Ken woke up feeling oddly like a used dishrag – every muscle in his body was in such a state of total relaxation, he wasn't sure if he could move. He worked on his eyes first, and after a bit of effort, they cracked open.

The room he was in was dim, sunlight filtering in around the edges of blinds covered by curtains. The walls were painted a soft, slate gray, the ceiling white and textured. Summoning the will to roll over, he found that the sheets were white and the bed large and low to the floor. A set of mirrored closet doors reflected his unshaven, unkempt image back to him with merciless honesty, and he groaned, pulling the covers over his head.

Covers that weren't his.

He sat up abruptly, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead as he tried to remember what, exactly had happened. It came back to him swiftly, and he discovered he would have preferred to remain amnesiac. His stomach turned over and he choked back a sob.

"Sister," he breathed, "why did you… oh God…."

His breath hitched, but the tears refused to come. He was somewhat grateful for that. He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes to dash away any accidental moisture and took a deep breath. He perked up. Did he smell breakfast? He ran his fingers through his hair until it was more horizontal than vertical, decided it was the best he could manage, and stumbled out of the room.

Outside the door, it was painfully bright, and he squinted, stumbling to his right and clasping a hand around the doorframe of the kitchen. Farfarello, in the gray sweats and white t-shirt Ken had first seen him at the park in, swayed idly in front of the stove with a spatula in one hand, stabbing rather viciously at a deep skillet which was giving off a positively entrancing aroma. Ken took a deep breath and his stomach let out a loud growl, which caused Farfarello to twist his head around and eye him with amusement.

Ken offered him a sheepish smile. "Um… morning."

"More like afternoon," the Irishman told him easily. "You slept well?"

"Like a rock," Ken confessed, leaning against the doorframe. "Normally I can't stand to sleep in a bed that isn't mine… I must have really been out of it."

"You were grieving," Farfarello said with a shrug, his voice dry. "Exhaustion is a common side effect of trauma."

"I guess you're the expert," Ken offered with a wry grin. "I didn't know you could cook."

"Five months ago, I could not," Farfarello said easily. "But I can read, and I can follow instructions, so I can now cook."

Ken laughed. "I can make the basics, but nothing special. That smells great… miso and fried rice?" Steamed rice was the staple to eat with miso.

"I prefer it," Farfarello told him simply. "There is egg in it. If you would like some, sit down."

"Yes ma'am," Ken teased, taking a chair and plopping himself down in it. Farfarello shot him a look, but softened when Ken offered him a disarming grin, and took a plate down from a nearby cabinet. Ken glanced around. "It's a lot more orderly than I expected," he said quietly. "I don't know if I ever tried to think what your house would look like if you had one, but I guess I imagined it'd be kind of like you – a little random, always unexpected, interesting but sort of hazardous."

"It is more comfortable if it is somewhat neat," Farfarello told him simply, then more quietly, "I am less sane than you believe. There are times when I cannot… think entirely straight. At those times, it helps me to have everything in an established place."

Ken nodded slowly. "I guess." He looked up as Farfarello set a plate and bowl in front of him, and a set of chopsticks, and inhaled deeply. "My god, you…."

It was all he got out before he was pinned to the wall, chair tilted back at an angle, throat burning as Farfarello's hand crushed it. Instinctively, he dug his thumbs into pressure points, but to no effect.

"Do not swear by His name," Farfarello snarled at him. "Blasphemy or no blasphemy, He deserves no such honor. To swear by His name is to swear by all the falsehood, ignorance, and injustice that has every existed and ever will exist and I will not tolerate it."

"Cnt…swwwrr….cttg….troat…"

Farfarello paused, then released him.

Ken gasped, raising a hand to his neck. "I can't answer when your hand is cutting into my throat," he repeated, glaring at Farfarello. "If you've got a problem with something I say, just TELL me, dammit, don't pull a… a… a MCGUYVER on me."

Farfarello smirked slightly.

Ken sighed. "Shee. Psycho," he accused without any real venom, pushing away from the wall and picking up his chopsticks. Farfarello patted his head, then returned to the stove, causing Ken to grumble mutinously… at least until he put the first bit of food into his mouth. Then there was no talking, merely the noises of voracious hunger being exercised upon his breakfast. He wolfed down the entire contents of his plate and bowl, and barely paused to thank Farfarello when they were immediately replenished. After seconds, he went back for thirds, and only after he'd finished the last of that did he stop and push away from the table. Across from him, Farfarello was slowly and methodically eating his own breakfast.

"Thanks," he said sincerely.

"You are welcome," was the typically formal answer.

Ken reached for the glass of water he'd been using to wash down as much food as would fit in his mouth at one time, and finished it off. "It was really good," he said earnestly.

Farfarello nodded. "I am aware that you appreciated it," he told Ken calmly. "When I said you were welcome, it was meant."

"Oh." Ken blinked and glanced aside. "Sorry. I guess I thought it would be… I don't know, kind of an imposition… well, my teammates already KNOW how I eat, so they know what they're getting into when they invite me to breakfast."

Farfarello smirked, but said nothing, and Ken fidgeted, beginning to be unnerved by the silence.

"And thanks for putting me up last night. I… was in bad shape, I really needed looking-after, but I guess I figured one of my teammates would be doing it. You didn't need to give me your bed, I could have slept on the couch."

"Next time, you will sleep on the couch," Farfarello assured him, gesturing at Ken with his chopsticks. "But this one time, I did not mind."

Ken nodded and flushed slightly, not entirely sure why he was turning red, only that he was embarrassed for some nebulous reason. "Next time?"

Farfarello eyed him, setting his chopsticks down and neatly stacking his empty bowl on his cleaned plate. "You tried to seek me out," he said musically, "when I was in hiding. You returned to the park several times. Why?"

"You knew I was there?" Ken demanded. "Then why…?" He trailed off, realizing what he'd been about to say, and how it sounded.

"Why didn't I come to you?" Farfarello finished, standing and taking both their dishes to the sink. "Because I was not ready to let anyone know that I was alive. I had not yet established my freedom strongly enough that it would be difficult for someone else to take it from me, and I was not certain how closely Schwarz was watching you. Schuldig is a telepath, and you have no shields."

"Oh," Ken said sheepishly, then slowly, "Do you think they would? Take it from you, I mean."

"I do not care to find out," Farfarello told him, turning on the water.

Ken settled back, troubled, to consider that. He remembered Schwarz actions on the beach and frowned. They considered Farfarello a loose cannon and a liability. Truthfully, Ken had thought of him the same way up until recently. Abruptly, he realized he hadn't read about any mutilations in the newspaper anyway. "Have you been killing?" he wondered seriously.

Farfarello glanced at him over his shoulder, then nodded. "Here and there. I cannot indulge the urge much, because it would be noticeable, but I do when I can, and I am careful."

Ken sighed. "The urge," he repeated dully, rubbing his thumbs against his palms and feeling them tingle. "Do your hands shake?"

"Among other symptoms," Farfarello told him.

Ken nodded slowly, heart sinking, then was abruptly distracted. "Oh! Shit, I'm sorry, I should be helping," he said apologetically, extricating himself from his seat and joining Farfarello at the sink. The Irishman did not protest, merely handed him a dish and a towel. Ken obligingly began drying, which was the task he liked best in any case.

"You are suffering the symptoms," Farfarello ascertained, putting a damper on Ken's rise in mood before it had time to really go anywhere.

Ken sighed. "I… don't know. My hands have been shaking. It used to be from nerves. Before missions, I mean, but lately it's been something other than nerves. Sometimes I'll get really angry, or frustrated and start thinking about doing things. Terrible things. And my hands will shake, and something in me… something... it's almost like a stirring, or a growling, just this shifting and I don't know, I can feel that it's dangerous. It's frightening. Nothing personal, but I don't want to become you. I don't want to be like the dark beasts we hunt. I don't want to be a murderer."

"You are already a murderer," Farfarello told him easily, handing him another dish. "The only difference between what you do and what you wish to do is the thin line of moral relativity."

"Gee, thanks," Ken muttered. "You know how to make a guy feel better."

"I was not trying to make you feel better," Farfarello said, "I was telling you the truth. You will find peace when you come to terms with what you are."

"Are you at peace?" Ken challenged.

"Moreso now than before," Farf shot back easily. "If you wish to make a change, you must first look objectively at your problem, but you cannot do that when you are deceiving yourself."

Ken sighed. "I know, I know. But I have to believe there's a difference, you know? You have to understand. If there isn't a different, then all I am is…."

"A murderer," Farfarello supplied helpfully. "And thus, the conversation comes full circle."

Ken glared at him and swatted him half-heartedly with the towel. Farfarello disregarded it. "Yes, a murderer. But I don't want to me a murderer. To me, that's a bad thing to be."

"All God's creatures have preyed upon each other since The Fall," Farfarello told him. "The oldest rule is that the strong survive. You are doing nothing that has not been done since the beginning of time. You will burn in hell for your transgressions and so will I, but I do not see the need, as you do, to make my time on earth hellish as well."

Ken blinked, having a sudden flashback to the first dream he'd had of Farfarello.

Are you going to make a hell of earth as well?

"But I should, shouldn't I?" he said dully, rubbing the plate with the towel and watching his reflection in the ceramic blankly. "I should be punished for taking so many lives."

"You are the only one who is punishing you," Farf told him, taking the dish from his hands and putting it away to hand him another one. "You do not need to feel guilty. You do not need to feel anything. You are the one who decides what to feel and you are sentencing yourself to misery. No one else is doing it for you. If you chose to stop being miserable, you could do that."

"Could I?" he wondered. "Ever since I was kicked out of J-league, I haven't known anything else. Spots, moments, but nothing that ever lasted. I'd always come home to another mission. But lately, the only time when I've really felt alive has been when I was taking someone else's life. And that's SO wrong. I can't even describe how wrong it is."

"It is understandable," Farfarello assured him. "Your life has become a two-dimensional simulacrum, a faded representation of a life. When you kill, you are reminded that this man is dead, but you are not. You are still alive. Also, when you kill, you have a power that you lack in the rest of your affairs. It is addictive. I know this well."

"Can I stop it?" Ken wondered, looking up and meeting the madman's gaze. "Or reverse it? Anything to stop feeling this way."

"Only if you leave this life behind entirely and never kill again," Farfarello told him. "And you cannot do that. Wherever you go, this life will find you. Once a killer, always a killer… you can never go back, Siberian, Ken Hidaka."

"If I can never be happy again," Ken said mutinously, "why should I care if my life on earth is hell?"

"I never said you could not be happy," Farfarello returned. "I said you could not be NORMAL."

"But that's what I WANT!" Ken shouted, considerately setting the dish down on the counter before he balled up the towel and hurled it across the kitchen. "I want to be normal! I want to go back to how things were! I worked SO hard for that position, I earned it, I was so happy there playing for Japan, and then my BEST FUCKING FRIEND threw me to the wolves. I don't understand why it had to happen. It wasn't right. It wasn't FAIR!" He slammed a fist into the cabinet door. Fortunately, it resisted him admirably.

Slender fingers curled around his wrist and shoulder and he felt the supporting firmness of Farfarello behind him. The Irishman's voice was lyrical and soothing, and he felt his rage ebb and turn to sorrow. "We live in a fallen world. Things break. Beauty fades. People die."

"It's all so wrong," Ken whispered.

"But it happens anyway," Farfarello told him, breath cool against his throat. Ken felt like just sagging back against him. He did so, and found himself supported. "People die, so love them while they're here. Beauty fades, so look before it's gone. You are letting things you have no power over drag you down instead of changing the things you do have power over. It is a losing battle, but these things, this fallen Eden, are not your responsibility. Let them go."

"But there are other people in pain," he protested dully. "My life's already over. Why shouldn't I do what I can to help them?"

"Lies," Farfarello told him. "Your life is not over. You are twenty-one and that is a ridiculous notion."

"But I don't… what if I don't deserve to be happy?" Ken challenged.

"There is the heart of the matter. You do not think you deserve it. You are the only one who thinks that," Farfarello told him.

"No. Yohji thinks so too. Once, there was this girl, Yuriko, and she invited me to go to Australia with her and work in a motorcycle shop. I was so close to taking her up on it and just leaving all this behind, but Yohji asked me…." He choked on his own words. "Yohji asked me if I thought I really deserved to have her. My hands were so stained with blood. He said I could never leave, because this is what I AM. And Yohji wouldn't lie to me. Not to ME. We're friends."

"Kudou has seen his hope snatched away so many times, he believes that all hope is false," Farfarello said disapprovingly. "You should have gone."

"Maybe I still could," Ken said dreamily. "I could call her."

"Then do so, but do not sit here thinking about it," Farfarello told him, propelling him back to his feet. "Act."

"I will," Ken said fiercely, turning to face him. "I will."

Farfarello handed him a dish.

Ken stared at it mutely for a moment, then burst into laughter and went to retrieve his towel, so he could dry it. "Are you happy here?" he wondered. "Are you doing what you really want to do?"

"Not yet," Farfarello told him, leaning against the counter and pulling the plug from the drain so the bubbly water swirled away. "But I am building toward it."

"What do you really want to do?" Ken wondered. "If you could do anything, anywhere."

"I have not decided yet," he said. "I am hardly suited for a great number of occupations, though recently, it has occurred to me that if there is anything I know how to do, it is fight, and by association, kill. I could teach others to do that. This is what Chen-shihan has told me."

"Chen-shihan?" Ken repeated. "You're taking martial arts?"

"I can kill," Farfarello told him, rinsing out the sink fastidiously. "I can kill a man in over two hundred different ways. But there are serious gaps in what training I had, and I lack control. These are the things I am working toward now."

Ken nodded. "Do you like it?"

"I have enjoyed the atmosphere of the dojo I have found thus far, and the people in it. Several of them live in this building."

"Are they friends?" Ken wondered quietly.

Farfarello paused and thought about that. "Some of them," he said eventually. "Yes."

"Do they know about you?"

"They come from similar situations. Yes, they know about me."

Ken nodded, smiling wryly. "That's good, then. I'm happy for you."

"I deserve peace, or happiness, far less than you do," Farfarello pointed out.

He nodded thoughtfully. "Okay. I get it. I'll think about it. Um… Farfarello? I know you said I'm welcome, but I don't want to overstay that… how do I get home from here?"

"I will take you," Farfarello told him. "I will drop you off a few blocks from the flower shop."

Ken nodded. "Thanks. Though… I don't mind," he said with sudden bravery. "Being seen with you, I mean. I don't care what they say."

Farfarello smirked. "Perhaps another time, when I no longer care so much for my privacy."

"Oh." Ken looked sheepish. "Right. Well, then, thanks for the ride, I guess. In advance. And for not murdering me in my sleep, as tempting a target as I'm sure I was."

"Not in the way you think," Farfarello said easily.

Ken blinked for a moment, then decided that he wouldn't be able to understand that statement if he tried, and let it go. "Ano… my clothes?"

"Bathroom," Farfarello reminded him.

"Right," Ken muttered, and headed off that way. Fortunately, his gear was dry. He ditched the comfortable pajamas reluctantly and pulled them back on, running a hand through his hair again. His claws were no longer bloodstained, and had been cleaned and oiled. He supposed Farfarello knew how to take care of a weapon.

"I'm ready," he said quietly, returning to Farfarello in the living room, where he'd settled on the couch. The white-haired man nodded and rose, padding barefoot over to one of the tables and lifting a set of keys.

The keys turned out to be to a plain, black jeep, and Farfarello turned out to be a rather decent driver. He didn't give Ken heart attacks, like Yohji sometimes did, and wasn't overcautious, like Omi. They pulled up in familiar territory after taking the most direct route. Ken knew Farfarello could easily have gotten him lost, but had chosen not to, allowing him to memorize the route they'd taken. It was a strange show of trust.

"Thank you," he said as he climbed out, eyeing Farfarello. "I hope you don't mind if I… well, maybe drop in sometime?"

"If I minded, I would not have brought you there in the first place."

"Er, right. Okay. Um… good afternoon, then." He shut his door and started down the sidewalk. He heard the jeep pull away behind him, and paused, watching it go. When it was out of sight, he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked the rest of the way to the flower shop. He had a feeling he had some explaining to do.

X-X-X