Five years after Guardian of the Spirit...


"Hi."

Yun glanced up. His friend was standing in the doorway looking uncertain and a little sad - as usual, thought Yun dryly. His ankle-length kimono hung loose at the neck so a triangle of chest showed, still tanned and brown from their time in Sangal.

"Come join me," said Yun. "I was just making tea."

Jin entered, hesitating before he slid the door shut behind him. He sat across from the older hunter, his legs folded under him, seeming overly formal and more awkward than usual. Yun rose and walked to the hearth. He poured the tea in silence, waiting for Jin to say something. He didn't.

Wordlessly Yun crossed the room and handed the other a cup of tea, then sat back down and waited. Jin held the teacup with both hands, staring into it. Yun wondered if he were having another absent spell - but the silence had gone on for far too long for that. And he'd taken the cup, hadn't he? "All right," he said at last. "What's up?"

"I think I want to spend the night."

Yun's expression changed to concern. "What happened?"

"I don't mean like before," Jin said softly. "I mean... intimately."

"But not like before."

"No."

Yun studied him for a long time. Jin was refusing to lift his gaze from the teacup. He looked uncomfortable and nervous, but there was no undertone of brash self-destruction like the last time he had come to Yun's room asking for sex. "Why now? What brings this on?"

"I don't know. I went for a run, and then I practiced in the yard for a bit, and I tried to read and then to sleep, but I couldn't. I guess I'm a little crazy tonight. I don't know why. Maybe something in me just decided that it's time. I don't know."

"Why me? Sun-"

"Sun doesn't want me that way. You do."

Yun laughed at this. "Always thoughtful. The question is, do you want this?"

"I don't know. I think I do, but I don't know."

Yun drew a slow breath. If he were honest with himself, he was reeling a bit. He had wanted this man for so long, and become so used to the close relationship they had and its coincident lack of satisfaction, that he had never thought this moment would come. The suddenness of it took him aback. It almost seemed too good to be true.

"You've never done this before," he said.

"No."

"If at any point you want me to stop, just say so and I will. Please tell me at once if you don't like it."

Jin nodded. Almost shyly, he set the teacup aside. Yun could tell he had no idea what to do, so he moved closer. "Taiga," he said gently, "are you sure you're ready to do this?"

"No, but I- want to anyways. I think." At last he glanced up. "I promise I'll tell you to stop if... if I change my mind. ...What should I do? How does this work?"

"You don't have to do anything at all. Just go along with it."

Feeling a rising excitement that was difficult to restrain, Yun leaned in, brushed the hair back from the nape of Jin's neck, and kissed him. "I have wanted this since you were fourteen," he admitted. He placed another soft kiss where Jin's neck met his shoulder - then under his ear - against the angle of his jaw - in the curve of his collarbone - pushing the edge of the kimono out of the way. For just a moment he rested his forehead against Jin's hair, appreciating his friend's slightly-soapy scent; he must have bathed recently. "I was genuinely worried at first, wondering how I could have such feelings for a child - but it was you, that was what brought it on - I wanted you more the older you got. Watching your transformation into an adult has been one of the most enamouring things I have ever witnessed." Another kiss; Yun could taste the faint saltiness of sweat, the mineral residue of the hot spring that fed their bathshed. "I want to make sure that this... is perfect." Carefully, as he spoke, he untied the belt of Jin's kimono. Jin started to shed the kimono himself, but Yun stopped him. "Slowly," he said.

"But-"

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course. I wouldn't have-"

"All right, then trust me."

Jin frowned, but he let his friend continue and did not argue.

Yun took his time, relishing every second. This was not the first time that Taiga had allowed Hasham to kiss or touch him - but to be given free rein to do, essentially, whatever he pleased... It was like a dream. Of course, it wasn't a total fulfillment of his many fantasies concerning this man, but Yun didn't wish to hurt or scare him. He remembered his own first time, with Shirai, his wife, and how tentative and anxious they had both been. He could only imagine that must be something like what Taiga was feeling right now. So Yun struck a deliberate balance between his own personal desires and his desire to make sure that his virgin colleague enjoyed the experience as much as he did.

At the same time, however, there was still that thrill of power, an undercurrent running through the whole affair that Yun could not - and didn't wish to, frankly - ignore. The kimono slipped off at last, patterned cloth settling to the floor near-silently. Jin wore nothing underneath.

Yun felt a rush at the other's vulnerability. The wounds from Sangal were still harsh white against Taiga's skin, healed but starkly fresh. And there were others, more faded: that one was from Jin's vigilante days, and that one from one of his first serious jobs as a Hunter. It was a little history written in blood on his friend's body. Even sinewy, muscular, hard as he was, without his clothes Jin seemed small and, in Yun's imagination, exploitable - not the grown man who had killed, fought, and survived, but the teenager who had lost his whole family and drifted, rudderless, across Yun's path - the boy Yun had fantasized about and been forbidden.

Briefly overcome, Yun shoved his friend down on the floor and straddled him. Jin gasped and jerked away, startled by this sudden aggression, and hastened to sit up.

"I'm sorry," said Yun quickly, sitting back. "I didn't mean to scare you. ...Do you still want to go on?"

Their eyes met, one pair uncertain, the other apologetic. Yun wanted to punch himself. He knew better than to let his aggression out here, now, when there was so much to gain - and so much to lose. Please, he thought, please say yes.

Jin took a quick breath and nodded.

"Try to remember to breathe," Yun quipped with a smile as his friend lay back down.

"You forget, I don't have to breathe." At last a small smile crossed Jin's face, just for a moment; and Yun gave an internal sigh of relief. In his passion he had nearly ruined his chance at getting that which he had waited a decade to claim.

As he moved down the other's body, Yun played close attention to Jin's posture, his breathing, his facial expression, the beat of his pulse beneath the skin, watching for any sign of trouble. Yun felt terribly self-conscious all of a sudden. He'd had many lovers, but he had never before cared so much about making things pleasurable for the other party. He'd also never been with someone as broken as himself, and he was terrified that he would screw it up on accident and do some kind of irrevocable harm to his closest, most valued friendship. He heard a sharp inhalation, as of pain, and immediately asked, "Do you want me to stop?"

"I- I don't know." Earnest, anxious.

Yun repeated the caress that had provoked the gasp. "Do you want me to stop?" he repeated.

"I don't- I don't know..."

"Taiga. Tell me if you want to stop."

With a steadying breath, Jin mumbled, "I don't."

"You're sure?"

A quick nod. "Yes. Yes. Keep going."

So Yun did. He switched from his hands to his mouth, euphoric with triumph. Jin's fingers clutched at the ground and he made a kind of whimpering sound, but he did not tell Yun to stop.


"Are you okay?"

Yun had crawled back up next to his friend while Jin was still shivery and breathless, and now lay nestled against him, basking in the sweaty warmth and satisfaction of the afterglow. The younger man lay still with his eyes closed; he hadn't moved, but Yun knew he was awake. Gently - gently as a spring breeze through grass - he smoothed back Jin's hair. "Did you enjoy it?"

A small, hesitant nod.

Yun's eyebrows knitted just slightly. "What's wrong, Taiga?"

At last Jin opened his eyes, though he still didn't move. He met Yun's concerned gaze and said, his voice almost afraid, "Is this going to change things between us?"

"Only if you want it to."

Jin shifted his weight and pushed himself up on one elbow to face the other Hunter. "You're my closest friend, Hasham." He sighed and his shoulders sagged just slightly. "I don't want anything to mess that up."

"Did I stop being your friend the first time you let me kiss you?"

"But this is different."

"I don't think it is."

Jin lay back again, and for a moment both of them were silent. Yun continued to play with his hair, absently, thinking back to what had happened and feeling peace and contentment. The sex had been slow and easy; after that first brief lapse, he had been absolutely as careful as he could be. He had been patient... assiduous... gentle. This had not been an act of domination. He had not taken Taiga's virginity - it had been given. This had been an act of love. For both of them.

Yun felt as if he had just passed the final test in some unspoken challenge. In the back of his mind, Mon's words echoed: You are not your father. For the first time, Hasham really, truly believed that.

"Is it always like this? Sex?"

Yun sat up with his legs folded under him, so that he was looking down at his friend. Jin met his eyes again - calm, thoughtful, uncertain. The question was serious, much more meaningful than a neophyte's fleeting curiosity. Yun thought about it. He had a lot of experience, but in many ways this had been a first for him. The only person he'd ever treated with this much care was his wife.

"For you, it might be," he said at last. "You're not like me, or Sun, or Hyoku - any of us, really." Yun searched for the right words to express what he was trying to say. Finally he settled on, "You're still vulnerable. I don't mean that in a bad way. I just mean that the rest of us have built up walls and armor over the years. You have, too - but it's not the same." He felt a soft, bittersweet pang as he went on, "Even with Shirai... I can't be myself. I can't let her see who I am, not really. Not even with you.

"But you chose to let me in, even after I threatened you, even when we were on opposite sides of a political war. And Suyou, and Ryuu, and the rest - you've allowed them to know who and what you really are. That's why everyone likes you so much. Even the herbalist. Even the prince. Your father was so stoic and closed-off, he was like a stone golem. You're a living, breathing, feeling being of flesh and blood - easy to wound, but alive."

He brushed the last stray strand of hair back from Taiga's face. He thought of Shirai, lying on their bed exhausted after Hiroshi was born. He had brushed the hair back from her face, too, and she had gazed up at him with a look that said, We made this. We did this together. At that moment, he had been so overwhelmed with tenderness that it had confused, even upset him. He had fought it. But right now... he didn't feel confused at all.

"If you ever do find a wife, I'm sure she'll love you just as deeply as we do. And that's the thing with sex... it's who it's with that matters. I expect you haven't got anything to worry about."

Jin looked up at him. Yun smiled. And Jin smiled back.

"Okay," said Yun, "now get out of my room."

Jin threw the kimono in his face.