Nishido felt his heart speed up in his chest, as it usually did when his brain started moving fast, like it rarely did anymore, like it had almost non-stop when he was younger.

It has to be a coincidence. It's not that uncommon a name, is it?

He had read somewhere that there were no coincidences; only the workings of what the author had titled ka, really just a fancy word for "fate." He never quite believed it, and yet…

And yet, something about this was wrong, or it was if the name was only coincidence. Harima's reaction to the girl, and his reaction to that name—Tenma. Yoshida had once told him that he strongly felt that Harima's latent alcoholism was, in spite of all his AA bullshit about "lost dreams" and "misspent youth," about a girl.

Maybe this was it.

Maybe most people wouldn't have given a shit, but this sort of thing was most of Nishido's job, and really, most of his life. He had been the only male gossip back during his high school years, a few months after the dinosaurs checked out for good, and he had been a damn good one, at that. Maybe he should have been a gossip columnist, but innovation in writing wasn't his talent, and so it wasn't his job. His job was to make sure all of his artists got their pages out on time, which typically meant taking a swim in their personal lives once and a while.

So this was important to him.

It occurred to him that both Harima and Yakumo were staring at him, and he colored a little, then said, "I'm very sorry, Miss Tsukamoto, for my rudeness, is what I was about to say."

"Something eat your tongue?" Harima said, still recovering.

"Maybe it did, Kenji," Nishido said. "But I seem to have gotten better."

Tsukamoto. Kenji's trigger.

Nishido found himself questioning his decision to hire the young girl. She was good, all right—she came with the highest possible recommendations from the editorial staff at Jump. She was, according to them, extremely meticulous in her work, and she got on with just about anybody she had to work with (though she was a bit quiet). To top it off, she was bright and pretty. For some reason, manga-ka liked bright and pretty. They said it gave them "inspiration." Nishido might've said it gave them something else entirely, but who was he to argue with results?

In any event, he wanted them out of his office right now. Wanted some time to think—and to dig.

Yes, the digging was the important part. If this girl was going to be a danger to Kenji's place on the wagon, Nishido would have her out of there. Kenji's career was starting to take off—he didn't know it yet, but it was—and damned if Nishido would let him fall back into that pit he'd been in at the start of his career.

Damned indeed.

Somehow, the prospect of leaving the office scared Kenji more than the prospect of staying there with the Head Editor, who seemed to have gotten a bee stuck up his ass at some point shortly after he snapped out of his stupor. In spite of this, he presently found himself standing directly outside that office, alone. The man had kept Yakumo, saying he needed to talk to her for just a couple minutes longer, and something inside of Kenji began yammering at him almost as soon as he crossed the threshold, babbling at him in a frantic, incoherent voice to get the fuck out of there, to leave and not come back, to just go home and sleep for the rest of eternity or at least until he was rested.

His feet, however, refused to move, which only caused his head to babble louder; like a brook filled with helpless, drowning men and women in the final seconds of their lives, before they were swallowed by the undertow.

All he could do was stand there.

He didn't know how much time passed before Yakumo emerged from the office, her face displaying a kind of discontent that he wasn't used to from her. She seemed a little surprised to see him standing there—as though she had been expecting him to just pick up and leave when Nishido kicked him out.

That's not right.

She looks like maybe he told her that was what you would do.

What the fuck is that bastard—

"Ken…Harima," she said, her voice displaying the same kind of surprise that her face belied, which Kenji found even stranger: She had never been somebody to wear her emotions on her sleeve; why, then, could he read her like a book, now of all times?

"Imouto-san," Kenji said, maybe by way of a greeting, his throat working automatically, as it often had with her. "What did that old battleaxe want you for?"

"Nothing," Yakumo replied, and Kenji sniffed her lie before he could breathe.

Have you changed that much?

Become more like your

"Alright, then," Kenji said, and then silence fell between them like a brick dropped off the top of a building. They started for the elevator, both of them, at a salaryman's pace.

They rode the elevator down to the first floor in silence as sheer as a wall of ice, neither of them willing to make eye contact with the other; maybe it was the elevator effect, but Kenji had a feeling it was something else entirely.

They didn't, in fact, speak to each other again until they reached the exit door, the hum of the lobby filling their ears as though trying desperately to compensate for their mutual silence. If it hadn't been for Yakumo, they might have left in silence, as well; Kenji was beginning to feel a little like he had back at AA; out of place. This isn't part of my life. I'm not an alcoholic, I just like to drink, and who doesn't? What is this, trying to change my life without my permission? Why don't I just get up and leave? And yet, he couldn't, no matter how he tried. His head would babble at him but his feet refused to budge. Once he had made it as far as standing up, and everybody had stared at him. He had wound up making a small speech about something he hadn't even considered until that point—and wouldn't consider ever again, it was really just something to say—and receiving a small ovation that meant nothing to him.

"Harima," she said gently, as though speaking to a clam, apt to lock up and drift away if she wasn't careful.

"Kenji's fine, imouto-san," Kenji said, not at all surprised that he had to make that clear to her.

"Kenji," she said, and then smiled for the first time since he'd seen her. Her smile was different than it used to be, he saw—still gentle, that had never changed, because she had never been anything but gentle, but there was an element of … what was that? Sadness?

No.

It was just …maturity. The feeling which could not rightly be called sadness, but that nobody would ever mistake for joy, that simply worked its way into most everybody as time passed and friends and lovers faded into the backdrop of life.

Somehow, this tugged at Kenji's heart more than he thought it would. Imouto-san was no longer imouto-san. No longer quite so delicate—he saw this in her as the grin worked its way along her face. She was…

(Lost.)

Grown up.

Just like he was.

"What is it, Yakumo?" Her name sounded strange passing through his lips. Even in the few stories he told about high school to the few friends he had, he called her imouto-san. So who was this Yakumo? "I'm starting to get cold, so we should probably get going."

"Do you want to go somewhere and eat?" she said quietly, timidly, and he saw once again how time had changed her—it wasn't much, but she was more forward now than she had been, even with friends. "I know you're …" busy? Exhausted? Scared out of your tiny little fucking mind? I'm a lot of things, imo—Yakumo "that you've got a lot to do, but if it's not too much…"

Part of Kenji desperately wanted to decline her invitation; it was the part of him he'd acquired at AA—the part that actively denied those things that he knew would be bad for him, but that he wanted to do anyway.

Another part of him, though…

Missed her.

In spite of it all, in spite of how frightened he was—whether of returning to how he was during high school or directly after it he wasn't sure—he missed her. She was good to him. Sweet. Gentle. Patient. Maybe he hadn't told her that, ever—in fact, he was sure he hadn't; how could he?—but she had been…important to him. A good friend. Somebody he could rely on.

Then why did she lie to me?

Maybe she didn't.

It was a testament to the speed of Kenji Harima's brain that he took so long to come to this conclusion—that maybe Yakumo had, in fact, been intending to "do something with animals," but that something had changed. People did that sometimes. They changed. Yakumo certainly had—the timid good-sister backdrop in her eyes was all but gone, replaced by a sort of mature shyness that reminded him a little bit of a woman he'd once met.

Omi.

Harima shook his head. Omi was another one of his triggers. One of the things that AA had encouraged him to pretend didn't exist.

What wasn't a trigger, though, when you got down to it? AA could dumb it down to "this is okay, this isn't," but underneath all that bullshit, hadn't Harima taken to drink not because of any of those things by themselves, but because of everything? Nobody fled into the bottle from something. People ran to the bottle because they were running from everything, and they were out of ideasThey danced with the devil and looked him in the eye, and what stared back was an empty glass snifter of whiskey.

When you stare into the abyss…

"Sure," Kenji said. "Be happy to. You look like you could use a meal or two anyway," he eyed her frame—skinnier than he remembered it, now that he looked carefully. Maybe not having to cook for her sister made her less likely to cook for herself.

A pang of worry bypassed the haze of exhaustion in his brain, and he pushed it aside. No need to worry, right? She was here now, and he could make sure she was looked after. Make sure she took care of herself.

It took him a second to realize that this was the first time he'd felt optimism, that driving force of his youth, long spent, poking its head out in at least three years.

What the hell happened to you, Kenji? It said.

What indeed.

"Do you have a car?" Yakumo asked, a little embarrassed. "I took the bus here, but…"

"I'll go you one better, Yakumo," Kenji said. He thought that, as her name left his mouth, her eyes widened a little bit. Thought he heard the minute hiss of her breath intensify just a little bit, but that may have just been his imagination.

Or maybe not.

Maybe she had been expecting to still be imouto-san.

He hated to be the one to break the news to her, but somebody had to.

I finally understood, all at once, and everything became clear to me. I raised my head to face him, my grin wide and my eyes glistening with joyful tears. To tell him that I understood. To tell him everything. That it would be okay now.

Everything would be okay now.

The gun in his left hand went off twice. The first shot punctured my lung, deflated it. I felt my breath escape from my lips, and it felt a little bit like it did when I let go of that ledge. It felt like life, escaping from my fingers. His second shot took me in the shoulder. He hadn't been trained with a gun, not like I had been, so it went a little wild. If he'd had his druthers, I'm certain he would have taken my head off with that second shot, but as it was, I went down with no air in my lungs and just enough clarity of mind to draw my third gun, the one he'd never seen, from underneath my coat. I aimed like I never would again, and shot him in the head, not thinking about how badly the betrayal might have hurt if I'd lived long enough to think about it. Not thinking about the three years we'd spent as lovers, and as more than that. Not thinking about how good of a liar he was.

What I thought about was that I came to understand one more thing, the last thing I would ever understand, and I guess, in the end, that's why I wanted you to hear this story:

When you dance with the devil, don't ever look him in the eye. If you do, he'll have you. Like he had me.

He had me good, but you know what?

That's okay.

Goodbye, Eric.

Goodbye.

--

Eri Sawachika found that she was sweating as she put her old ballpoint pen down next to the page. It wasn't because of the heat—it was hot, but English summers had nothing on Japanese summers, which were hot and humid and often not air-conditioned. Besides, she enjoyed the heat.

She was sweating from exertion and concentration, and she knew it. She felt like she'd just run a mile in heels.

But it was done. Only a first draft, true, but a big first draft. An important one. She picked up the enormous stack of papers from the desk in front of her and thumbed through them like a flipbook, enjoying the sensation of old, used paper on her fingertips.

And it was a big stack. Handwritten, it was perhaps three thousand pages. A huge waste of paper, if ever there was one, but Eri had never been able to compose onto a screen. She couldn't feel a screen like she could feel this. She couldn't do anything onto a screen.

Besides, who would want to?

This was it.

This was the important one. Her third novel, and she knew that it would probably be the most successful of her career. She wouldn't spend the rest of her life trying to match it, but only because she was too self-assured for that.

How did she know?

She just did. Her senses had already been keen, but six years in England, by herself, the first two of which were spent in near-impossible poverty, had sharpened them to a killing point. She couldn't have developed them, nor her talent, had she not lived like she did, and she was damn proud of it.

Not that anybody else was. They loved her books, but not her. That was normal; artists received confessions
(there's a word I haven't heard in that context in quite some time)
of love all the time, but none of them were really genuine. Fans loved art, but only friends could love people. That was fine.

Maybe this would be the one that would give her some freedom. Maybe even enough freedom to go back.

And do what?

See them.

You haven't seen them in years. They wouldn't even remember your face.

Horseshit and pepper. Friends don't do that.

Eric did. Eric was only a character, but even so…

She shook her head. Eric was only a character. They would remember.

Wouldn't they?