Convincing Tate and Reito to come over the next evening didn't prove to be hard; Mai just sent them a mail message reading, "We need to talk; can you come over at seven?" and they showed up. Getting them to be happy about each other's presence was harder.

"What's he doing here?" Tate was the first to ask.

"I needed to talk with both of you. Yesterday, you both said some things that were pretty important, and it's something that needs all three of us to talk over."

The boys glanced at each other, apparently curious about where Mai was going with this.

"Okay, then, but why is she here?" Tate jerked a thumb towards Nao, who was leaning against the wall next to the door, arms folded across her chest.

"I was wondering about that myself," she put in. "If you're looking for advice on boys, come by the chapel. We're open all night unless Miyu's off blowing up some rival's factory for the squirt or something."

"I need you to keep an eye on Mikoto for me."

"Seriously?"

"This is private, so I need time alone."

"Aww," Mikoto pouted, "I wanted to see what happens!"

"I'll tell you all about it when you come back, I promise."

"Aw, that's no fun."

Mai turned back to Nao, pressing her palms together.

"Please, Nao, you see how it is. I need someone to keep her out of trouble or from getting bored."

"You sound like you're talking about your kid. Seriously, she's seventeen now. She ought to know what a sock on the doorknob means."

"Nao! That's not what I meant!"

Nao rolled her eyes.

"Fine, fine. All right, Mikoto, I guess I'm your babysitter tonight. Wanna go into Tsukimori with me and troll for muggers?"

"Yay!"

"That doesn't sound like a very nun-like activity," Reito pointed out.

"Hey, I'm going out in the world, performing beneficial work in encouraging the city to be a safer place. And I'm enlightening those poor sinners and lightening the burden on their souls by encouraging them to make charitable donations."

"Less the costs of collection, no doubt."

Nao shrugged.

"Hey, the whole vow of poverty thing leads to low wages."

"I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear any of this," Mai decided. "Go, have fun, just don't call me for bail money until tomorrow morning, okay?"

Laughing, Nao grabbed Mikoto's hand.

"Don't worry. I don't get caught."

She headed for the door, pulling the feral girl along in her wake. Kagutsuchi and Miroku recognozed their cue and zipped along after, just before the door closed, leaving Mai alone with Tate and Reito.

"Well," she said, a little...no, check that, a lot nervous.

"So what's this all about?" Tate challenged.

"It's about us," she said. "You, me, Reito, and this thing that we've been doing for the last two years."

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

She licked her lips. This had been so much easier to think about than it was to actually do. Tate's look was openly challenging, still carrying with it some of yesterday's answer. Reito was, in his way, even worse, waiting patiently, not committing himself until there was something to commit to.

You've fought monsters and armies and worse, Mai told herself, but she knew this was a different type of courage altogether.

"I've been thinking about some of the things you said yesterday, and what Reito said, too."

"Huh? What he said?"

"At dinner he basically agreed with you."

"Oh. Well, then."

"Perhaps we would be more comfortable if we sat down? This sounds like it might take a while," Reito interjected.

"Yeah, that's probably better," Mai said. She took the armchair for herself while the boys sat down on the sofa.

Settled, Mai took a deep breath and plunged on ahead.

"Two years ago, after all the dust cleared from the Festival, we all agreed on what we were doing. The two of you both wanted to go out with me, and I liked the both of you as well. That was the problem; I couldn't just say, 'Yuuichi, I like you better than Reito' or 'Reito, now that you're not possessed by an alien abomination I'd like to take up where we left off.'" She paused, then winced and added, "I'm sorry, Reito; I'm a little nervous and that came out really wrong."

Tate grinned hugely.

"I thought it sounded fine."

"Shut up, you."

"Yes," Reito said, "I'm supposed to be the expert smirker among Mai's boyfriends and I won't have you stepping into my role."

It seemed that Reito had rather decisively won that exchange.

"Anyway," Mai hauled the conversation back on topic, "we agreed that I would date you both and give you each a fair chance to court me before things got serious with either one of you. And now it's two years later and we're still doing it. You two are still interested in me, or else you'd have given up and gone on to someone else, and I'm still interested in both of you, or else I'd have made up my mind by now. But this can't go on this way forever; it isn't fair to any of us. We all have serious feelings, or we wouldn't still be waiting after two years, and we want to express those feelings, and have them returned."

She paused, then threw caution to the wind and added, "Mikoto was making a joke about whether one of yesterday's fights was because you tried to get too handsy, but over the last six months I've noticed that there's been a lot more kissing and touching between us. That's not bad, it's just one more thing that shows we're all tired of playing at being in love like kids would, and want something real, something that has a future to it."

Reito leaned back on the couch, folding his arms across his chest.

"That is a nice summation, Mai, but it does pose quite a question: how are we supposed to have a relationship like that when you keep us suspended like this? Any one of the three of us could choose to walk away, but you're the only one who can make a choice to move us forward."

"I know," Mai said, swallowing nervously. "And I have."

The boys glanced at each other.

"You thought, or at least started to think...that I was stringing you along, that I was happy just hanging out and having fun and having you dance attendance on me." If they hadn't, other people certainly had. Chie, for one, kept giving her the "you go, girl!" kind of encouragement, and Nao, being Nao, had more than once complained about Mai not taking opportunities to play Tate and Reito off against each other to make them dance to her tune. "But it isn't true."

"Then what is true?" Reito said.

"What's true is that, Reito, you're charming, you're charismatic, you're so handsome you're almost pretty, like a work of art I can just stare at. You're clever and gregarious; when I see the way you use words to say multiple things or lead by implication without ever having to come out and say it to be perfectly understood, I'm amazed by how brilliant it is. You're intelligent and cultured, and it lets you open up my world to entirely new experiences, things that make me feel like I'm Cinderella at the ball. It's not things that are expensive or fancy, but that they're magic. And you're always so calm and self-assured and you know and can do so much that no matter the situation I'm sure you can handle it perfectly."

"That's funny, from where I'm sitting it's you who's the one who can do whatever she can set her mind to. The things I can do, yes, it's me who's done them with my own mind and body, but it comes from education, training. What you do comes from your own strength of heart, something that won't change no matter what area you apply it to."

It was hard for Mai not to blush at the compliment, which just went to make her point. Tate, too, was affected by the power of Reito's words, albeit in a different direction.

"Geez, you don't have to be a highly-educated genius like him to tell where this is going."

"Apparently you do, because I don't think Mai set all this up just to say that she's dumping you for me."

"You're right; I didn't."

She turned to face Yuuichi, leaning forward towards him. Because her chair was closer to his end of the couch, she might have been able to touch him if she'd stretched far enough.

"Yuuichi, you're a great guy too, and in a lot of different ways than Reito is. You're strong, and you're brave, and you're tough—not the kind of tough that means fighting, but willpower, the conviction to put yourself on the line for what's important, even when it seems like it's hopeless. You always make me feel warm and safe, not because I think you can handle everything for me or solve my problems, but because I know you'll be there for me, standing by my side and offering your support no matter what. And you offer me new perspectives, too, like yesterday, when I'd never have thought of rock climbing as something fun to try. And you've got a sense of humor; you can make me laugh and enjoy life when I get too stressed and serious."

"Oh. Well."

He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. Emotional scenes with lots of gushing were never his forte.

"And this is my problem. If it was just as easy as saying one of you is great and one isn't, then this would be all over. But you're both great guys. I really do like you, and you make me really happy. And yet you're so different, like the sun and the moon, night and day—"

"Cake and ice cream?" Tate suggested, making Mai break into giggles (admittedly, probably as much because of the tension as any quality in the actual joke).

"Somebody took that 'sense of humor' thing seriously, I see."

"Face it, Kanzaki, guys who spend as much time putting on that smooth facade as you do can't make the girls laugh."

"As opposed to someone who spends his time playing the clown, for whom it comes all too easily."

"Hey!" Mai cut them off before they got out of hand. They were obviously feeling the tension, too, their rivalry coming to a head. "Please, just...let me finish, all right? Then you guys can fight all you want, or at least fight about what it is you're actually mad about."

"You imply that we will be upset, and yet for right now you've only said complimentary things about us," Reito pointed out. "You've got me very curious about what's coming next."

"It's just that I'm trying to explain that I'm not stringing you along. Dating you was supposed to help me make up my mind, to show me whom I loved and which was just a crush, but instead all it's done was to make my feelings for you deepen, as I got to see more and more of you. Yuuichi, yesterday you talked about how I never said 'I love you,' and it's true that I haven't, but it's not because I didn't think it was fair to say it to one of you when I couldn't say I didn't feel that way about the other. If I said 'I love you, Yuuichi' or 'I love you, Reito,' isn't that the same thing as picking one of you and settling the matter?"

"You complained that she hasn't said 'I love you' yet?" Reito asked.

"Yeah, go ahead, rub it in. I was so stupid I didn't even think about what it was I was saying."

Reito shook his head.

"No, as a matter of fact, that isn't what I meant. You knew that the relationship had reached a point where 'I love you' meant something, and it was conspicuous by its absence. We say it to her freely, of course, because we have nothing to risk but our pride by doing so. But the key is that you were right; where we are now, we should be hearing it back or something is wrong."

"Oh, well, in that case..." Tate preened a bit, which made a smile dance on Reito's lips.

Mai just nodded.

"Our feelings were advancing, but our relationship wasn't," she summed up. "We didn't get anywhere, because we were—I was—stuck in the middle of a stupid love triangle right out of a book or a shojo manga. Did I want to give my heart to the man who would keep me safe and grounded, who'd always be by my side but who wouldn't challenge me or take me beyond the bounds of my own world, my own life? Or did I want to choose the man who would turn me into Cinderella in a school uniform, but whom I couldn't always be sure would keep the magic going so I wouldn't turn back into a pumpkin at midnight?"

The boys shared a look, and a frown as well. It seemed neither one of them liked the comparison very much.

Well, she didn't either, so they were even.

"It's like I told Mikoto; I don't like that kind of love triangle. There's two things wrong with it."

"Two? Do tell."

"First, it's way too simplistic. Yuuichi's not just some boring stick-in-the-mud who'll never bring anything exciting into my life. Like I said, just yesterday he showed me something I'd never done or thought of doing before. And Reito's not always some impenetrable mystery that I'll never quite grasp, but can be sensitive and understanding. Again, just yesterday I was able to talk to him about the fight I'd just had with Yuuchi and what was really going on. Without his help I'd never have figured out what was going on between us."

"You told him about our fight?" Yuuichi yelped.

Mai crossed her arms over her chest.

"Yes, I did. It's my love life; I think it's fair that I can talk to my boyfriend about it! If it's any consolation, he agreed with you."

"Wait, he what?"

"It's been a strange couple of days," Reito observed.

"He agreed. It's why we're here now, the things that we've already talked about."

"Mai, why don't you tell us what is the second reason you hate this kind of love triangle, despite the fact that you're in one?"

Mai nodded.

"All right. It's because the choice itself is all wrong. The heroine is essentially told to pick A or B, risky or safe, fantasy or reality. Each man represents something about her, speaks to a different part of her heart. And it's a false di—um, dic, um..."

"Dichotomy?" Reito suggested.

"That's it. A false dichotomy. Because that's not what love is. Love isn't a metaphorical statement about a system of values where you're presented with a series of options and you select one that best suits your underlying life principles. Love is about building a relationship with another person. It's about how you feel when you're with them, and when you're apart, what you'd do for them and they way they touch you inside."

Mai leaned forward towards them.

"That's when I realized it: I haven't chosen because I don't want to choose. I don't want to look at either one of you and tell you to go away, to throw out all the things you bring to this relationship. You're my dream guy, and I don't want to settle for half of that."

"Wait a sec," Tate said, holding up his hand even though he wasn't actually interrupting. "You're telling me that you brought us over to tell us you've finally made a choice and now you're still not making one?"

"That isn't what I said," Mai told him. "I am making a choice. I've realized that the person that I love is both of you."

"What, you mean like in some kind of harem?" Tate yelped.

"I believe it's what the French call a menage-et-trois," Reito pointed out less than helpfully. Tate's eyebrows shot up at that; he'd clearly heard the phrase before although Mai doubted it was in its original context of a three-person household when he did. "Is that what you're proposing, Mai?"

He's being entirely too calm about this, Mai thought, a thread of fear twisting its way through her lower belly. She'd expected the flash of temper from Tate, but was never sure what Reito would say or do in such circumstances. But then, if I could, I probably wouldn't be in this situation. Because while a person might grow and change through experience, the idea that change could be urged upon them from outside was a losing proposition that had spelled unhappiness for far too many relationships.

"Yes, it is," she told him. "The man that I've fallen in love with, the man that is everything I need in a boyfriend, the man that I look at and can imagine a future with instead of just a few dates or a fantasy of a passionate night, isn't Yuuichi or Reito but rather 'Yuuichi-and-Reito.' If...if my heart is a puzzle, it's like you're each half of the missing piece. Or, more like three-fourths; there's a lot of overlap."

Tate let out a loud snort that was almost a growl.

"So you're telling me that if I want to be with you, I've got to share you with this smiling weasel?"

"And the smiling weasel has to share her with the wild baboon," Reito noted.

Mai clenched her fists in her lap. This was going about as badly as she'd expected it to.

"Please, just stop it, both of you."

"Us stop it? You're the one who went and dropped this bombshell on us out of the blue! What did you expect, that we'd all be smiling and happy about it? 'Sure, I'm ready to take this relationship to the next level, but only if you're willing to share me with another guy? How would you like it if I told you that I would, but only if you'd have to share me with...with...with Shiho or something!"

Tate's point was rather undercut by his example, because it made Reito burst into laughter. Tate colored and scratched the side of his head.

"Okay, maybe not the best example. But what I'm saying still stands. I just don't get it, what you're doing."

"I understand," Mai said. "I...I know that this must seem like an unreasonable answer, but it's the only one I have. I know that most people would think it's weird, what I'm feeling. Maybe somewhere out there, there's one man who would make me feel what...what I do for the two of you." Her voice was starting to choke up, and there was a lump in my throat that seemed to be strangling her. "Maybe you hate me now, or think I'm sick for wanting this, but the both of you deserve my honest answer, and this is the only one I have. I really have fallen in love with the two of you," she ended on something that sounded like a sob.

Her eyes stung, and she had to blink away tears.

"What? Geez, Mai, are you crying?"

"Well, what do you expect?" Reito said sardonically. "She just worked up the courage to make a love confession, and the reaction was not only for her to get turned down, but to as good as be called a freak for feeling the way she does."

"I didn't say that!" Tate yelped.

Mai wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve.

"It's all right, Reito, really." And it wasn't like he had committed to an answer yet, either. She could just believe that he'd done it on purpose: if Tate was doing all of the blustering and breaking up, then he, Reito was in position to present himself as the kind, friendly option.

Of course, she had no way of knowing that he was doing anything of the sort, but the mere fact that she could imagine it of him drove her to nip the idea in the bud (and also explained a lot about why she didn't find the prospect acceptable).

"Look, Reito, Yuuichi, I know this isn't an easy thing to hear, and I understand if you don't want to go along with it. If the idea isn't acceptable to you both, then I'll be sad, but it's better to know the truth so we can all get on with our lives and try to find someone else. But you both wanted my choice and, well...this is it." She spread her hands and smiled gamely, her heart still lodged in her throat.

There was a long pause, in which Mai could swear that she could hear her heart pounding like a triphammer. Tate was still staring at her, half a dozen different emotions wrestling with one another, while Reito was still enigmatic, the only sign anything was wrong the lack of his usual smile, indicating that he did not feel in control of the situation. Which he wasn't, not really. He had the power to reject Mai, but to accept required Tate, and vice versa.

Finally, Tate spoke.

"You're really serious about this, aren't you, Mai?" His voice was level, still a little bewildered, but without the yelps of surprise or howls of temper from before. "You want me, but only as part of a package deal with this guy." He jerked a thumb towards Reito.

"And vice versa," the other boy noted.

"Yeah. I gotta say," Tate agreed, "that if you'd told me two years ago this was where we'd end up, I'd just have walked away and tried to get over you." He rubbed his head sheepishly. "I mean, I've got a theme going here: Shiho wanted me all to herself to the point of going a little nuts over it, and you wouldn't have me on those terms at all. This isn't the kind of thing a guy dreams of, y'know? Well, unless he likes other guys, too, I suppose, but that's not my thing."

"I see," Mai murmured.

"But, y'know, that's if I known. But I didn't know, and I've had two years to fall in love with you, Mai. I really cared about you before, too, but that was something different. I don't want to lose you, but this is pretty damn weird, this whole two-for-one deal. I just don't know." He turned to Reito. "I don't suppose you have something to say, or are you going to let me keep doing all the heavy lifting?"

Reito just shrugged, and this time the smirk was back.

"When you keep diving right in, what's the point of me just repeating everything? I'd just look unimaginative."

Tate rolled his eyes.

"What happened to all that stuff about us being so different Mai needed both of us to make up a whole guy?"

"Well, if we're each three-fourths of her perfect man, then there's at least half a set of good qualities' worth of overlap. I would think that our feelings for her would have to be part of it."

"Yeah, that kind of makes sense." Tate blinked. "Quit doing that."

"Making sense?"

"Being so logical about this mess we're in."

Reito shook his head.

"I assure you, while I may be calm, I'm not in the slightest bit logical. Unless you mean using logic to reason out how best I can get what my heart wants."

Tate turned to Mai.

"Please, tell me that's part of the one-fourth he's missing."

"Um...I don't really have a list?" Mai said, distinctly confused as to how they'd ended up in the middle of seemingly random banter. It was as if they'd fallen into some kind of male bonding thing right in the middle of the discussion.

Maybe they had. They were two men in a shared circumstance, after all.

"Well then," Reito chimed in, "if you would like to hear what my logic tells me, then I'll take the pressure off you this once. It tells me that a successful polyamorous relationship requires love, maturity, and a particular attitude concerning jealousy or its lack, and above all a tremendous amount of communication and patience. What Mai is asking is difficult and unlikely to be successful. On the other hand, I don't know what would happen unless we try."

"Wait, what?" The response was a chorus of surprise.

He shrugged, palms up.

"I'm merely saying that just because I don't think that I have the necessary mindset to be part of a successful three-person relationship doesn't mean that it isn't worth trying if it means that I might get to be with the woman I love."

Mai's eyes widened. Her lips parted to say something, make some kind of coherent response, but it froze halfway out. Tate gave his rival a long, measuring look.

"Do you seriously mean that? Or are you just saying it because you figure I'll bail out and then Mai's left with the memory that I was the ass who messed things up for her and you gave her warm and fuzzy feelings 'cause you were willing to try?"

"That sounds positively Machiavellian, even for me."

"Yeah, well, whatever it is, it ain't going to work. If you can suck up your planet-sized ego and give being with Mai a fair shake, then I'm sure as hell not going to chicken out."

Wait...Did Reito...did he just bait Yuuichi into...? Or did Yuuichi use that as an excuse to not have to say he wanted to do it without having to be all mushy and "unmanly"? Mai's mind reeled at the subtleties. Men are weird!

And now, it seemed, she officially had two of them.

She looked back and forth from one to the other.

"Are you two...are you really saying what it sounds like?" Even after what they'd already said, she could barely bring herself to ask the question.

"Yeah, I am," Tate said. "I'm willing to give it a shot. I mean, I've been dating you for two years with this guy hanging around. At least now the relationship's going somewhere."

"And what better time to experiment with more creative relationships than college?" Reito noted.

"I...I..." Choking up again, Mai could barely get the words out, and she found herself in the weird position of having tears streaming from her eyes while beaming hugely enough to make her jaw ache. "You guys!"

She all but flung herself out of her seat towards them, and they both sprang up to catch her so that her left arm came up around Tate and her right around Reito, Tate's own arm coming around her upper back and Reito's her waist.

"I really do love you, you know," she said, nuzzling into their shoulders. It was a strange feeling to be held by them both like this, different than being embraced by one or the other, but it felt right to her, complete somehow. She had no idea, really, if this was something that could last, if the three of them could make the compromises and shifts in perspective necessary to make the three-cornered relationship work on a permanent basis, but at the moment, that didn't matter. The future would bring what it would bring, but for right now Mai was happy in the arms of the man she loved.

And happily ever after had to start somewhere.

~X X X~

A/N: Most people who follow my stories (or read my reviews) know that in fact, I'm a Mai/Reito shipper when it comes to choosing among Mai's various romantic options. Which means that I've just completed writing a fic in which the conclusion isn't what I, the writer, would actually root for at the start of the series! I guess this is what they mean when people talk about characters running off and doing what they want, because when I started thinking about finally wrapping this plotline in the D&KOT setting, this seemed like the only course that made sense. The idea that Mai would stay with both men for two years if there was a choice to be made between them made no sense for me. And honestly, the idea that they were putting up with it for that length of time without having serious feelings back at her, and the potential tolerance to at least try... Meanwhile, rather than "happily ever after," I chose an outcome of "let's give it a shot and see what happens," since it seemed completely unrealistic otherwise that people would have such a paradigm shift that it would make it all smiling and happy forever and always in the course of three chapters!