NB: I've been away. I'd like to tell you that it's because I was out saving the world, but honestly, I've been dragging my feet. I'm sorry. I needed some time to think carefully about how to proceed. I hope I don't disappoint.

Hey guys, I think this chapter is funny. Well, parts of it are. I hope you get a giggle out of it. Do remember that all previous content warnings apply.

Oh, and I don't own Shiki.

It would be awesome if you'd tell me what you think of this story. Reviews are essential to a writer's process, even when said reviews are more critical than congratulatory. Honestly, I feel more motivated to write when people care enough to comment in a review or PM.

Also, thanks to Elvent for all the amazing conversations. Readers like you are why I write stories at all.

Seishin shifted uncomfortably in his chair and readjusted the phone as he listened to the other man stumble around in search for cigarettes. Toshio cursed softly as he tripped over something. Seishin wondered briefly if the doctor was sleeping in the jinrou's old bed, and if so, how alluring he must look half-asleep and tangled in those particular sheets. He'd just started to smile at the thought of Toshio's tanned limbs sprawled out over the white bedding, but then he caught himself. He pinched the bridge of his nose and forced a scowl in compensation. This is pathetic. It's been over a year!

Toshio took up the receiver and Seishin heard the flick of a lighter followed by a grateful inhalation of smoke. As much as he'd have liked to, he couldn't help himself from grinning at the irony. "That's a dangerous habit, you know. Particularly for a doctor."

"So is having sex with a werewolf, but if my memory serves, you had very few complaints that night." The doctor chuckled in that affable way of his. He suspected he shouldn't be so flip given Seishin's reasons for calling, but Toshio would forever be Toshio. And Seishin certainly knew that. This much was evident from the soft laughter issuing from the jinrou's end of the line. The brunette smiled more broadly and continued teasing. "I'm pretty sure you were begging at one point. But I'm having trouble remembering. What was it that you wanted?"

Seishin sighed melodramatically. It was amazing, really—how they could resume their friendship as if all bad blood between them had been washed away, as though he'd not spent last night thrashing around on account of his nightmares about the other man. "Okay, you win. But you caught me unawares. I wasn't expecting you to be so—"

"Gentle?"

"Well, I was going to say 'measured'." The ease of their interaction dissipated as quickly as it had arrived, and a mild tension settled on the pair as each worked out how to begin a conversation that had been on hold for many, many years.

"You're a writer. You're prone to euphemism." Toshio took another drag from his cigarette. "I was horrible to you. Don't let me forget that. Hell, even my apologies seem trite."

Seishin exhaled the breath he'd forgotten he was holding. "Toshio—"

"You're about to give me an out. Don't. You've justified enough of my behavior. Let me finish. If you never talk to me again, I want to be sure that I get this right." He waited.

"What, exactly, do you want to get right?"

"How I felt about that night…how I feel now."

The werewolf started. This was supposed to be a conversation about the motivating factors precipitating Toshio's obsessive persecution of Shiki in Sotoba. His feelings for Seishin were only tangentially related to the matter at issue. In fact, he wasn't certain that he wanted to hear what the doctor had to say on that front. Their sordid history was ample proof that Toshio was only interested in possessing and using his former friend as a kind of consolation when life had proved disappointing or grim. But having always been the selfless sort, the jinrou merely closed his eyes and settled himself more comfortably in his chair. "How do you feel, Toshio?" He sounded rather like a talk show psychiatrist as he posed the question, but the concern in his tone was genuine.

"Awful. I feel awful." And then words spilled forth as though a dam had been un-stopped somewhere. "I shouldn't have come to the church drunk all those years ago, and even after I showed up, I should have listened to you when you asked me to stop."

"I have no regrets about that night—" Seishin replied automatically. He'd cultivated a habit of easing others' minds, after all. But a moment's reflection revealed to him that this was in fact true. He didn't regret his first sexual experience with Toshio. He only regretted how things played out afterwards.

"Seishin, please. Please. Just let me finish." A rare desperation underscored the plea. If Seishin were honest with himself, he would admit to being flattered. That he could elicit such a strong reaction suggested that he mattered to Toshio. The priest was certainly not naïve enough to revise his bad opinion of happy endings, but he considered the possibility that he'd been too quick to dismiss the other's feelings as those stemming from possessiveness alone. Maybe he didn't know Toshio as well as he imagined. Or maybe Toshio had changed.

"Okay. I'm listening."

"I was wrong for hunting you down in Signa, and for not staying away when you asked me to. I'd like to claim remorse for that, but honestly, I can't. I'm glad we had that night. My only regret is that I didn't tell you exactly why I came looking for you. I gave you platitudes when you needed me to be sincere, to be vulnerable." Toshio paused to take another drag from his cigarette. Seishin stole the opportunity to speak.

"You did say that you didn't want to be without me. I suspected that meant you were lonely. Well, that and you thought you were invited."

"No, that's not right. I mean yes, I was."

"Toshio, even I can't piece together what the hell you mean by that, and I write dialogue for a living."

"Sorry. I was lonely. Incredibly so, but not in the way you'd expect. I could have found romance anywhere. Sex, of course, was never a problem. There were women and men queued up around the block who wanted to try their hand at saving the brilliant but broken Dr. Ozaki."

An sharp and unexpected irritation suddenly cut into Seishin, prompting him to drum his fingers impatiently. He noted the sensation with surprise and increasing agitation. Am I getting jealous? How absurd. "As expected. You never had trouble finding lovers." He inwardly congratulated himself on masking his feelings so well. His voice was completely neutral, and that was precisely the point. It wouldn't do to betray himself so readily.

A laugh from Toshio told him that he'd not been sufficiently neutral. "You're infinitely more attractive when you're jealous." Seishin scowled again. "But that's neither here nor there. No matter who I spent my time with, or what new and dangerous distractions I contrived for myself, my mind always lingered on the past, and most especially on you. I agonized over my mistakes and about what I could have done differently. Would Sotoba be there still if I didn't pursue the Shiki so stubbornly? Would we still be friends if I followed you to Kanemasa? Could I have changed the outcome for the village? For us? I wondered how you would react to my musings. Would you be forgiving? Or suspicious? I wondered where you were. Hell, I even wondered how your next book was coming along, and you know I hate everything you write."

"I didn't know, but thank you for your honesty. I'd be offended, but if I sacrificed my prose on the altar of fanservice for every village idiot, or village doctor in this case, I'd never sleep at night. Must I spell out everything? Happy endings are trite and contrived. They demolish plot! I expect my readers to be more thoughtful and intelligent than hormonal teenagers lusting after sparkly vampires, but perhaps my faith is misplaced."

"Listen, could tragically misunderstood author Sesto Moretti please return the phone to painfully repressed priest Seishin Muroi? Exasperated physician Toshio Ozaki would appreciate it if Signor Moretti would refrain from derailing this conversation." Seishin merely huffed in displeasure, so Toshio offered a consolation to the writer's now-wounded ego. "All your books are beautifully written and immaculately executed. Really. They're just so depressing. And while I appreciate your technical skill, I can't really like them because I know that I contributed to your bleak view of the world wherein happy endings are impossible." He heard no response from the other end. "I'd love them if I didn't know they were manifestations of the heartache that I caused," he added hastily.

"You think of yourself as my inordinately twisted and very fucked up muse? How presumptuous." The words were sharp, but the cadence that carried them had softened.

Toshio could hear the smirk that the tragically misunderstood writer was no doubt wearing, and he found himself wanting desperately to press his own lips against it. Several months ago, he'd have tried to subsume such thoughts under work or alcohol, or sex even. Now these measures seemed unnecessary. There was nothing to be gained from denying how much Seishin trully meant to him. Honestly, he was even thankful that the conversation had been momentarily hijacked. The fact that Seishin would actually tease him in such a manner strengthened his resolve. It evidenced that there was something meaningful still lingering between them, that what bound them was not limited to a shared experience of tragedy. Whatever it was, it transcended the taint of Sotoba. And he intended to salvage it if he could. "I'm a doctor. My diagnosis is based on empirical evidence."

"Oh?"

"Yes, and the evidence suggests that you're seriously fucked up as a result of having a seriously fucked up muse. It's like the demonic inversion of writer's block. Like writer's monsoon. A monsoon that floods your house and ruins your upholstery."

"Your use of metaphor is atrocious. Writer's monsoon? Is that an official diagnosis, doctor?"

"Yes. Now can I continue? I swear when I'm finished, I'll listen to every last one of your dull diatribes about writing."

"Fine."

"Anyway, it's taken me this long to figure it out, but I would not have done anything differently, as much as I'd like to pretend otherwise." Seishin merely nodded to himself; he'd known for some time that he could not expect Toshio to be anyone other than Toshio. He'd not called for the doctor's verbal apologia. He'd called to determine if the contents of his nightmares were based in reality or if they were precipitated by his own irrational fears. But he'd promised to let Toshio finish without interruption, so he remained still. "I want to redeem myself, but I can't. You see, when the villagers started dying, the only thing I could think about was how I'd been a complete disappointment. I came back from the city and agreed to take responsibility for their very lives. Even if I was fighting an epidemic, I would have been ruthless in my methods. But when I learned that there were individuals responsible for my friends' deaths, the struggle took on a greater urgency. Diseases simply exist. The Shiki wanted to destroy my village. I felt like they'd declared war on Sotoba. I fought back. I didn't realize then that my fighting back would turn the villagers into monsters and the monsters into victims. I should have considered such consequences before I took action. I didn't. But the real horror is that I wouldn't have been so thoughtful if I had another go at the whole thing. I won't pretend to be anything more than I am. I'm the monster here."

Toshio was breathing heavily now, inhaling smoke at quick intervals. Seishin heard the doctor rapping against his nightstand nervously, and then he realized the reason for the lull in conversation. The physician was waiting for absolution. "I'm in no position to judge you. I sided with the Shiki."

"No, you didn't choose sides. Not initially, anyway. You went to Kanemasa to die. You said as much in Signa. After turning, it only made sense that you would go over to the Shiki. Besides, I think you found something to love in Sunako. Maybe she'd been a better friend to you than all of Sotoba. You were our servant, after all. We unhesitatingly expected you to meet our needs without once inquiring after yours." He laughed sadly. "Some of us still treat you like that."

"Toshio—"

Seishin was interrupted yet again. Toshio knew that if he didn't come clean now, he would never again endeavor to do so. Having disclosed as much already, he decided it would be best to continue. "So, the answer to your question is yes. Yes, I would have done to you what I did to Kyouko. I wish it weren't so, but it is." Silence stretched uncomfortably between them. Confessing this might mean that Seishin would reject him completely, he knew, but he was certain that anything worth saving would have to be built anew. The time for dissembling and manipulation had long passed. He closed his eyes, preparing himself for the inevitable dismissal.

"I had a feeling that would be the case."

"I'm sorry."

"I know. So am I."

Toshio laughed outright. "What could possibly warrant your apology?"

"Many things." The jinrou rubbed his temples. He'd hoped that hearing Toshio confirm that he'd have tortured and killed Seishin would be enough to justify his unwillingness to reconcile. He did not expect the other man to be so forthcoming and so brutally honest about other things, particularly his own feelings. In fairness, the priest could only respond in kind. Seishin was nothing if not charitable. "I'm sorry I left for Kanemasa without saying goodbye. I even walked past the clinic that day. I suppose I was angry after finding you with Kyouko like that, but I think I felt guilty too. I couldn't bear to see the accusation in your eyes. You were my only friend. Having lost that, I lost everything that mattered. I had nothing to live for."

"You didn't lose me, you know, not even after you walked out of the operating room that day. I'd always known that you'd find my methods horrifying, but I thought everything would be okay if we could save the village together - that I would convince you I was right if I succeeded. Before Chizuru bit me, I called the temple. When I learned you weren't there, Chizuru explained that you'd gone to see Sunako. I knew then that you'd gone to die."

"I may have disagreed with you on principle, but I still betrayed you."

"Your sins pale in comparison to mine."

"What would you know about the weighing of sins?" Seishin asked idly. The conversation had drawn to a close, but he found that he didn't want to get off the phone just then. One more thing had yet to be discussed.

A devilish smirk worked its way across the doctor's lips. "Oh, once you commit enough of them, you get a feel for these things. For example, I've sinned in ways that would make a priest blush."

And indeed the priest was blushing, but only for the most fleeting of moments. "About that…."

"Yes, let's talk about that." Toshio's regained his former self-assuredness. Seishin preferred this pompous Toshio to the defeated one, even if the physician's current confidence was not much more than practiced posturing.

"I had a dream about you last night."

"Oh?" His voice curled upwards in delight. The conversation was drifting to more pleasurable topics, and instant relief washed over the brunette.

"Not that kind of dream. It was more like a nightmare."

And that's when Toshio's heart fell to his feet, bringing along with it all his hopes of rapproachement. "I can only guess at the contents. I suspect you felt a lot like Kyouko did all those years ago." A thousand regrets rushed upon the doctor as he leaned his head against the wall. He'd been standing for the better part of the call, but now his legs had become unsteady. He sank down on the bed, cradling his head in his free hand, and he closed his eyes, knowing exactly what would come next. Images of Kyouko's broken and tortured body inundated his mind's eye. The feeling of the stake sinking into her heart seized the muscles in his forearm, causing them to tremble uncontrollably. He could still remember the heft of the hammer and the sound it made when he brought it down. Those memories had been keeping him from sleeping soundly for years. And if that didn't steal the air from his lungs, the images that followed certainly did. Instead of Kyouko's perfectly tanned skin, the form before him took on a luminescent paleness. The scarlet splashes of blood were even more striking against this body, and they seemed more wrong somehow. This was the body of a priest after all, a pure body which now lay defiled by mad violence. When he imagined Seishin's fairy-green eyes open and unseeing, and devoid of all life, he felt a keen sting behind his eyelids that he'd not felt since childhood. Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes as he realized the full extent of damage he'd wrought. He'd terrified the most unassuming and selfless person he'd ever known. Seishin's years of generosity and kindness had been repaid with sleepless nights and useless apologies, and while he was no stranger to nightmares himself, he'd always felt like they were a small price to pay in remuneration for his crimes. Seishin had committed no such crimes. I'm so very, very sorry Seishin. I can't fix this.

"You frighten me sometimes." The blonde barely whispered, and Toshio would not have heard had he not been waiting to be summarily condemned.

A strangled gasp escaped his throat. He would have bit it back, but there were no fig leaves left to him now. If anything, Seishin should know that Toshio was repentant, at least in terms of how he'd treated his former friend. He should know that Toshio neither deserved nor expected his trust. "I frighten myself."

"I didn't intend to hurt you. I just wanted to be honest." The jinrou was staggered by his friend's reaction, but he did his best to mitigate matters. Hearing Toshio like this made him inexplicably uncomfortable. He longed only to wrap his arms around the other man and kiss away his sadness. He ached to be close to Toshio.

"I know. You're incapable of anything underhanded or manipulative."

Seishin offered comfort as best as he could: "How quickly you forget. I doused you, remember?"

Toshio's mood brightened considerably. "Yes. You did. You bastard." He spoke like he'd just realized that he should be angry about being poisoned. It was refreshing to have something with which he could levy a charge against the werewolf, if only as a joke.

"You deserved it."

"I did not. We might have had this conversation over a year ago if you hadn't decided that you knew exactly how I felt and what I wanted and how best to save poor little Dr. Ozaki's soul."

"Your soul is beyond my professional capabilities, I'm afraid." Toshio decided that sarcasm was becoming of his old friend. He could again visualize the smirk that was doubtless alighting the blonde's lips - a subtle turn up at the left corner of his mouth. He knew it from memory, and he much preferred this image of Seishin to the ones he'd conjured only moments ago.

"Right. Because apostate priests have the market cornered on salvation."

The pair fell into another round of soft laughter, and again Seishin was bewildered by how quickly they resumed their old banter despite laying bare their darkest thoughts. He was still wary of too-easy reconciliations and hackneyed happy endings, but for the first time in a very long time, he truly felt the emptiness that Toshio's absence had caused. He suspected that this sentiment would change upon spending any considerable length of time with the other man, but for now, the anxienty melted away, leaving a feeling of contentment in its stead. Sunako was right all along. I didn't notice how incredibly lonely I've been.

"Hey, Seishin. Would you come visit?" At that suggestion, Seishin promptly decided that his assessment of Toshio had been premature. Apparently, the doctor was incapable of reform. He was simply trying to bed him again, and while the werewolf thought the idea rather appealing, he did not want to initiate an infinite regression wherein he and Toshio fell into a destructive cycle of sex and bickering. "I know what you're thinking, and before you decide that this whole conversation has been nothing but an expert ploy at getting you back into my bed, I just want to make it clear that all I want is for us to keep talking to each other. Also, it would be stupid to waste time trying to find sex half a world away when I can get it around the corner. I'm not that desperate, you know." Seishin said nothing. "Look, you can sleep in the guest room, okay? I haven't changed your library. Spend all your time there if you want. Just have dinner with me from time to time. Hell, you're rich, right? Get a hotel. I'll come to you. And I won't set foot in your room."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not a good man, and that means I'm selfish. You make me want to be better."

"You mean you need me."

"I told you, I'm selfish." Seishin was unsurprised. Toshio's relationship with him had always been one of need, and always unidirectional need at that. But curiously, he was not disappointed or hurt, at least not in the way he had been when Toshio expressed something similar after their tryst in Signa. Perhaps the doctor's change had caused his needs to change as well? Maybe being needed was not the same as being used? The priest could only hope this was the case, but he had no first-hand evidence from which to draw a secure conclusion, and so he trod carefully around the invitation.

"I want to say no, but since you asked so nicely, I'll think about it. I'm not making any promises."

"That's good enough. Bring Sunako too, but only if she swears not to eat me."

Seishin barked an incredulous laugh. "You just insinuated that wanting to sleep with me is indicative of desperation. You'd better hope I don't eat you."

"Hmmm. I would enjoy that." The jinrou tutted in feigned disgust, but he heard Toshio laughing heartily right before he cut the line.

It had taken him almost a month to accept. Sunako was soundly in favor of Seishin flying to Italy for a visit with the doctor, and indeed she was the primary reason Seishin agreed to go at all. He couldn't deny her, even now. Sunako was not, however, at all interested in joining him.

"Why not come along? It might be fun to hunt in your old stomping grounds."

She smiled. He could be so obtuse sometimes. She had no doubt that the physician would prefer to have the writer all to himself, at least until their relationship was on firmer ground. But Seishin had fully convinced himself that Toshio simply wanted to begin an innocuous conversation, entirely platonic in nature. That Seishin would think the doctor capable of such innocence was a testament to his lingering affection for the man. If Toshio's craftiness didn't carry in it the potential to turn deadly, she would have found the jinrou's rose-colored version of the situation endearing. But she knew things that he had only begun to guess at. Toshio Ozaki was a monster, but he was a monster whose more terrifying proclivities could be tempered. Seishin was his tether to humanity, ironically enough. As such, Sunako had no doubt that Seishin's Toshio was a much more agreeable man than the Toshio Ozaki that murdered her friends, but even so, she had no intention of being anything more than cordial towards the man. She knew better than to reveal this to her companion, however. She was too old and too clever to be so foolish.

"Seishin, I certainly want you to re-establish your relationship with Ozaki. But I don't think he and I will be friends quite yet."

"I thought you said I could have you both." It was not in Seishin's disposition to be so demanding, or indeed so selfish, but he'd seen a glimpse of the life that the three of them could share, and he seemed determined to have it, even knowing that it would require substantial effort on all their parts and that it might disintegrate anyway. This buoyed the vampire somewhat. He'd been so hopelessly forlorn in the past, existing chiefly for her sake or for the sake of the village. Ozaki had given him something to live for, something to want for himself, and while she'd never consider the doctor a humanitarian by any stretch of the imagination, she was nevertheless thankful for this inadvertent gift.

"And I'm not retracting that promise. I need time. You may have come to forgive him, but he and I don't share a history, so my trust will take much longer to earn." She was curled against his chest again, relishing the feel of his fingers slipping through her long hair.

"I won't be gone for long."

"Don't come rushing back for my sake. Live a little." Her bell-like voice seemed on the verge of laughter. Seishin pulled her closer and kissed her forehead.

"You'll be okay for two weeks?" Sunako jabbed a supernaturally sharp fingernail into his side in response. He clutched painfully at the resultant scratch. "Ouch! Okay, I get it. You're not a child, even though your actions suggest otherwise."

"And they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks," She said playfully before leaning up to kiss his cheek.

"I love you, you know. This trip won't change that. Toshio can't change that." He felt like he needed to say it, although he could not articulate way.

"I didn't expect him to." Sunako slipped out of his bed and walked towards the door, pausing just long enough to steal a backwards glance at him, "And I love you too. More than you know."

Seishin found his way to his old villa without difficulty. He rented a car from the airport and drove the hilly country roads that had once captured his artist's soul so thoroughly that he'd made a home amongst them. He was cognizant of the fact that he currently lived in Japan, but the trip did have the feeling of a homecoming to it—perhaps it was the clerk at the airport who'd shyly asked for an autograph as Seishin chose a rental, or way the manager of the local gas station stepped outside to greet him as he filled his tank, or perhaps it was the way the way the villagers waved to him as he drove through the center of town, or maybe it was simply because being with Toshio had always felt like home, or at least it did before Sotoba went up in flames. Whatever the case, Seishin's buoyant mood was downright infectious, and it didn't diminish until he'd parked the car in his erstwhile garage. And even then, it was being assaulted by Toshio's dog that finally wiped the smile off his face.

Kuro leapt at the werewolf as soon as he'd stepped out of the car. As a result, Seishin was now pressed against the vehicle, both of his hands trying to cover as much of the dog's fur as possible so that it would calm itself and give him some space to unload. Toshio emerged from the doorway to the house. He'd clearly run the length of the villa in an attempt to hinder the little beast.

"Oh great. You gave in. I'll never be good enough for him now."

"What was I supposed to do?" Seishin inquired, confused about how one might more appropriately respond to so exuberant a greeting. "You should have him trained."

"I did have him trained. You're supposed to ignore him when he misbehaves. It doesn't work. He keeps misbehaving until you yell at him. I suppose in his crooked little canine mind, negative attention is better than no attention at all."

"I wonder where he gets it." That comment was met by a book being flung with surprising precision in the jinrou's direction. He dodged it easily, his sharp reflexes serving him as well as ever. It hit the car instead. "This is a rental, you know." He retrieved it, only to find that it was one of his novels, one from the many that he'd left in the basement. They were author's copies given to him by the publisher, and he'd expected the real estate agency to clear them out when he moved. Apparently that expectation had not been met. "I thought you hated my work."

"I'm using them as chew toys for Kuro. They keep him from destroying the furniture."

Seishin merely sighed and rolled his eyes. The pair stared at each other briefly, each a little surprised that they were in one another's company yet again. The jinrou cleared his throat. "Aren't you going to invite me in?"

Toshio suddenly doubled over in laughter. "Hey, what would happen if I didn't invite you in? Would you turn into mist and blow away like Dracula?"

"You read too much fiction. I would buy a plane ticket to Japan. I'd be exhausted when I got back, I suppose, but it wouldn't inconvenience me much more than that. I'm pretty resilient." Seishin replied dryly. "Idiot."

"Please come in." Toshio said smugly, and then he lingered in the doorway long enough to leer at the other man as he came through the threshold. The werewolf felt the brunette's eyes trailing over him, and he found that he rather liked being the object of the other's gaze. He was rarely ogled so unabashedly. It felt good to be wanted. He felt like he was in control, and since this was a rare phenomenon whenever he was with the doctor, he took a moment to revel in it.

Seishin marched up the stairs and to the guest room without any further invitation or prompting. There was no need for formality. He was already intimately familiar with the house. And he didn't want Toshio to entertain thoughts of them sharing the same bedroom. He unceremoniously dropped his suitcase on the bed and looked around. Admittedly, it felt strange to be a guest here. He never realized before how sparse and sterile this particular room had been. Toshio retained all the furnishings, and so Seishin's simple aesthetic obtained throughout the house, but now confronted with the clean lines and unadorned walls of the guest room he'd so meticulously designed, he felt something akin to sorrow. My whole life has been one failed experiment in keeping things neat and organized.

"Seishin, do you want me to cook?" Toshio's bemused voice floated up the stairs, drawing the jinrou out of his pensiveness.

"No." He said it softly at first, more to himself than to his companion. And then, "Hell no!" He nearly ran down the steps in hopes of averting what would no doubt be a culinary disaster, only to find the other man smirking wickedly at the foot of the staircase. They made reservations at a small restaurant that had been one of Seishin's favorites. It was typically empty, and so the two were able to enjoy a meal without having the nosy villagers whispering about the handsome foreign doctor and that writer fellow that they'd not seen in over a year. They exchanged pleasantries with the chef, arguing over which wines were best suited to their menu, and Seishin once again found himself entranced by how simple everything seemed. He'd missed Signa.

He passed several days in a similarly carefree way. The picturesque village easily seduced him with its people and its breezy character. He rarely slept, so at night, he'd write. The Italian hills were as effective a muse as they'd ever been. In the mornings, he'd continue working if he felt so inclined, or he'd walk into town, greeting old acquaintances and buying more used books than he could possibly fit into his suitcase. Kuro often joined him for these excursions, delighting the village children by gamboling around with them until they were all exhausted. Once, he made his way to the small clinic that Toshio had established upon immigration to Signa. It was not unlike the Ozaki Clinic back in Japan, except that Toshio's occasional linguistic missteps in Italian lent a certain degree of humor to the place that the clinic in Sotoba could never possess. Seishin found the staff to be exceedingly knowledgeable and friendly, although they weren't an attractive lot. It seemed that Toshio was working very hard to avoid trouble. In the evenings, the two would spend a few hours together discussing all manner of things. Rarely they talked of Sotoba and of their old friends, and even less frequently, they considered their new relationship.

"You look happy here, Toshio." Seishin was reading one of his recent purchases while Kuro slept happily in his lap. They'd come home from dinner and settled in the library, enjoying the sort of quiet that grew more pleasant with each passing day. The jinrou gazed at his friend from across the room, making note of all the slight changes that time had wrought upon the older man. The brunette's hair was shot through with more grey now than before and laugh lines had formed at the corners of his mouth. Toshio even wore reading glasses - the trendy, dark-rimmed sort that would have been out-of-place in Sotoba. These things only served to enhance his appeal. Age suited the doctor. It gave him an air of distinction.

"I am happy here," he replied distractedly. "No evil witches to take advantage of an incapacitated young man only to sue him for it later." Toshio was working his way through his own book, a racy novel that Seishin recommended in hopes of improving his reading proficiency in Italian. He'd been making small, frustrated noises for a quarter of an hour when finally he groaned in defeat. "I give up. Can you help? I'm having trouble translating this bit, and the clothes have just come off."

Seishin stood, dislodging a displeased Kuro who growled at him in protest. He ignored the dog and walked towards the doctor's desk, a triumphant glint playing in his eyes. Too busy relishing the fact that he'd get to expound upon the finer points of Italian grammar, he didn't realize that he'd made the fatal mistake of leaning too closely over Toshio's shoulder until it was too late. The smell of cigarette smoke and cologne flooded him, conjuring memories of the not so distant past, stirring up a longing that he'd not felt in over a year. Electricity crackled between them. No doubt Toshio felt it as well, because the doctor swallowed thickly and turned to meet his companion's eyes. Each held their breath as the air grew heavier with anticipation.

If I'm going to be hurt again, I might as well enjoy it, Seishin thought as he leaned in, throwing caution to the wind in a disturbingly uncharacteristic fashion and intending very much to sample the nicotine still lingering on Toshio's tongue. But their lips never met. Toshio recoiled so quickly that he nearly tumbled over the chair's arm. He stammered a half-hearted apology before standing up abruptly. Seishin couldn't help feeling wrong-footed and insecure. Didn't he make a show of looking at me when I came in? Doesn't he stare when he thinks I'm not looking? The jinrou sifted through the various emotions that flitted through his psyche. The biting sting of rejection was overwhelming him, and he willed himself to feel anything else. He lifted a trembling hand to his mouth, realizing that he'd just crossed a line that could not be uncrossed - a line that he'd warned Toshio not to cross, in fact. Rejection became mingled with guilt and shame. Shit. That was so stupid. He searched frantically for a way to disarm the situation, and when nothing materialized, he made plans to leave Italy as soon as possible. I should have known it was too good to last. I should have realized that there are no happily ever afters, at least not for me. Resigned to the worst, he decided to apologize before marching upstairs to pack.

"Um. I'm...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...no, I mean I meant to, but I shouldn't have." The writer was having a great deal of trouble articulating himself. Toshio would have been supremely amused under other circumstances. "I thought that—"

"I know. You thought that I wanted you." The brunette spoke in a disturbingly matter-of-fact tone that betrayed nothing but a cool, detached observation of the events that had just transpired. He was making another diagnosis, it seemed.

"Yes." Seishin's heartbeat slowed to a dull thud. He mentally enumerated the things he needed to do to prepare for his return to Japan in the morning. Toshio was lost in thought all of the sudden, no doubt working out the least hurtful way to reject him. It never occurred to the jinrou how absurd it was to believe that the doctor's feelings had changed overnight. Toshio had been so fickle in the past, after all. This Seishin knew too well.

The physician only nodded absent-mindedly. He seemed to be having a vigorous conversation with himself, one hand stroking his chin while the other gesticulated wildly to no one in particular. He paced back and forth as his companion looked on. He then stopped mid-pace and spun around, catching Seishin completely off guard as he rushed towards him and pushed him into the wall. A hand gripped Seishin's hip, fingers digging into flesh with an urgency that left no doubt as to the brunette's intent. Their chests pressed together as Toshio leaned in. Apparently he had cultivated a fetish for capturing his prey like so. This was the second time Seishin found himself trapped in such a manner. The werewolf had just formed the thought when a heated whisper brushed past his ear. "I want you in the worst way. I want to kiss you until your lips are red and swollen and cracked. I want you in every position, in every room of this house, and in every house in this village. I want to watch you climax over and over again as I steal my name from your mouth with my own." But the doctor only stepped back after that, leaving the other man breathless and very aroused. One hand still rested against the jinrou's chest, but Seishin barely registered the gentle pressure. All his blood had rushed to other parts of his body. "But you are not here to satisfy my wants. You are here to remind me of what I must earn." The blonde would have been put out if he'd not received a very quick kiss in compensation. Toshio then walked backwards several paces and put his hands in his pockets as though trying to restrain them from wandering unchecked over the other man's skin. "Oh, yes. I want you. Make no mistake about that. And be wary of coming within striking distance again. Self-restraint has never been one of my strong suits."

Seishin shook his head to clear the fog that had taken hostage of his mind. While he gathered himself, Toshio stalked off towards the door, his shoulders hunched slightly and his hands still stuffed in his pockets like some disappointed child. He looked positively pathetic.

"Hey, where do you think you're going? You can't just do that and leave, you know," Seishin called after him. What just happened here? His intellect was having trouble keeping pace with his hormones.

"I'm going to take a cold shower," the doctor growled angrily over his shoulder. It was unfortunate that he did not see the completely unguarded and beaming smile that he left on his companion's face.

The next morning found Seishin incapable of doing anything without grinning stupidly. He'd just made a cup of coffee when a freshly-showered Toshio trailed in from retrieving the mail. The doctor had taken the day off, and all the evidence suggested that he was out for revenge. His overlong hair was wet and unkempt. It dripped along his neck and down his back, and his unseasonably thin shirt was sticking to his chest, leaving just enough to the imagination to keep the smile pinned to Seishin's lips. He paused in the kitchen long enough to ask the jinrou to make another cup of coffee in a sleep-roughened voice that should have been reserved for only the most scandalous of situations. Seishin was far from frustrated by this. The fact that Toshio had checked his own possessiveness and desires for the werewolf's sake sent his mind reeling with giddy pleasure. Maybe they'd both changed. And maybe they'd changed for the better. Maybe this domestic idyll that the two had lately crafted wasn't some far-fetched fantasy after all.

His cheerfulness was short-lived.

Somewhere in the living room, Toshio dropped the mail that he'd been carrying. The werewolf's preternatural hearing caught that, but it didn't worry him until he heard the doctor's next words: "Oh God."

He rushed out of the kitchen. The brunette only held up a piece of paper in explanation. Seishin found himself staring at a very short letter written in an elegant calligraphic script he knew could only belong to Sunako. It addressed Toshio and Toshio alone:

He will need you now, Ozaki. Don't disappoint him.

Seishin's heart stopped beating for what seemed like an eternity.