Thin as Rice Paper

By Nix Winter

Disclaimer: This version of the story is done ala wk, and I do not own Youji or Aya, or Omi, or even Tokyo.

Youji walked. One sidewalk moved into another. Clubs he'd known, music bleeding into the street, bleeding lust, hands in his jeans, head down, he walked on. It used to be his place, tight pants, shirt short enough to show off pale lean belly, hair with just a little glitter, dancing, sex in the back even, passionate, hungry kisses that always left him empty.

About five blocks from the an old club, where he'd half expected someone to recognize him, to call out to him, he sat down on some cold stone stairs, head resting against a metal railing, forearms on his knees, lanky hands hanging between them. There was no where to go.

His mind glided back to Asuka, to their office, and days of work and struggle, of rent just made, and laughter. "Youji! I brought you noodles," she said, so cheerful, so untouched by darkness.

He'd leaned back in his chair, secretly imagining himself to be Sam Spade, a Styrofoam bowl of udon and miso held in one hand, sticks in the other. "I found the deed, while you were out shopping noodles," he'd said, so proud of himself. They'd found the inheritance that a brother was stealing from his sister.

He'd saved a little girl once, found her locked in a closet in the school's janitor's apartment. He and Asuka had made the newspaper, six pages back on the bottom right hand corner. The girl's mother hadn't even known she was gone yet. They'd just been tracking the guy for child support he owed his wife. Maybe it wasn't that big of a deal, but he'd been so proud of it at the time.

He remembered how Asuka smelled like honeysuckle on the night she'd come looking for him. She'd worn a blue cotton dress with just straps over her perfect shoulders. Standing there in his doorway, one hand on the door frame, hips cocked like some sexual gun, blue black heels making her ankles look delicate, god, he'd known she was beautiful, and her smile like sunshine that could dance along the stars. He closed his eyes, banged his head on the railing. If he'd been able to love her the way she wanted, maybe everything would have gone differently.

He'd been nineteen, and so intent on his business, on his goals. It was their business, their future, and they were making a difference in their little part of the world. They'd been friends for so long, grade school, middle school, high school. He'd held her when her mother died. He'd gone with her when her sister married. Christ, they'd even had a couple of fist fights, nothing horrible, but she was his best friend. He'd looked over the top of the reading glasses that only she new he needed for extended research, smiled, dark honey hair falling in his face. "Who's the lucky person? You look great, Asuka!"

She'd crossed to him, and he could still hear the click of her heels, years later, like the tears on his face were from then, not now, or the clicks like little punctuations to her walk were now, not then. Sometimes it was so hard to stay in one time. She'd leaned over, sending honeysuckle over him and sunshine with her smile, and for the first time he really really got it. She was a girl. "You," she whispered.

The twitch. If he could change just one moment, it might be that one. Maybe that's when he'd really started to die. Some secrets we keep even from ourselves. That twitch, that slight pull back from her, had ended his life in a way. "Me?"

"Don't you want to, Youji?" She smiled brighter, but gods, they both knew each other so well. And the past flowed between them like some shared scrapbook of memories. Comments about boys, unisex clothes, total avoidance of sexual comments. "I want you. We could be really good together."

His mouth had been dry then and it was dry now. He'd tried never to be at a loss for words ever after that. "I I, uh, I, maybe, I."

"You're gay," she said, their faces so close together that he could feel her breath. She pulled back, straightening, looking more like Asuka and less like the perfect girl. "I think I've always known."

That was the first time he failed her. It was as though her heart slipped through his grasping hands, one hand to the other, smooth wet glass, to lay shattered at his feet.

Sexuality fell silent between them. She smiled. He smiled brighter. They laughed. He loved her, loved her as the keeper of his secrets and the knower of his soul, cherished her as family for a family that hadn't wanted him. Sitting there on those cold stone steps, he missed her, missed the way she made him feel whole and made him feel like he could do something and hated her for the way he'd been dying since that blue cotton dress.

"Fucking bitch," he screamed, the words following in his mind, 'how dare you die and leave me here like this!'

Everyone he loved, left. Aya's lips had moved over his, light, like the hammer on a glock sliding silently home, then deeper, thin lips tugging at his until he gave in, sucking in the first kiss that had actually touched his inner self, the first time male lips had kissed him, and the first time Asuka's ghost had let go of him. He'd leaned forward into that kiss, almost shy, tongue reaching for Aya's, shivering under Aya's hand at his throat, and then it had been gone. His lips tingled still, and he knew, it had been some kind of stupid mistake.

Aya's voice, calm, untouchable, "It was nothing."

But it hadn't been nothing.

"Ay," a man asked, skinny as Youji, ferret smirk on his face, "Feel better?" He flashed something in folded plastic wrap and Youji sat there, looking at it.

If it hadn't been for Omi's coffee, he would have bought it. "Naw."

And he wasn't going to die. The world could fuck itself. He didn't care how useless he was. He wasn't ready to die. He was going to go see Aya first.