Warnings: Er, the same as earlier? Not mine, AU, unbeta'ed, angst, and... Maybe some descriptive thing of a possibly still touchy subject.

Author's Notes: I don't quite like this chapter, but I'd had the itch to write just something and needed to get an incident I'd experienced off my chest. I'm aware they're both rather OOC (bleh...) but... Eh, I just needed to write. >>; And yes, I'd been listening to the song mentioned in this thing when I wrote this. -is horrible, knows.- So, uhm, yeah. -hides in a corner.- On a better note, I'm actually developing some form of idea of things things to happen?

I sigh, running fingers through my hair, then calmly as I can, raise my eyes to stare at the mirror. The water is on, running somewhere beneath me, draining down a dark hole and I swear that sometimes, my soul just wants to follow it.

But I doubt I'd like the stench of the sewer much. However much better it'd be then the stink of sex and loneliness that always permeates in this damned house of mine.

That doesn't matter right now though, because I'm staring at my reflection and thinking so deeply it's like not thinking at all. Rather, random, disjointed words coming to me from all angles, shot at me like so many balls of crumpled paper.

And somewhere behind me, a CD plays on my radio. I can't remember what I popped in – I just recall waking too early and cursing just about everything I knew in my existence before feeling around me for just something to hear rather than this empty air. I knocked things over, swore, refused to pick them up, and just grabbed up the nearest thing. Popped it in and it'd been playing since. I listen for a second or two – half-listen, actually, - and catch a woman warbling, "…I'm just bad neeeeews…"

He comes tonight. To look at swords, yes, and maybe we'll talk. Maybe we'll sit and watch T.V, maybe we'll listen to some music, maybe he'll pin me beneath predatory eyes and whisper my name, and when it's over he'll—

I realize I don't want my thoughts to go down that track. I don't want to think of that, because if I do I might not want him over any more. My chest expands, the skin stretching over the bones under a thin layer of fat and a thicker layer of muscle, all of it corded and in synch with each other to make up my body. It stretches and is collapses and then it does it all over again because that is all it knows how to do, because that is living.

Goddamn I hate monotony. It just wouldn't hurt to have a bit of it in my life, though.

And then I raise my eyes, stare at myself truly, see my reflection rather than think of what I've actually roused myself before afternoon for. I stare at some bedraggled runt – nothing but a sad pale collection of a foreigner. Green eyes with the scant purplish beginnings of bags starting to develop, a long slim nose, pale golden hair fluttering with each breath. My cheeks are still roundish – I wonder vaguely why it isn't sunken yet, then if I really do want them to be sunken at all. My collarbone juts out over the smooth expanse of skin, like hills over a plain and my ribs occasionally peek out, causing another shadow to appear on this scrawny body of mine. But then it's gone as though it'd never been there, and I laugh bitterly when I mutter "Conrad."

So we were going to go down this road again, huh?

Flashes of memories go through my mind. The smell of freshly cutgrass, the stink of factory air, the light touches of sun on my skin. Someone laughs, I laugh, and it felt good. Really, it did. But then there are also the little unsavory bits too. A cold touch of a hand that's spent much too much time in the comfort of an air conditioned room, the thick smell of rich cologne, a murmured, "It's just for a few weeks, Wolfram."

He'd been so young too.

Then it was gone, and I was looking at myself again, and asking myself, "What the hell happened?"

I know it was memory, I know it's not tangible, and I know it'd affect me like nothing else. Well, if I admitted truth, I'd know that—

But I know what happened. But I wasn't wondering what happened, but rather, why things had to turn out that way, and why I had to care this damn much, and so many other why's that I think the amount of people who's cum I've swallowed would be less.

It'd also be less painful to recount, because the some of the whys had reasons and names and blame all of which would somehow tie back to me.

Sometimes, when I think, I don't make sense.

"I'll keep it that way," I mutter to myself, letting a smirk come to my face. My jeans are faded and ripped and in a time long ago, they would've been very unappealing. But in the here and now, kids seem to love this look and I figure I'd keep them on. It's not like I'd actually go out anywhere today because I don't feel like I'm refined or articulate enough to and I don't want to see anyone else but my guest that I'm expecting any hour now – or perhaps not at all.

He came later on – explaining to me in that rushed, rambling, excited way of his that he had a job, and was tying the lose ends. He explained needlessly that these were his last few days – as it was the last few days of vacation for us – and that he was preparing to get back into school. He then looked distant as he muttered off a list of supplies he still needed to by and how he hoped they were still in supply this time of year, then seemed to recall that he was a guest and apologized once more in that breathless way of his.

I looked annoyed, but I was really just never taking my eyes off his lips and my ears off his voice, and hoping he'd never get those shoes off if only to be stuck in time like this. I realize I could live like that happily, me leaning arrogantly against the doorjamb, arms crossed over a chest dressed in a simple shirt emblazoned with some American band. I don't know who they are – it was a random gift a brother of mine had gotten me while away. I think I tried to burn it once, but realized I didn't want to without him watching.

And there he was, right before the door, his ass several inches away from my bare feet. He's struggling to wrench his worn tennis shoes off – are they really that hard to get off? – and tuck them safely away where all the other shoes should be, but instead there's only mine and it looks sad without his shoes next to them. He's flushed but smiling, his black bangs slightly coated in sweat and random pieces are stuck to the sides of his face, following the gentle curve of the bones there. His frame keeps jerking and shifting as he struggles and fights, and were I still a child I'd have laughed.

But it lasts too shortly, and the shoes are off and he jumps to his feet in a jack-in-the-box of optimism. Where I am glum and gloom and a pale wraith, he is the exact opposite. He's tanned and healthy, with a big bright smile that comes easily to his face and dark hair. He is all glam and easy sweet stride; he is what I should've been. I'm willing to bet he's got a family around him constantly, he's got someone to be with him even when he doesn't want them to be and I doubt there's ever a situation like that, because he does what so many Asians can't do and I find it almost funny.

He's open and clear; he's bright and sunny. Sun. Where I feel like a dirty unwashed demon of old, he's a bright sun. And I should burn, and I think a part of me is, but it doesn't hurt. It's peeling and crackling and I feel hot and flustered in that part of me, I feel like I'm withering and crying out, but I don't want it to stop.

I think this was why I wanted him over so badly.

"Vorufu," he moves smoothly past me, wandering into the room behind me in a sound of baggy pants pulling against the movement of legs. My head turns to follow him, and soon my body does too, but my back doesn't leave the jamb. My eyes follow this boy, this stranger in my house, and I feel the shadows once more recede to whatever crevice or corner or damned hell they came from. Hiding from this boy's brilliance even as he goggles wide-eyed at a pair of decorative swords like a goose at the hatchet. And then he's looking back at me with that same wonder and amazement and so pure is the emotion in them I nearly flinch. "These are yours?"

My shoulder lifts and falls in a lazy shrug, my eyes passing down that face because I can't stand to look any more for I'm sure my eyes will boil over and explode. I look down the column that is his neck, then over the shirt spangled with stars – isn't that a girl's shirt? – covered sloppily by a gray vest, then those baggy khaki pants and finally the floor.

"My mother's."

"She likes swords? Ah, well, that's pretty neat! My mother used to fence when she was younger, so it's not so weird to me – ah, but my mom is kinda weird sometimes, you know? She's not like a regular mom is, and… But that's cool your mom likes swords!"

"She doesn't really want them, but my grandfather passed them to her anyway. My uncle wanted them originally, and she'd wanted to give them to him. Grandfather left it in his will, so she's stuck with them. Mother thinks they're dangerous."

Its so much more history than I'd ever really told anyone who didn't already know, and I shut my mouth immediately. I couldn't help myself; couldn't stop the words from flowing. I wonder if that's going to become a habit, then I wonder if it was a contagious disease that this boy dragged in along with his brightness and his ways of chasing away the stench of mildew and semen and old, clotted blood.

And he looks at me as though he's torn between asking more or saying the words I'm sorry, and I know I don't want to hear him say it because that would be useless. Words never made the world better as much as people like to think, because words have lost their power along with magic and now its dead and buried and I want to keep it that way.

It, of course, being my past and anything dealing with it. Even the words "I'm sorry."

But he just continues to give me that look before he looks back at the swords and now they're different in his eyes. He's no longer as awed, but now it's like he's looking at a relic. Something old and to be revered, something he'd rather avoid but can't and so instead he'd be as polite with it as he could. I almost would've thought he were face to face with my grandfather, who had an air about him that was controlling and straightforward and so unyielding that it was better to just do what he said. But of course, my family is made up of all perfect little clone of him, and so we're usually a big raucous hen's nest of people pecking each other's throats and eyes, all unyielding and uncompromising because we're so sure our own way is right.

"So they're old," I hear him muse. "Second world war? First?"

"Not that old, I don't think. Nothing's that old any more. At least, nothing that's not in a museum by now."

Because everything's there now. I'd once visited the Nagasaki Museum for the atom bomb, looked around. I think it's relatively new – and it amazed me the things they had there. Of course, it also pained me to see everything and think a part of me may have done this to another person. I couldn't stop staring at the mangled corpse they so gleefully played on the screen in the corner along a wall with a blown up picture of the destruction they put on display. I'm not sure what made my stomach flop more – seeing the bones who's flesh was now ash looking like rag dolls Gwendel used to sew when we were younger, or seeing how these things could be on display as though they'd had no respect for what these people had gone through.

Then again, I guess there's no better respect than shock value.

But what struck me most was a display right there behind plexiglas, a greyed and fraying article of clothing big enough to fit the dying remains of a doll. And the little box of words next to it, giving its history just as I had so plainly told Yuuri of my grandfather's swords. Words that expressed how this had been donated to the museum – a relic, a memory. And it pained me to think a baby – no, someone's baby – had once worn that, and the many years of anguish it must've caused, the many nights of cradling this thing that must've surely been radioactive and stinking of smoke and dirt and death. How this woman had held so tightly and screamed out into the Japanese air that was then choked with so many vile things and wondered why her baby who'd been so innocent had to be dragged away from her.

And then I tried to think of the pain the baby had went through, and supposed that was infinitely more merciful than the fate of the mother it left behind.

But there it was, on its very own merry stand behind a case of glass with words depicting all this pain and shoved right into your face in front of a picture. A picture of bones of buildings – its skin of wood and tile spread across the landscape – spew plumes of smoke into the black and white air, with dead bodies as its only inhabitant. Well, there was a young woman who looked shocked and dazed and like she'd just been born and I knew how she felt.

Needless to say, I never went back to that museum again and as soon as I'd gotten home, I had retched into the toilet until my guts hurt, and I had to push back the imaginary scream of a woman who'd lost her future. And I also pushed away the memory of looking at the people next to me, seeing them whisper to each other, and finally seeing how they smiled in a way that told me this didn't affect them at all. As if it were a side show curiosity, and not a catastrophe.

A part of me figured that's how people looked at me as well.

But not Yuuri, as I finally got myself back to the present. He wasn't looking at me at all, rather he'd moved away from the swords now. He was now on the floor, his back against a couch, and fumbling around the floor. I figured I'd help him with whatever he needed, and approached. My elbows landed lightly on the top of the couch, allowing me an unadulterated view of the back of his head.

"Cha doing?"

He startles a moment, casting a nervous eye over his shoulder before managing a watery, shaky smile. "Don't scare me like that! Haha, actually, I was… Well, I guess I seem rude making myself comfortable, don't I?"

I feel mild today. Maybe it's the memories, maybe it's the ache of disgust I start to feel in my stomach, or maybe it'' because having Yuuri around is slowly becoming something of a sedative. With him around, the onslaught that would usually have me crawling to the street corner and beckoning the next man with a fat wallet over to make it worse hits me on a lesser scale. Where normally I'd feel as though a whale had been dropped on me, now I felt like piles of origami cranes were being heaped on my head.

It was almost pleasant, like snow with sharp edges.

"Not at all. Just expect me to take the same liberties."

He smiles a little truer, and chuckles. "You've hardly told me anything, let alone invaded my personal space like I am."

I smile and push myself off the couch before dropping next to him on the floor. He smiles – so damn friendly it's almost irritating – but I push this annoyance aside and snort brassily. He doesn't mind, and my fingers search for what I know he's looking for, because there's only the T.V in front of us. When I find the remote, I flick the T.V on and wonder vaguely how the hell we ended up like this.

And then things mesh and meld, minutes turn to eternities and the room fades behind me, and all that matters is that I can hear Yuuri yelping and feel him blush, and there's the smell of his sweat and sun-kissed skin against my nose.

It's hours later now, and I'm awake. I hadn't realized I'd fallen asleep until I'd opened my eyes and the sliding doors were darkening from the setting sun. Everything was blurry and hazy and I wondered how I'd find my way around and wondered more how I'd managed to sleep upright.

"…A-awake now, Vorufu?" His voice is different and slightly cracked, and at first I'm unfamiliar with what's just happened.

It's only when I sit upright fully and feel the knot in my neck that I've realized the simple day has passed without me. I'd fallen asleep on Yuuri's shoulder while watching T.V, and he'd sat there through it all and I think he'd been blushing the whole time. That, or he'd started blushing now because as soon as my eyes clear and focus, I see his face is red and there's a pout on his lips.

I wonder if I'd done something wrong?

"Y-you know…haha, you kinda snore really loud when you're asleep. For such a pretty boy, I'm surprised."

And that's all that was need for me to glare at him, for him to laugh and stop looking so upset, and for me to grab a pillow and teach him not to mock me. And that was all for it to end with him on top of me, pinning my arms down so I couldn't hit him with the pillow, the both of us flushed and laughing. It felt good, because for once, I'd felt free of my soul.

I was little and vulnerable like he was all the time, and it felt good. I was going to choke when he left.

His head cocks to the side, though, as soon as our laughter dies but he doesn't move to get off me. "That's the thirtieth time I think I've heard that song…"

"…She's real pretty and she's real into you and she's sleeping inside of you…"

I'd forgotten I left the damn thing on. But it's not like we can't pay the electrical bills.

"Yeah…I'll go turn it off—"

"No. I…kinda like this song. I don't understand what she's saying, my English isn't so well…" He laughs in that embarrassed way, and I frown at him. Out of instinct.

"Well, it's not important then, I guess."

"I'll learn, when I go to school. And I'll practice with you—you do know American, don't you?"

It insults me he'd ask, and it's plain on my face. I see him laugh and he finally pushes himself away, if only to reach around his head and scratch nervously at the back of the base of his neck. He rattles off quick apologies, but I don't care because as soon as I push myself up I shove him and all is right with this simple little world of ours again.

And he thinks so too, because he grins.

And the woman – Rilo Kiley was the artist's name – rambles off another, "And you're bad neeeews…and I don't care, I like yooou…"

We spend a dinner of cup-o-noodles together. Him telling me of his life and his mother, ranting about having an older brother who pesters him while I tell him matter-of-factly that he is a wimp, which he truly is. He whines to stop calling him that, and I point out the reasons and he smiles a bit after a while. And then we talk of school – we'll be going to different schools unfortunately – and he tells me of sports and baseball and I tell him plainly how sports usually bore me. He mopes and whines some more, and then there's more wimp calling and some noodle throwing and some laughing and I feel so complete and can't remember the last time I'd smiled so much. And when it's all done and over, he slips on the shoes he'd struggled to get out of earlier, and he smirks and promises that he'd we'd meet more, and I believe him because he was what'd brightened this house and I needed something to believe in anyway.

He waves, I wave back hesitantly before turning up my nose, but I think he understands what I mean. I don't know because I don't catch whatever look he makes in reply to that act, and then the door is closed in a whoosh of cold night air.

And just as I had predicted, when he left I choked.