro-san, for reasons obvious. Angst and Kamui.

This chapter feels a bit choppy to me...blame it on lack of sleep.

After The Fact (Version 3.0)
Part 7: Tangled

Shirou Kamui glanced at his friend. If Subaru had succeeded, maybe he could—get up the courage—to talk to—Fuuma—but Subaru's face told Kamui that things had not gone well at all. The older boy was trying hard to hide his disappointment, but the droop of his shoulders and the quiet wistfulness in the set of his mouth gave him away. Kamui didn't know what to say.

Subaru was looking anywhere but at Kamui. "He didn't want to go at all," he said quietly. "Onee-chan teased him about it…she was testing the waters for me, though I didn't ask her to do so—but then I didn't dare to ask him…and he got really annoyed with her…" Subaru studied nothing in particular with a very hard look of concentration on his face. "Onee-chan thinks he cares, but I don't think so…I don't think so…" He clenched his fists tightly and fell silent.

Kamui looked away. They were in the same boat, the two of them; Subaru had been having the biggest crush on Sakurazaka-sempai for the longest time, a crush that seemed to get bigger with each passing year; Kamui had been having very special feelings about his best friend, Monou Fuuma, and had only realised why of late. But Fuuma had grown strangely distant and Kamui, afraid that he might be reading too much or too little into things, hadn't known how to approach his best friend on the subject. He had tried, though, but he hadn't gone about it in a tactful manner, and the brashness of his manner had driven Fuuma to lose his temper—and consequently frozen their relations to the point of no return. And lately, it seemed as if—as if Seishirou…

"Did Monou-san ask you…?" said Subaru abruptly.

Kamui instantly jumped and then scowled. "Ask me?" He looked down bitterly. "We aren't talking anymore. I can't ever find him when I want to—when I have time to—and you know we don't see each other in school. I wish he'd tell me what's wrong, instead of treating me like a stranger! I'm supposed to be his best friend!" Kamui took a deep breath. "I don't blame him—the quarrel was as much my fault as his, but I'm not stupid. I know he's avoiding me and he doesn't want to talk to me, and…" Kamui bit his lip. "I miss him," he admitted, feeling suddenly deflated.

Subaru drew a deep breath. "I know. Seishirou-san—" Subaru blushed every time he spoke the other's name—"makes me feel the same way sometimes. And then at other times, he's—he's—he's just…" Subaru's voice trailed off and the flush in his cheeks deepened. "I think he knows how I feel about him, and he's just trying to let me know he doesn't care for me that way…"

Kamui shook his head. "Hokuto-chan says Sakurazaka-sempai likes you too, and I think she's probably right," he protested. "I mean, she's not wrong about these sort of things—you said so yourself. And he definitely doesn't treat you the way Fuuma's been treating me."

Subaru shrugged. "There's always a first time…and Seishirou-san's not like ordinary people." He bit back a sigh.

"You…really like him a lot, don't you?" ventured Kamui.

Subaru's silence was eloquent.

For himself, Subaru wouldn't have used the word "like" to describe the way he felt about Sakurazaka Seishirou. Subaru had had a crush on Seishirou for some years now, and now that he was seventeen and old enough to know, he feared—he very much feared—that "like" was a very mild word used in his case. Subaru didn't like to put that thought into words; it frightened him that he might—might just "like" Seishirou a lot more than he let on to other people. Hokuto, of course, had been born with the habit of piercing through every one of Subaru's careful veils, and had informed him, at the tender age of fifteen, that he was head over heels in love with Sei-chan. It had taken Subaru a couple more years to admit that she might be right.

Subaru glanced briefly at Kamui. The boy was a year below him, at sixteen; he had a well-hidden and enormous crush on Monou Fuuma, who was in Subaru's year. Kamui and Fuuma's relationship reminded Subaru very forcibly of his and Seishirou's at times—but only at times.

Kamui and Fuuma had been practically best friends almost forever, and they were neighbours as well. Kamui quite obviously adored the older, wiser Fuuma, who was very good to him, and the high school hallways had rung with feverish speculation when the two boys abruptly went from being best buddies to complete strangers in one day. Nobody could understand this peculiar change in the weather, so to speak, and even Monou Kotori's efforts to draw the two closer together met with abject failure. This was largely Fuuma's fault, because he was never there when Kamui sought him out to apologise, and when he was there, Kamui was somewhere at the other end of the school, busy elsewhere. It was almost as if Fuuma was deliberately avoiding his friend, and Kamui came to recognise after a while that there was nothing he could do about it.

"Subaru," interrupted Kamui suddenly and thickly.

Subaru blinked. "What?"

Kamui took a deep breath and wrapped his hands together as he stared fixedly at the polished floor. He dug his toes into the thick rug at his feet. "I think—I think Fuuma likes Sakurazaka-sempai," he mumbled.

If Kamui had announced that he was really a boy born with immense supernatural powers and destined to break or make the world, Subaru could not have been more astonished.

"It's just—last week—at the picnic—they were talking," Kamui went on miserably. "And I've never seen them like that before—it's as if Fuuma—something changed that day, there's something between them—I'm not sure what it is, but…I do think he likes him…" He kept his head bowed so that Subaru would not see his face. "He won't even talk to me anymore… but he'll—he'll talk to Sakurazaka-sempai…I…"

A sudden chorus of barks drew the two boys' attention as a very wide-awake little brown terrier suddenly raced into the room, ran up to Kamui and frolicked about the boy's jean-clad legs. Kamui's face softened all at once as he knelt down and the dog sprang into his arms and licked his face. The boy scratched its head, a wistful smile edging his lips, and he shut his eyes tightly as he held the dog tightly to him. This was the dog Fuuma had given him for his tenth birthday, back when they were still small boys and best friends playing in the park near their homes…back when Fuuma had been Fuuma.

And Subaru, who had been watching his friend quietly, spoke suddenly. "Kamui, want to go to the dance with me?" he asked flippantly.

Kamui lifted his head, stunned.

Subaru gave him a brief smile. "You know you want to be there. Not with me, maybe, but…" He shrugged. "It's a senior dance and I know you can't go without an invitation from a senior. And if Fuuma-san's going to be there, I know you'll want to be there. So…what about it?"