At the threshold of the Tendo property, Kuno discarded the most damaged daytime flowers and disseminated them within the sea of fresh ones. The three stuffed animals in his smallest satchel had their noses poking out of the opening to breathe because he didn't have the energy to break childhood compulsions today.

Kasumi answered with a dish towel in hand. "Oh, Kuno-kun," she blurted, smile vanishing with alarm. "Goodness, what happened."

"I am here for Akane Tendo." He searched through the bouquet to unearth a Dahlberg daisy from near the center. The raw expression on Kasumi's face as she accepted the gift was so upsetting that he immediately decided, amidst other things on his schedule, that she would be relieved of all culinary and household duties once their houses were joined and also receive daffodils and grape hyacinths every second Tuesday of the month unless yellow alstroemerias every other Saturday would please her more. "She's eating right now," Kasumi said, inhaling. "But that's… oh, you're bleeding. Come here, Kuno-kun, please."

He toed his way out of his geta. Kasumi rushed to retrieve a pair of guest slippers from the closet by the door. The entry hall was plain but scrupulously clean, visibly pockmarked with repair work. Kuno realized this was the first time he'd entered the Tendo house through the front door and that was why this all felt strange. He usually entered from the veranda or the roof depending on if there were already convenient holes torn in them.

Kasumi treated his visible wounds with antiseptic and bandages with a rapidity that suggested she did it often. Kuno sat there and blinked gauzy spots of apathy from his vision and did, in fact, remember Kasumi very fondly from his first year at Furinkan High actually. She'd never dated despite being aggressively sought after for her beauty, but overall the rumor mill had been kind to her for it. There had been more dynamic and problematic Tendos to fixate on.

Kasumi murmured, with a certain maternal acuity that made his hair prickle, "You are very skilled, Kuno-kun. I'm surprised this happened to you. I know it wasn't Ranma; he skipped school today."

"It was merely a deed of honor gone awry."

"Please tell me it wasn't Akane."

"As though such an innocent flower could accomplish such acts of senseless brutality," he bristled. "Have a care for your slander."

"Senseless brute is… an accurate descriptor of her, actually," Kasumi sighed, but something eased behind her eyes. "Sweet, but brutish. But all right, I believe you. There, all done. Would you like to see her? The family is out in the garden."

"Is Nabiki Tendo here?"

"She hasn't come back yet, I don't think. At least, she's not in the garden. I haven't seen her otherwise. Why? Is everything all right?"

He wasn't certain if that was what he honestly preferred or not. He moved and Kasumi shadowed him, politely steadying him by his uninjured elbow. "I will speak to Akane Tendo," he decided.

"You can certainly try," she sighed again. "Go ahead. Please help yourself to the snacks I've prepared – there's plenty to go around."

He was single-minded with intention but only to a point. "Thank you for your hospitality." He bowed over her hand and she responded with a startled flutter of laughter. "Name the price for your generosity and it shall be yours."

"Goodness." Her other hand found her flushed cheek. "That is the point of generosity, Kuno-kun – it doesn't need to be repaid. Is this bouquet for her? If they are, you should go ahead and give them to her. I'm sure she would appreciate it. She's had a hard day."

"Then I shall rescue her from the depths of her cavernous yet temporary despair." He took the time to relieve a yellow rose of its petals as they turned the corner to the veranda. The Tendos and Saotomes were currently seated at the table, a wide array of half-finished snacks center-stage before them. Nabiki Tendo was nowhere to be seen, but the panda on the terrace snuffled its sleepy face upwards to eyeball him.

Kuno flung the gathering of petals above Akane Tendo. She froze as they fluttered down around her, chopsticks in her mouth, unblinking as she stared at her plate. One landed in her water glass and another landed in her ice-cream. "Greetings, Akane Tendo," Kuno said. "I hope your evening finds you hale and accepting. May this auspicious evening be but the first of a lifelong miracles."

"Kasumi!" Akane Tendo slammed her chopsticks down. "You actually let him in?"

"Akane, don't be rude," Kasumi said, wafting in from the kitchen with a fresh plate of what smelled like gingersnaps. "Kuno-kun, please make yourself comfortable."

"I told you to stop letting perverts in through the door!"

"This is no mere errand, and I assure you I am no pervert and had no need of a door to avail myself of your garden," Kuno said. "I come here under the most decorous of occasions, the most joyful of events. It is today that I formally extend my hand."

"Oh shit." Ranma Saotome had still been stuffing his face. He choked. "Oh shit, here it is. I hope Nabiki's got the cameras rolling."

"Senpai, I'm warning you, I'm not in the mood today," Akane Tendo said tightly. "I just want to eat and then work out and then go to bed. Not to be… be rude, but I kind of don't have the juice for this right now. Can't you just take the hint for once?"

"I assure you this will lift your sour mood most expediently." Kuno did send a quick glance towards Soun Tendo. Soun Tendo was placidly sipping his tea and providing no opposition to his entrance, which could honestly be interpreted in a few unhelpful ways. The panda was shoveling down a piece of fruit with one paw while the other held up a sign that read GO FOR IT, KID.

He braced a foot on the edge of the table and ignored Akane Tendo's choked snarl of rage. "I have come to declare my undying love for you, Akane Tendo—"

"No."

"It would please me most eternally if you were to accept my hand in marriage—"

"No."

"I have the bouquet, a ring, and only the most honorable of intentions. I have been meticulously consulting with wedding coordinators and have already set aside the down payment for a lavish ceremony. If you would accept my offer, you would make me the happiest man in—"

"Stop hogging those, Ranma!" Akane Tendo snapped at Ranma Saotome, who yelped when her chopstick expertly skewered his knuckles away from Kasumi's cookies. "Geez, you're not in the wilderness anymore, would you please act like it?"

"What?" Ranma Saotome spoke behind a full mouth. "Thought you were busy flirting. Anyway, don't you got a wedding dress to fit into or whatever? Seems to me you'd be better off laying off the trans fats for a while."

"Now, young man, see here," Soun Tendo sighed to Kuno over the ensuing crashes of instructional violence. He put down his chopsticks and folded his hands into his robes, looking up at Kuno with a tight mouth. "As it stands, Akane is already promised to Ranma. Regardless of your no doubt very honorable intentions—"

Kuno presented the beribboned jar of gourmet nara pickles. Soun Tendo's entire demeanor collapsed like a gelatinous neutron star. "My wealth, of course, will be merged with the Tendo fortunes upon her acceptance of my hand," Kuno reassured him for added emphasis. "It would be only fitting that my servants prepare my new father-in-law –and his friends – the finest food daily as but a small token of appreciation for the filial treasure he hath bestowed on me."

"Boy." Soun Tendo's hand found his forearm. The panda's sign beside him read FINE BY ME. "You have my undying blessing. Give it your all, son, I'm sure she'll come around."

"Wha—" Akane Tendo froze in alarm, one fist in Ranma Saotome's collar and the other prepared to rewrite his history with a broken chopstick. "Dad!"

"It would be so very nice to have the money to repair the dojo," Kasumi sighed, hand to her cheek again. "Oh, Akane, he came all this way. Perhaps…"

"Yeah, marry him, Akane," Ranma Saotome said, still chewing his food under the constriction of her death grip. "I mean, if the dude wants a bull in a dress to rampage through his china shop, I say give him hell. Ten to one you kill him with your bad cooking in the first week anyway, so you can just use this one as a practice run."

Kasumi hastily rescued the dishes nearest to her as Akane Tendo began to pick up the table one-handed. "You want to start with me?" Akane Tendo murmured too calmly. "Right now? When I am this close to your throat?"

"Kuno, for real, you could dump a freight train's worth of rose petals on her and she'll still smell like a locker room," Ranma Saotome told him. "Seriously, why are you even after her anyway? There are tons of girls in Nerima. I'll bet if you swung a dead cat right now you'd hit someone with a bigger chest who could actually not poison you with her cooking."

The panda picked up the rest of the dishes with a nearly too-fast to follow sweep of its arm. Ranma was in time to dodge the manslaying chopstick but was flattened by the subsequent downswing of the table. "You know, Ranma, some people actually wouldn't mind having me around," Akane Tendo snarled. "Some people would appreciate the things I do, like cooking and finding you hot water all the time and helping you pass your exams and keeping you out of trouble at school when you deserve to be standing out in the hallway holding buckets—"

Ranma was muffled. "I never asked for your help, you just do it anyway because you don't want me embarrassing you at school!"

"And so what if I don't? Do you have any idea what it's like to have people look at me like I'm responsible for cleaning up after your messes all the time? Don't you think I get just a little tired of getting kidnapped and ransomed and challenged and poisoned all the time because you got affianced to every Yuko and Aiko and Fuuko you met on the road for ten years?

"What's any of that got to do with you being an uncute crappy cook?"

Kuno tried to interject and was stopped dead by an impressively heavy garden stone hurtling in front of his nose. "As if you could do any better with cooking, you… you Ranma!" Akane Tendo spat. She had tears in her eyes. "Maybe if you actually helped around here I'd have time to focus my attention on Kasumi's cooking lessons! Can't you see I try? That's more than you ever do!"

"Cuz I'm busy training, damn it, what do you want from me? You like getting kidnapped all the time? You want there to come a point where I can't rescue you because I was too busy baking melonpan in the kitchen like a girl instead of training like a man?"

"Here's an idea – do both. Not everything has to be about training, Ranma, and it's not like you spend any real time studying, so as usual you're just using me as an excuse to do whatever you want. I've had it with your ungrateful, immature, self-centered, pig-headed—"

Kuno considered his options deeply. The argument didn't seem like it was ending soon and there wasn't a good place to inject outsider commentary. On the other hand this was a tidy demonstration of his maturity in contrast to the trainwreck insecurity unfolding in front of him. Perhaps a recitation of the wedding sonnet he had completed would help expedite her arrival at the same conclusion. He dug around in his pocket for his scroll.

Akane Tendo had started to punctuate herself with whaps from the table. "… and after all the things I do for you and put up with, you still have the nerve to—"

"Akane Tendo!" Kuno unfurled the paper with a glorious snap that ricocheted from one end of the courtyard to the other. "If you would permit me a moment of your time, I would take this opportunity to treat you to the sonnet I have written to commemorate our—"

Akane Tendo whirled on him with wild eyes. "Get out!"

There was a blur of movement and something that felt like a table. Nothing exploded this time but he still lost track of the conversation anyway.

.

He awoke to lamplit gloom and a war crime in his skull. "Oop, there you are," someone said, removing the warm compress from his head. It plopped back down a moment later wetter and cooler. "Don't move."

It wasn't Sasuke. He forced himself to keep his eyes shut and wait for his aching body to catch up with his brain. When he felt coordinated enough to move, he ventured out with nudges of his fingertips to get a sense of the space around him. There was a pillow under his head and a futon under his back, both clean, and something at his side that squished like a stuffed animal. He wasn't aware vipers kept stuffed animals. "For the record," Nabiki Tendo said, "that was the most valiant attempt to contain an exploding grenade that I've ever seen. I captured your demise on four separate CCTV cameras and sent the footage to the UN so they can rewrite the Geneva Convention for you."

He spoke in a rasp. "I hath landed in your room, then?"

"Yeth."

"Is it still evening?"

"Middle of the night, so says the table that beat the daylight out of you."

"And Akane Tendo? Did she say yes to my proposal?"

"Oh, yes," Nabiki Tendo said. "Oh, definitely yes, Kuno. Yes. Her enthusiasm knocked the teeth right out of you. Then she got shy and backed out after beating you, so I'm afraid you're right back at square one. She said she'd reconsider on Monday if you bring her five white elephants and four sapphire-encrusted steatopygous figurines."

"Of course," he said. He felt himself get misty behind the cloth, though it was hard to suss out whether it was emotion or the stinging force of the herbs. "Bless Akane Tendo and her oddly specific whims. How did I get here?"

"Ranma's dad carried you in. You've been in and out for a few hours. It's actually kind of bizarre – Dad straight-up does not seem to care that I've got a guy in my room behind a closed door at night. If Kasumi or Akane tried this he'd be whaling on their doors screaming gibberish. Still trying to psychologically parse that to be honest. Like it's definitely some kind of insulting commentary but I'm not sure if it's directed at you or me."

His head felt like a receptacle for the suffering of all cursed Elizabethan children. It was probably for this reason that it took him so long to remember why this felt more unpleasant than usual, because all in all it hadn't been the first or even the twentieth time he'd woken up in a bed with Nabiki Tendo making fun of him. It was only when he moved his arm to free it from the blanket and pain ricocheted up his side that he remembered what had preceded the visit, and the rest of his guard slotted back into place.

He sat up. The room swam but not prohibitively. Nabiki Tendo had already moved away from him and plopped back down to the floor with a thud that squished. A pink sleeping bag lay open with several books on hedge fund management scattered around it. Evidently she'd been killing herself with boredom in the low light as she'd tended to him. She appeared to dismiss him now, picking one of the books up and thumbing out the bookmark.

He truly knew better. The childish part of him that still enjoyed watching shadow puppet shows on his bedroom wall still hoped for better. He waited, but Nabiki Tendo didn't seem to be in a hurry to say anything else. She bobbed her folded legs casually, making barely-there rustling noises against the padding of the sleeping bag. The compound was misleadingly quiet around them, the hum of insect life nearly imperceptible outside the crack of her window. The dojo had very old bones that continued to occasionally pop and settle with shifting temperatures, but there was no movement inside its body.

Nabiki Tendo flipped the page. "Thank you for the hospitality," Kuno said. "I will take my leave. I presume the bill for that hospitality will arrive in the mail."

"Yup. Honestly, you might as well just crash here at this point," she said, not looking up. "My dad doesn't care and I already dragged the sleeping bag out of storage, not to mention I'd still have to wash the sheets before I could use the bed. I'm charging you either way so it's a waste of your money to ditch now."

"That is my anteater," he frowned as he moved the blanket aside, belatedly spotting it on her pillow. "You pilfered that from my belongings."

"It is absolutely my anteater and you just need to admit that you bought it for me."

Of course it was her anteater but he was also under no obligation to admit that, especially now. "You may borrow it," he said instead, and stood unsteadily to retrieve his bokken. His bag, minus three stuffed animals but fortunately still containing his expensive ring and proposal scroll, hung over the back of her desk chair. He thought about where the panda might have gone but didn't have the energy to dwell on it.

He didn't realize Nabiki Tendo had stopped reading until he spotted her unblinking cat eyes on him as he crossed the room to her window. Kuno was too sore for good manners quite honestly. He wasn't certain who else might be up at this hour but either way didn't feel like executing a parade of bruised shame down to the front door. He could walk home barefoot.

He sat on her sill, swung his legs out in preparation to drop, and watched the infinite darkness of the Tendo compound yawn below him.

Abruptly depleted, he leaned his head against the frame and closed his eyes.

Nabiki Tendo said from behind him, "If you're waiting for me to apologize you're going to be waiting a long time."

The cool air prickled and then gnawed at his toes.

"And I would've handled the goons myself. If any of them had laid a finger on me I would've pinned lawsuits on them. It actually probably would've been better if you'd let them have a go at me. In fact, I should charge you for saving me."

The bill would likely get exponentially higher the longer he lingered. Kuno didn't move.

"Akane kept the giraffe. She'll never admit it but she thought it was really cute. You might get an actual honest-to-god thank-you note later that I'm sure you'll misinterpret as a declaration of love, but there you go. We raised her with manners."

He said nothing.

Nabiki Tendo stood. He felt her at his elbow but she didn't touch him. He wondered why he even wished for her to touch him. A gesture of warmth given by a heart so cold would likely only worsen his chill. Kuno could honestly not recall the last time he was touched gently outside of a medical situation, and even that tended to be hit or miss in a town where even the physicians usually moonlighted as martial artists.

Nabiki Tendo said, still conversationally, "I talked to your sister tonight."

"Where."

"She came over in a rage demanding to know where you were. She'd assumed Akane kidnapped you and was holding you in some sort of possessive sexual fervor or whatever. I don't remember the exact words she used. But anyway, I pulled her aside, gave her some juice, and I told her what happened."

He struggled bodily a moment between the words 'possessive sexual fervor' and matters that actually required his attention. "That was extremely foolhardy."

"Oh?"

"She could have seriously injured you."

"Kodachi's batshit and I won't split hairs over the abuse, but game definitely recognizes game when it comes to finance. She likes being rich way more than she likes beating up on me, and she knows the instant that she does, me and all my professional recording equipment will be sharing those finances."

"She can disarm you and disable the equipment faster than you can blink. You underestimate her."

"Except I don't. I have a full dossier on all of Ranma's love interests and rivals that stretch back years into his pitiful life. The day they go too far is the same day I cash in at court. I don't have to practice martial arts to be a threat, Kun-tachi. I've got my own dojo."

"That dojo did not help you today," Kuno said.

Nabiki Tendo's elbow was propped on her knee, her chin on her fist. Her eyes were half-mast and full of tinder.

"You do not…" For some reason his throat was full again. It hurt to speak. "You do not deserve to talk about my sister in such a high-handed manner, Nabiki Tendo."

"Holy shit," Nabiki Tendo said. "That's where you're going to go with this?"

"I am both parents to her. I know her better than anyone in this world. She has many faults and I freely acknowledge this. It is a failure of mine to contain her and her unwomanly urges towards violence and discord. But she is honest with her feelings. She speaks her mind and pursues what is important to her."

"Yeah, I'm sure life would be improved for everybody if I started beating up on my siblings and blowing parts of the dojo up every time I have a temper tantrum about an overdrawn credit card. What exactly are you high-roading me with here? Is it the fact I'm not conducting business in a leotard? Because adjustments can be made."

"You do not have the right to castigate her for abusing the trust of others and preying on others' emotions."

Nabiki Tendo's face slid from ironic to expressionless between blinks. He could tell he'd caught her off guard. "Here's the thing about raising monsters," she said, too casual. "Kasumi and I basically raised Akane. I may only be a year older but maturity-wise, Akane's always been slow to develop. The first thing she'd do when she got mad in elementary school was to hit the other person. We got called into a lot of school conferences. She almost got kicked out for it in first grade. I had to think fast of things that'd stop her rampages and I came up with Dr. Tofu. Boom – hitting tantrums stopped. You raise a monster and you have to learn how to speak that monster's language, Kuno. Kodachi wasn't listening to you because you don't speak monster."

There was some kind of twisted compliment buried deep in that but he was too irritated by her pontification to care about it. "Do not dare impugn Akane Tendo by blaming your dysfunctions on her. She is an innocent victim of your ceaseless machinations."

"Kodachi was not going to back off because you were hurt. You know that, right? She was ready to straight-up murder you in this bed. You can prevaricate and high-road me all you want, but that fact is I've learned how to deal with my monsters. I got Kodachi to call off her poisoning exploding ponytailed rampage when every attempt from you fails 100% of the time, so you can go ahead and pontificate your way all the way back to your seat. Valor is cheap, Kuno. Honesty is cheap. Turn around and your right becomes your left. Stand on your head and the ground becomes the sky. You don't understand what makes other people tick."

"And you do."

"Of course I do. How is it that you think I do what I do? I'm the best because I listen. I watch. I know what people are thinking before they open their mouths. All their petty little fetishes, all their pretty little kinks, all their dirty little desires they hide from mommy and daddy. I know when someone's lying to me, I know when someone's hurt, I know when someone wants something they'll never be able to get. And me? My specialty is getting that impossible thing. It's what I do. It's all I do."

"Then it appears you've gotten all you wanted from me," he said. "As you have made out quite handily from this venture."

Nabiki Tendo was remorseless. "Yes."

"And this collateral damage is worth it to you."

"Yes. Always."

"Thank you for your hospitality," Kuno said, and dropped into the gloom of the compound.

He managed to get three blocks away in the direction of his estate before she caught up to him, pattering along in sensible shoes and a scarf. She was chewing something that smelled like peaches. "You were not invited," Kuno said.

"Oof."

"I can walk home on my own."

"Me too."

"Then go home."

"I am."

Well Nerima was dark at night but not that dark. He'd never before thought to question Nabiki Tendo's sense of direction but had previously presumed that it wasn't bad enough for her to actively walk out of her house while trying to find her way back to her house. "Seek help."

"Tofu is always around," Nabiki Tendo said. "If we knock on the door he'll take us in. We've been his patients for years. He's even considered naming one of the rooms in his clinic after Akane but knows that'd probably send her one of many wrong messages."

"I am going home."

"So you're skipping all the frying pans and just plan on hopping from the fire into another fire. Sound."

"I do not see how that would concern you."

"It doesn't," Nabiki Tendo said, and burrowed her chin into her fluffy lapels. Her gaze was distant and brisk in the gloom.

Kuno slowed to a stop. She slowed and stopped in tandem. She had her schoolbag over her shoulder and he wondered a bit at the incongruity until he saw the shape of one of the lumps in it. She had clearly stopped to collect his geta from the front door before leaving.

The gesture was indirectly kind enough to be bizarre. Kuno didn't bother to ask for them as he knew he'd suffer an inflated delivery fee for the privilege of their use, but that she'd thought of them at all was unusual. This entire encounter was unusual.

He watched her until it clicked. "You feel guilty," he blurted.

"You know full well I don't do guilt, Kuno. Don't set yourself up for disappointment."

"And yet you are here and not in your bed. I am cogent and know my own way home. You also know I will not seek damages. There is nothing more for you to seek from me or accomplish here monetarily."

"Says the guy with no shoes to the girl holding his shoes."

"You protected me against Kodachi and prevented her from forcefully removing me from the compound. There was no monetary value in doing so."

"If you really think that's true it just proves to me that you lack imagination. Seriously, don't do this to yourself, Tatchan. You know better."

"I do not lack imagination: indeed it is among my best traits, including masculine feats of athleticism and impeccable floral arrangements," Kuno said. "You could have quite easily sold me back to her and claimed with such a transaction that you were selling the 'rights' to me, thereby contractually ensuring that she has sole jurisdiction over whom I court in the future. It would have taken almost nothing at all to write up a convincing-looking legal document and forge the signatures of those involved. It would have taken weeks, if not months, for me to disprove the legality of it."

"You know, I keep forgetting there are things I legitimately like about you," Nabiki Tendo said. "Quit it. Hating you burns more calories and I'm trying to shave of a few kg's in time for bikini season."

"You feel guilty." Firm now, he turned fully to face her. She did meet his gaze this time, but the contact was testy and brief. "Tell me," he said, watching her. He was genuinely fascinated by this development. "Which part aggrieves you so?"

"None of it. I don't feel guilty."

"I do not believe you."

"That's not my problem. Quit trying to pile meat onto this skeleton."

"You have put me in harm's way before. Willingly and repeatedly. Clearly the combatants today were boorish and untrained, and the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High possessed more than enough skill to overcome their sophomoric efforts, and yet here you are. What makes this time different than the others?"

"You tell me. You're the one who nearly left an innocent maiden behind to get roughed up by thugs."

Kuno did finally hesitate at this. Truth be told it wasn't one of his prouder moments. Meeting her gaze under the pallor of the streetlights, he could recall the spark of panic in her eyes as she'd watched him turn his back on her. He'd dissociated so violently he'd barely seen the path in front of him as he'd walked away from the situation, but looking at her now made even those feelings seem murky in hindsight. "I have box sets on me, you know," Nabiki Tendo said before he could speak. "We could make a midnight deal under romantic starlight for the low price of 8050 yen."

"No," he snapped, freshly exasperated. "Have you not one dram of shame or situational awareness?"

"Holy shit are you one to talk about situational awareness. You just had an unsuccessful engagement after all, I thought you might like a consolation prize. A 'go get'm tiger' incentive to get the next tiger."

"You," Kuno said, "extorted me."

"That's not the right use of that word. Leveraged you, maybe. Fenced goods and services maybe, if you squint. But the others are the ones who took up the fight with you. I just disseminated information."

"And another thing." He'd been about to leave again. He now spun back and skewered her with an index finger across their shared space. "You sold me blatant untruths. You said you 'didn't know of any flyer'."

"That's because I didn't."

"You quite literally wrote and printed the flyer."

"It was a letter of challenge doubling as an information pamphlet, not a flyer, thanks," Nabiki Tendo said. "And before you try pulling any more threads, I didn't 'order any attacks' either. Nowhere in the letter of that challenge was an order for them to attack you."

"You directly orchestrated an organized attack against me that could have caused me serious harm."

"But it didn't."

"You do not feel responsible for my injuries today."

"Nope."

"Then why are you here," Kuno said.

"To sell you box sets of my sister." Nabiki Tendo held up four fingers. "4000 per week to observe my sister, painlessly, from afar. It'll be a subscription-based service. You can choose to pay weekly or bi-monthly. Every week will include a collection of candid photographs, a fun tidbit about Akane, and a personalized 'interest' meter in which I tell you how much she currently does or does not hate you. Every four months, as a bonus for a loyal paying customer, you'll receive one item from her personal trash. This will include used chapsticks, broken hair accessories that smell like her shampoo, and pencils she's chewed on."

The anteater was in her school bag. He could see its nose poking up by his geta. He thought he might be going insane maybe. "How about it, Kuno," Nabiki Tendo said. "Maybe I was a little rough with you. Let me make it up to you. This is an exclusive service: nobody else in Nerima is being offered this deal. You know how many guys would kill to be in your place right now? I—Kuno."

He'd arrested his collapse by catching himself against the light post. He pawed it, turned himself around, slid his back against the frigid support until he was sitting on the equally frigid concrete. He closed his eyes and breathed a while, tired but cogent, actually. His head was curiously clear. He thought he might be laughing maybe.

Nabiki Tendo hovered a moment above him. Her mayfly indecision was rare enough to be comical. "I didn't bring juice," she seethed, squatting down on the balls of her feet. She manhandled his face a bit to tilt it up. "Damn it, Kuno, what did I say about going to Dr. Tofu's? We could've been there by now if you weren't so hung up on semantics."

"You were hung up on semantics, you remorseless harpy." He felt his jaw jog her grip. "I am dedicated to the concept of right and wrong, which you evidently have never broached."

"Oh, bullshit," she marveled. "Don't you dare start in on me. Manipulative bastard. I've sold you boxsets for years, do you really think you can highroad me on this of all things?"

"I have never put you in harm's way."

"And just what would you call today's little episode?"

"A consequence of your own manufacturing." The stars blazed beyond the street lights. Nerima always seemed strangely inverted at night. Assassins had bedtimes and decorum here: daylight was where the danger lived. Here, in front of a girl who had pitilessly plied his trust in her and thrust him into quite possibly mortal danger to satisfy a paycheck, he realized what he was feeling wasn't disappointment in her at all. The clarity of it all cleared his sinuses. Nabiki Tendo was exactly who Nabiki Tendo had always been. He was the one who had changed.

He closed his eyes to think. "Yeah, no," Nabiki Tendo said. "Okay, Kuno, you need to get up. Not a sexy proposition or a negotiation, but actually a legitimate need that has to be addressed."

"Answer me one last thing." It felt like he could still see the stars through his lids. "Honestly, if it's within your power to be honest, and then I will ask you nothing further on the manner."

"Let's skip ahead a chapter and just be done now. The conversation was boring anyway. Get up."

He disallowed her attempts to pry him up. She outweighed him between her ears but not from the neck down. "I want to know why you opposed the wedding between your sister and I. Be candid."

"Idiot, there was never going to be a wedding. How many times do I have to pummel in this extremely basic fact? I wasn't opposed or in favor of it because the wedding was fictional. It was all up in your crazy head. The only interest I had in it was how much bank I could make on that crazy fantasy."

"Listen to your own word choice."

"Fuck you is another word choice, but I'm a lady. Get up."

"I have come up with propositions and declarations of devotion before; you typically profit quietly from them and otherwise dismiss me. But this in particular you have gone through great effort to mock and undermine. Uncommon effort."

"Everybody has a saturation point, Kuno," Nabiki Tendo said. "Maybe – just maybe – even I'm tired of you creepily macking on my sister. Did you think of that?"

"Says the woman with multiple box sets in her bag and an offer for an indefinite subscription-based service."

"A yen is a yen. I can like the yen and not the way I make the yen."

"And if I love Akane Tendo?"

"You don't love her," Nabiki Tendo said. "All right, you know what, this is it. This is the moment I'm going to lay out the facts as unadorned and impolite as possible. So you actually get it. Are you ready? Tatewaki Kuno: Akane is not into you. Furthermore, you are not into Akane. You want to know how I know? Because you don't even know the most basic things about her that even her most casual acquaintances know. Literally none of them. Akane was your test of puberty. While most guys started growing chest hair and reading dirty manga, you latched onto my sister. You made her this idealized version of what you want when in actuality, if you really knew my sister, you'd have run screaming for Mt. Fuji ages ago. She's an actual boar, Kuno. And that's coming from someone who actually does love her kind of. She'll grow into something tolerable later probably but right now? She's the literal worst."

"I know Akane Tendo," Kuno said. "Do not demean her in this way. I will not stand for it."

"I don't give a crap what you stand for when you can't even stand. Prove that you know her. Right now. What's her favorite color? Her favorite food? What kind of music does she like?"

"Trifling particulars that can change on a whim. Knowledge of them proves nothing."

"Then what does she want to be when she grows up? What fears still make her hide under the covers? Does she remember our mother? Does she miss her? What kind of things would she wish for when she blows out the candles on her cake? What makes her the happiest?"

"All things I would have discovered after our ceremony."

"Admit it, Kuno." Nabiki Tendo seized his chin very suddenly and he opened his eyes to look at her. She was a raven's curious malice above him and it was unfortunate she was backlit so thoroughly. He was angry, he realized. He didn't want her to look that way when he was angry. "Akane is a masturbatory fantasy you cooked up in your crazy head, and once you've got what you want, you'll be into someone else. Hopscotching back to the pigtailed girl, maybe? I hear she puts out. Either way, you know full well you weren't actually committed to her. She was just more accessible."

"Stop."

"Or maybe you just want someone who will make you dinner. Good luck with that. Or you know what? Scratch all that. I know your type. You're living with it. Tell me the truth, Kuno: you want someone to whisper pretty things in your ear and then beat you up and leave you on the floor when they're done with you. That's why you keep coming back to the two most violent girls in Nerima, right? Keep climbing out of that pool, keep falling out of that sky, keep climbing up out of those holes. Pain is your love language. And with Akane, you know you'll have enough to feed your kink forever. But guess what? I have news for you. Letting yourself get beat up doesn't mean the people who hurt you are going to apologize to you afterwards. It doesn't mean they're going to feel bad and care about you more. If it didn't work with your sister and it didn't work your father, you can sure as hell bet it's not going to work with Akane. That pain means nothing. Not to you, and not to her."

His vision whited out. He didn't even feel himself move. There was a roar in his stomach and in his head and there was a blur of motion under the streetlights, and suddenly Nabiki Tendo was sitting on the sidewalk a meter away from him where he'd shoved her off him. He was staring at him with a cat's soulless assessment.

He was instantly sick with shame. He covered his face.

Nabiki Tendo let him stew for an appropriate amount of time. "I apologize for my brutish temper," Kuno said hoarsely after a few minutes. "I will pay you what you require as recompense for that display."

"I made you angry," Nabiki Tendo observed. She was chewing on something again. "It took a lot."

"Name your price."

"Lemme think about it."

He massaged his eyes with his thumbs. Morning would come soon and new failures with it. He hoped Sasuke had attended to his horse and wasn't currently combing the city for him. There was a chance even now he was watching from the shadows, unless Kodachi had gone straight home to take her own temper out on him, in which case he might be watching from well-meaning traction.

Nabiki Tendo said, "I wanted to be a dancer when I was little."

Kuno kept his face down. "No you didn't."

"I did, though. Honestly. I'm being serious."

He lifted his face to eye her with exhausted skepticism. She wasn't looking at him. She had leaned back on her hands, heedless of the strange picture they both made in the middle of the sidewalk. She was chewing on what looked and smelled like some kind of candy peppermint twist. "I've kept it under the rug," Nabiki Tendo said. "Everyone had their roles in the house once Mom died. Kasumi took over her job, Akane decided she was going to work to inherit the dojo because the possibility of a son was gone for our dad. He's the traditional, super-sentimental type – we knew it wasn't likely that he was going to remarry in his lifetime. I knew I was the best at math, even back then, and since Dad was useless, I figured I could make myself in charge of the finances and nobody would mind. But it didn't scratch what I really needed scratched. Akane was the baby and Kasumi was the oldest, so Mom left a lot of stuff to both of them. Kasumi got the heirlooms, Akane got the keepsakes. She and I though… I don't know. We were just different. She loved me, no doubt there, but I don't think she could really understand me. I think she worried that I fixated so much on things around the house and how much things cost. My first word was apparently 'yen' so that probably didn't help anything either."

Kuno watched her body language with a veteran's accuracy. She wasn't strictly uneasy but she wasn't quite looking at him either. It was no indicator of truthfulness unfortunately. Nabiki Tendo was an excellent liar in all circumstances, especially looking someone in the eye. "She'd quit by the time she'd had me, but apparently she was a pretty renowned dancer in the region," Nabiki Tendo said. "I found some of her traditional garb in a box when I was going through some storage for things to sell. I tried them on and looked in the mirror and…"

Nabiki Tendo trailed off. It was a very rare thing for her to do. He could see her revisit the moment under the streetlights. Her fingertips moved atop her knee – a quick, involuntary caress. "The fabric would've fetched a lot of money," she said. "Even more so now that they're vintage. But for the first time I looked at those things and knew there'd be no way I could ever convince myself to sell them. Even if the dojo burned down and it was the only thing I rescued. I'd rather starve. I put them on and of course they were circus tents around me, but the way they made me feel – I don't look like her, at all, but in that split-second before my eyes adjusted I could see her in the mirror. And that one time – never again, but that one time – I felt more connected to her than either of my sisters did. I felt like I had one part of her that was mine and only mine."

Kuno didn't dare speak. He watched her glaze off into the distance a moment, blink it away, and then flick out her fingers a bit over her knee to gesture it all aside. "Anyway, I was a dancer for two hot seconds," she said. "But turns out dancing is really expensive. In the end it wasn't worth it to me to chase those fading comet trails of her dreams. I just started to wonder what I was doing it for and where it was going. I knew full well it wasn't going to become a profession and I had plenty other extracurriculars to keep me busy. The point is, I was still happy. I'd loved it, I'd lost it, and I'd moved on. I'd done something that needed to be done for me, and once it was finished, I let it go. It died a natural death. I didn't need anyone to tell me to stop hanging onto it. I cleaned my own clutter out of my own attic before it became a fire hazard. And you know what? I'm glad it happened that way. We're way better off now than we'd have been if I hadn't embraced those instincts. If Akane decides to go to university, I already have two years set up for her. I'd like to get Kasumi back on that track, but she and I both decided it was more important that Akane be taken care of. It's what Mom would've wanted, and I can always take care of me later. But I couldn't have done those things if I hadn't made sacrifices."

"I cannot tell if this is well-meaning and fictional or manipulative and truthful," Kuno said after a moment of silence had passed.

Nabiki Tendo gave him a look of infinite sadness and pity. "Obviously it's all a lie, you incredibly gullible shmuck."

"It was a good story."

"That'll be five hundred yen for impeccable narration and a compelling emotional throughline."

"Nabiki Tendo—"

"You are not Kodachi," Nabiki Tendo said. "You're especially not your dad. You don't have to apologize for getting angry at me. I've been trying to make you good and angry for years and it took me poking all your sorest, goriest spots after possibly the worst day of your life to get you to candidly emote for like two seconds. You're a terrible person. Like let's not split hairs. You and I are bad people. But we're not that brand of bad. So I really need you to stop acting like I'll shatter every time you have a mean thought fly through your head. I know they're there. Hiding them just makes you disingenuous. I don't know if you've noticed, but I don't have time for that. At least in other people."

Hearing Secret Number Five – quite possibly the most terrible and personal and ruinous of his secrets – dismantled so starkly knocked the breath back out of him. He was dazed enough that it took him nearly a minute to produce words. "That is quite possibly the most hypocritical thing I have heard in years."

"Why."

"You have not emoted honestly since you broke your wrist in secondary school, and I suspect even half those tears were feigned."

"Oh, Kuno. Sweetheart. My love. All of them were feigned. The only tears I shed are crocodilian."

"Then you truly are a shameless hypocrite."

"Yeah, well." Nabiki Tendo yawned hugely. Her tongue was red with peppermint. "Game recognizes game."

The sidewalk was very cold. He knew he should move but was stymied wondering what he'd break if he did. There was no telling what would shatter this truce but he needed it not to shatter.

He said, "Why are you here?"

She didn't hesitate. "To manipulate you."

"Why did you anger me on purpose?"

"I was curious to see what would happen. So sue me."

He thought about it all for a very long time. The moon continued to slither beyond the tapestry of starlight and Kuno had a thought as to whether or not it meant anything. Day or night, love or lost. It had felt the same for years. "I do not know Akane Tendo's favorite color."

"I already told you that you—"

"But I know yours."

She rolled her eyes. She rummaged around her pack, presumably for another peppermint stick. "I also know your favorite song, your favorite outfit, your favorite barrette, and your favorite book," he said.

"Yeah," she said. "No you don't. You know what I let you think you know. I'm generous that way. Good for the press."

"Then what are your favorites."

"Currently? Brown, Last Impression, my white pants and blue sports jacket, the leaf headband, and our ledger."

"Those are lies."

"Shame you'll never know."

"Your favorite color is gold – the color of a 5 yen piece and your mother's favorite hairpin," Kuno said. "Your favorite song is 'Hanashitaku wa Nai', your favorite outfit is the white skirt and green blazer you wore during our outing at the bookstore, your favorite barrette is one with glued-together yen pieces that Akane Tendo made you for an ill-advised art project, and your favorite book is a tome of Germanic fairytales that you keep hidden under your mattress – the ones your mother used to read to you when putting you to bed."

Nabiki Tendo closed her mouth a moment. "You give yourself away," Kuno said. "The things you cherish the most are the things you choose not to display often, because taking them out into the public eye endangers them. The barrette you safely keep in a stand atop your jewelry box; I saw it again just tonight while I was sitting in the window. You don't play your favorite songs for others because you don't want others' opinions tarnishing your feelings for them, but you keep their jewel cases in prominent positions in your room. Hanashitaku wa Nai is the song you hum most frequently when you are distracted. And you did, in fact, love dancing. The story was true. You merely put it away before the world could tarnish it."

Nabiki Tendo was utterly silent.

They were, Kuno realized, looking at his hands ponderously, both extremely bad people. He watched the way the wind batted her collar against the slender column of her neck, the way her hair fought to escape its headband. She'd stopped chewing on the peppermint stick.

He stood up. She sat on the sidewalk a moment longer, perhaps to trick him into thinking she was smaller. It was a lie. He extended his hand and felt her settle hers in his without prompting. It was soft and delicate and that was a lie too. She'd nearly killed him today out of curiosity and avarice and would happily do it again if it netted her a profit she liked the look of. She was Bad People. "I hate you," Nabiki Tendo said. "I know your secrets. Kodachi, your dad, even your mom. I have dossiers on them all. Yours is full of things I could use to destroy you hair by hair. I know every button to push, every place of you that'll shatter under the right amount of pressure. You think Kodachi is dangerous, but you have no idea what real danger is."

"I have only six secrets. Why are you here."

"Because I only know five," Nabiki Tendo said. "And it bothers the everloving hell out of me. Write more incriminating material on your walls so my spies have more to work with."

"You are despicable," he told her. "I hate you and vastly prefer your sister—"

"Lie," she hissed with a snarl of honest laughter, and seized the collar of his hakama and yanked him down to her level and kissed him right there in front of two dozen darkened windows under the frigid splashes of streetlights and the explosive frigid spray of stars. He wished he could say it was the first time but they both knew it wasn't. First time after first time after first time. It was peppermint this time instead of tea and the last time had been tea instead of ice-cream, but the foundation remained the same. Ugly, beautiful, familiar firsts. "If you propose to either of them again," Nabiki Tendo said, "I will fire every gun on my emotional quarterdeck at you. You can keep the wall displays."

Of course he could keep the wall displays. Profits were important. Even now he could feel the packaged box sets dig against his ribs and knew he'd likely be walking away with them tonight much to his budget's detriment. "Say it," Nabiki Tendo bit against his chin.

"Nabiki Tendo."

She caught him again, kissing him so commandingly that he felt the ricochet down in his chest. There were hopefully not more than half a dozen people peeping at the inglorious Shakespearean display. "Nabiki," she breathed, laughing again with hatred and frustration. "Say it. You absolute ass."

He took a breath and let it out against her hairline, over the top of her head. "Nabiki."

"Your first name is stupid. I'm not using it."

"I would prefer you not pollute it anyway."

"Tatchan," Nabiki said, and the patronization sounded like an endearment and that was his problem unfortunately. It was both of their problems. It had been their problems since primary school. Unhealthy and healthy boundaries that frequently hopped borders. Nabiki said, "Tatchan," and this time he initiated their mutual destruction, thumbing her hair out of the way behind her ear. She surged into his space like floodwater.