One afternoon, Ken invited her into the back room as he created the flower arrangements for delivery. She was perched on a stool in her nice business suit talking with him when Omi came in from school, joining both the conversation and the work. "Brianna, would you do sketches of the rest of us?" Omi smiled at her as he clipped flower stems.

"Yohji showed you those?" She blushed.

"I don't think he showed us all of them. Just a couple." Omi was quick to reassure her.

"I don't think Yohji wanted us to see some of those pictures that you drew of him." Ken laughed.

"Oh." She paused, thinking. "They weren't hentai or anything like that. Most of them weren't even very good likenesses. I don't draw people very often."

"But would you do us?" Ken slid a finished arrangement to one side and started on another.

"I suppose that I could if you really want me to. I'm not very good." She laughed when she saw them both light up. "Why don't you come over to my apartment some night, and I can make dinner for you too?"
"That'd be great, but you don't have to make us dinner!" Omi shook his head. "That's not fair, cause we're asking you the favor! We'll bring dinner with us. Is tomorrow all right?"

She grinned at his ferociousness. "It's fine. I don't have work, so I'll be home all day." She gathered up her bag and wished them both a good night, cautioning them to remember to come over the next day.

Brianna swallowed nervously as the doorbell rang. I can do this. Letting them in is no problem. They're not scary; they won't hurt me. This will be fine. And it's not like they're going to be stripping down for you to draw them. No drooling. No stammering. Just be calm. She opened the door and welcomed them to her apartment. She'd put on a CD of lyric-less Celtic music, and the entire place was immaculate since she'd cleaned all day.

Omi wandered around the living room. The hardwood floor was covered with a thick Oriental rug, and the walls were painted a very pale blue. She'd framed sketches for the walls, both her own and ones that her friends from art school had done. When he found the laptop on the desk in the corner of the room, he lit up. "Would it be all right?" He motioned at the computer. Brianna nodded, and as he sat down, she picked up her sketchpad and pencil. He looked so young, his face alight with laughter, pleasure dancing in his huge blue eyes. Brianna smiled as she shaded in the shadows on his face from the laptop screen. He looks so different in jeans and a nice shirt. He's usually in his school uniform, or the shorts and t-shirt he wears at the shop. He looks older, somehow. Omi blushed a little when he realized he was being drawn. Brianna ducked her head, trying to hide her laughter.

Ken stretched out on the floor next to the desk, and slowly started to fall asleep listening to Omi techno-babble at him. He had his arms tucked under his head, his ankles crossed. His t-shirt molded to his tight stomach, and his jeans were comfortably baggy. Brianna sketched in Omi and the computer in the background, to explain Ken's slightly dazed look.

Yohji was lounging on one end of the overstuffed sofa; Aya sat at the other end. From where Brianna was sitting, the contrast between the two men was remarkable. Yohji's outfit of light shimmery gray slacks and green silk midriff top complemented Aya's midnight black jeans and t-shirt. She did a couple more of Aya, who had gotten up and was staring out the window with a look of brooding pain on his face.

Brianna could hardly sit still through the dinner of sukiyaki that they had brought; she itched to draw them all together. The sheer beauty that each of them radiates is enough to make any artist's imagination leap to them tangled together with one another, in various states of undress. Plagued by too much imagination for my own good...though I suppose that men this gorgeous must be pretty good…. As they sat around talking in the living room after dinner, she did some more sketches of them singly. Pulling the finished pieces out of the pad, she handed them around. "You're all a lot of fun to draw. These aren't the best, but I think I'm getting better."

While they looked over the sketches that she handed them, she worked quietly on one of her ideas. This sketch was done in the slightly sensual style that some of Yohji's original sketches came out in, and featured all four of them; Aya, sitting against the headboard of a bed, with Ken and Yohji on either side, and Omi stretched across the foreground of the picture, the other three looking at him. Yohji and Aya had on dress shirts, unbuttoned, with leather pants, also unbuttoned. Ken was wearing nothing but boxers, and Omi was wearing the shorts that he always worked the flower shop in. Aya's cold eyes were softer, a tiny smile trying to pull at his lips. Yohji was grinning in that lecherous way he had, and Ken was smiling, his eyes sparkling. Omi was laughing, carefree.

As Brianna put in some final shadowing, the room fell silent. She looked up to find that they were all looking over her shoulders. She started to blush and stammer, and eventually Yohji just put his hand over her mouth.

"It's all right, jo-chan." He shrugged a little and took his hand away. "You pegged us pretty much."

"Wha—" Brianna couldn't get the words out.

Aya shrugged, Omi blushed a little, and Ken was blunt. "We're kinda not entirely straight."

"Ah." Brianna stared at the four of them. But…then why does Yohji…

"We're not gay, either." Yohji looked nervous, and the other three looked distinctly uncomfortable. They'd taken their seats again, but seemed ready to bolt.

"Well, at least you're not going to be upset about the picture." Brianna smiled at them a little, waiting to see what they would say. They kept looking at one another for a while, and it was Aya who broke their silence.

"But are you upset because we want you?"

"What – me? You can't be serious!" She shook her head, almost laughing. They aren't after me; they must be joking. Why would any one of them want me? Even with all the kisses and caresses from Yohji, I still don't really believe that he wants me. None of them laughed, just sat and waited. Brianna paled. "You were serious."

"Of course we were serious, Brianna-chan." Omi smiled cheerfully. "You're beautiful."
"Did you think that we were just sending you flowers and making you dinner cause we wanted to be friends?" Ken's quiet grin took the sting out of the girl's painful confusion.

"You…what….I mean….All….I…." She looked from one to the other to another to another, shock making her incomprehensible.

Yohji ran his hand through his hair. "We want you to be part of what we have together. You're the first girl we've ever found that we've all liked. That we've all wished were around more."

Ken shrugged a little. "It's not very conventional, is it? But then again…we're not very good at being normal." His eyes, normally so clear, became shadowed with some indefinable emotion.

Aya stood up abruptly. "We should go." He started for the door, the others trailing behind him. Surprised, since it was still early, Brianna said goodnight and they all left. Omi lingered for a moment. "Think about it, Brianna-chan. It'd be nice having you as part of our family." He waved as he raced down the hallway of the apartment building after the other three.

When Brianna went to bed that night, her dreams were soaked in blood. She woke up feeling like a terrible secret hung over the four men who'd asked her to be a part of their lives. Damnit. What a time for my instincts to finally start working. I've finally found men that don't make me cry with fear, and I start thinking horrible things about them the second they want me to stick around. She went to work, avoiding the flower shop along the way. She didn't stop in on the way home either, and spent the next week away from them, thinking hard about their offer.

Over the three weeks that I've known them, I've started relaxing. I don't spend my days living in fear; somehow, they make me feel safe, give me confidence. Partly it's knowing that they will never hurt me; partly it's knowing that if I need them, they'll be there. I can't put into words what makes me think that they would find a way to save me no matter what. Brianna sighed. "It feels as though I can't truly be alive ever, but when I'm with Yohji or Omi or Ken or Aya, that goes away. Even if there's some horrible secret that they're keeping from me, I find myself trusting them." Brianna stared at the words she'd typed in the email to her cousins. Her strange fears had been put into words, but it didn't make her feel any better.