A/N: Comments and critique very much appreciated, the latter even more now that I don't have a beta.

The car that drove in front of Yagyuu's building wasn't what you'd expect to see when you thought of a police car. It wasn't the kind of car you imagined when you thought of a car. In fact, as far as Akutsu was concerned, it wasn't a car, it was a joke.

"My car's broken. I had no choice but to borrow my wife's car," Tachibana told Akutsu for the tenth time.

"How the hell is it even possible for someone to own a cherry red Beetle?" Akutsu grumbled from the back where he was sitting with Inui. Both men had their knees bent and their necks bent, cheeks pressed against the roof. Had the traffic police happened to stop them, they'd all been thrown to jail.

"She likes it," Tachibana replied, a little annoyed now. "We could have taken your car."

"No we couldn't have, 'cause the health freak sitting in the front seat can't handle a little passive smoking!" Akutsu glared at the back of Oishi's head, and was pleased to note it was starting to go red. Though whether it was from embarrassment or anger, he had no idea.

"Actually it's a proven fact that second hand smoking-"

"I know the sermon, save it preacher!" Akutsu turned his head to glare at Inui.

"I've been meaning to talk to you about smoking inside the station, Akutsu," Tachibana interfered.

"I'm not quitting just because you don't want to have cancer!" Akutsu yelled.

"It wouldn't hurt you to think about others every now and then, Akutsu," Oishi informed him.

"Why are we still sitting in the car?" Inui asked, and his question was followed by a lot of grunting and groaning, as they all struggled to get out of the small, and not very inconspicuous car. But once they were out, Akutsu noticed that he'd lost his keys somewhere in the backseat and forced himself back inside the car, and once he found his keys, he discovered he'd lost his wallet while searching for his keys. When he lost his phone while searching for his wallet, he was banned from the car and Oishi was sent after it. He came back with two phones and a black lace bra hanging from his ear.

"That car's like some fucked up Bermuda's triangle," Akutsu remarked with a slightly impressed voice, observing the bra he'd snatched from Oishi, trying to imagine the woman they fitted.

Beet red, Tachibana snatched the bra from Akutsu's hand and threw it inside the car along with the extra phone, and slammed the door closed.

"You left the keys inside, Tachibana," Inui told him.

Fortunately for everyone Tachibana's phone rang right then and he walked to the other side of the car to answer it. When he ended the call his face had gone serious. "Someone's called the station to say that shots have been fired in Yagyuu's apartment," he told them, the news making them all serious. "There's a possibility someone's attacked him."

"Then we'll book him for murder, right there," Akutsu said and snorted when he saw their shocked expressions. "You've read his file. You really think he's gonna let some punk shoot him? In his home?"

"That's his car," Oishi pointed out. "Shouldn't we wait for backup before we go up, so someone can watch the car?"

"We can't waist any time," Tachibana said. "He could be planning his escape now, if he hasn't left already. Or his murderer is. There are four of us, not everyone needs to go up. You stay with the car, Oishi."

Oishi blinked, and knew he shouldn't be so surprised to be the one that was left behind. He'd seen his fair share of action, and could stand his own, but the other three were more competent when it came to gun fights. Oishi was more of a negotiator, and a good one, but Yagyuu wouldn't be affected by anything Oishi said.

"Juts be careful," Oishi told them. "And… Try to get him alive."

"No fucking way am I going to let that bastard die and get off that easily," Akutsu grunted and headed for the building.

"I suppose that's reassuring," Oishi sighed and smiled at Inui, who responded with his own smile and patted Oishi's shoulder before following Akutsu.

"Keep the radio open," Tachibana said. "We'll keep you informed if anything unexpected happens."

"Alright," Oishi nodded and waved his radio at Tachibana before heading towards Yagyuu's car that was parked a few spaces away from the entrance.

Tachibana reached the door and his eyebrows rose when he saw Akutsu keeping it open. "It was not locked?" he asked and glanced at Inui who shrugged and placed something in his pocket. The movement was swift, but not swift enough for Tachibana to miss it.

"It's fucking open, who cares," Akutsu pointed out and Tachibana struggled to not let his amusement show. Out of these two he wouldn't have picked Inui to be the one that was skilled in picking locks. Even stranger was the loyalty Akutsu was showing Inui by not even hinting that something against the law had transpired.

Shrugging, Tachibana passed the two and headed for the elevator. He waited for both men to step inside and asked, "What floor?"

"Eleven!" Two different voices answered, and this time Tachibana couldn't suppress the chuckle.

"I wonder if Yagyuu knows just how popular he is," Tachibana commented as the elevator doors closed. He pressed the button of the eleventh floor and as soon as the elevator began moving, a cheery melody with a woman singing about flower petals began to play. "That's…" Tachibana frowned, looked up and shrugged. "Rather odd."

The elevator doors opened at the eleventh floor, and the music stopped. They all stepped out, hands hovering over their guns. A door opened on their right and Tachibana turned to see Yagyuu outside his door with a suitcase in his hand. They all stood there, frozen, but then Yagyuu dropped his suitcase and moved his hand to his waist.

By the time Yagyuu had pulled his gun out, there were three guns pointing at him.

"We only wish to talk, Yagyuu, this doesn't need to get ugly!" Tachibana yelled, trying to ascertain if Yagyuu would shoot without provocation. "Put the gun down! You have nowhere to go!"

A small smile that had no mirth in it stretched out on Yagyuu's lips, and his gun moved a friction to the right where Akutsu stood. Before any of them had time to react Yagyuu pulled the trigger and Tachibana heard Akutsu yell. Two gunshots followed the first one when Tachibana and Inui returned fire, but only one of the bullets hit.

Yagyuu's right leg gave out under him and he fell on his knee with a grunt, the gun still pointed at them. His hand shook when he pointed the weapon at them, and Tachibana's eyes widened when he realised Yagyuu was aiming at Akutsu, who was almost helpless, on his knees on the corridor floor, holding his bleeding shoulder.

"Get him on the elevator, Inui!" Tachibana yelled and shot at Yagyuu who hid behind his open door. The bullet hit the door and splinters of wood were thrown around the corridor. He did not wait to see if Yagyuu had been hit again, but retreated to the elevator and only dared to look at his companions when he was inside.

Inui was kneeling beside Akutsu, whose face was distorted into a grimace of pain. His left hand was holding on to his right shoulder, trying to stop the bleeding.

"The bullet went through," Inui said, glancing up at him.

"The fucking bastard tried to kill me!" Akutsu yelled, and then gasped for breath.

"I'm going after him," Tachibana said and glanced quickly to the corridor. The door to Yagyuu's apartment was still open. "I think he went back to his apartment. Once I'm in, send Akutsu down with the elevator and follow me."

"Don't fucking treat me like a useless-" Akutsu tried to stand up, but grimaced and collapsed back on the elevator floor.

"You are useless," Tachibana said and received a heated glare from Akutsu. "Contact Oishi on the radio and get him to call an ambulance."

"You think there's still a chance you can reason with him?" Inui asked, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and placing it carefully above the wound on Akutsu's shoulder. "Keep this on it."

"Fucking good it'll do," Akutsu muttered, but still followed Inui's instructions.

"I doubt it," Tachibana said and looked down at Akutsu who was clenching his jaw, trying to control the bleeding and not show his pain. "That last shot wasn't a warning. He tried to kill Akutsu. He's desperate and will try to shoot his way out."

"Perhaps it would be wise to wait for backup," Inui suggested.

Tachibana knew Inui was right, and they should wait. But there were two of them here, and even though Yagyuu was dangerous, it seemed ridiculous to wait for more people, when he and Inui were just as capable as anyone else. "We're not waiting," he finally said, and stepped in to the corridor, hoping, praying Yagyuu wasn't behind a corner, waiting patiently for someone to step in sight so he could kill them.

But no one fired.

"Inui," Tachibana only spoke the man's name before advancing. When he reached Yagyuu's door he heard the metal doors of the elevator slide close and wondered how well Akutsu's nerves would take the cheery melody of the elevator music.

He got his answer when the fire alarm started ringing and the sprinklers went off. "Goddamnit, Akutsu!" Tachibana muttered, silently vowing to tape Akutsu's mouth shut with nicotine patches the first chance he got. Smoking was a filthy habit, anyway.

Someone opened a door and an elderly man stepped out of his apartment. The sound of gunfire had not alerted him, but the fire alarm was a different kind of threat, one that you could not hide from in your home. The bad guys might not come after you if you kept quiet, but fire didn't care if you stayed out of the way.

"It's alright, we are the police! Get back in, there's no fire!" Tachibana yelled at the man, blinking water from his eyes.

The old man blinked at him, and might have done as he was told, if more people hadn't started to appear in the hallway. An elderly woman, probably the older man's wife, appeared behind him and yelled, "I will not stay here to be shot, and I have no desire to burn alive! Get Hana-chan, husband!"

The old man nodded at the woman and headed back to their apartment and soon returned with a small dog in his arms.

"Tachibana," Inui began, but Tachibana silenced him.

"We can't do anything now," he said, knowing the panic would soon spread, and people would fill the corridor. "We just have to keep Yagyuu inside, and hope he doesn't think of shooting in the crowd."

"You think he would do that?" Inui asked.

"I don't know anymore," Tachibana answered, remembering the callous way Yagyuu had taken aim at Akutsu. "Follow me," he told Inui again and headed towards the open door that led to Yagyuu's apartment.

He hesitated with his arm stretched out at the half open door, not willing to step in the line of fire if Yagyuu was just behind it. But people were coming closer, and would soon be in a place where Yagyuu could shoot at them, innocent civilians. Tachibana knew he would never forgive himself if they took a bullet that was meant for him.

Pushing fear aside, Tachibana kicked at the door and rushed inside the apartment. And it was like another world behind the doorway. The shouts and sounds filling the hallway could still be heard here, but it was as if they belonged to a different plane, and could not affect anything in the dark apartment where nothing moved.

No, something moved, on his right and Tachibana turned, his gun going before him. Cold sweat trickled down his spine when he saw a man standing before an open window, a gun held steadily in his hand, its barrel pointed at him.

Tachibana heard Inui beside him and would have lifted his other hand to tell him to not move, if both his hands had not been around the gun he held, his finger on the trigger twitching. Self preservation told him to shoot, ask questions later. But he could not just kill Yagyuu, the man he had worked alongside for years, trusted to stand behind his back with a gun, laughed with, invited to his home.

"Yagyuu," he heard the anger and hurt in his voice, knew he shouldn't have let them come out. Oishi could have done it, spoken to this man in a tone that held no accusation, he could not. "Come quietly. I do not wish to hurt you," he said, and even though Yagyuu had betrayed them all, he still meant it. He did want Yagyuu to come quietly. If he could just talk to the man, then maybe this betrayal would make sense, maybe there was some other reason behind it than money, maybe they'd blackmailed him, maybe…

The gun in Yagyuu's hand moved, and even though the light was scarce – only the street lights from outside, and the lamps on the corridor behind Tachibana's back – he could still see the twitch of Yagyuu's lips, the sinister glimmer in his eyes, and he knew, knew that Yagyuu would shoot him, shoot Inui, would kill everyone in his way unless Tachibana stopped him.

He didn't yell another warning, just pulled the trigger, watched the bullet hit Yagyuu in the chest, watched in silent horror as the man he had just shot staggered back, opened his mouth to scream, reach out with his hands, desperately seeking for some support. The curtain he caught in a desperate grip ripped, and when Yagyuu fell through the open window it wrapped around him like a burial shroud, and he fell to his death with out a sound, the fabric over his mouth and face, around his limbs, keeping them bound tightly, close to his body.

The silence ended in a scream that made Tachibana move, finally, to put his gun back in its holster and run to the open window. He looked down, where a lump of pale canvas with dark stains lay in a pile. Limbs stuck out of it, the head, thankfully, was hidden inside the curtain, but an arm, and the legs stuck out, twisted in angles that were not natural.

"He…" Tachibana whispered, not knowing what he was meant to say.

"You had no choice," Inui spoke for him. "He was going to shoot."

Tachibana nodded, and kept watching down, where there had already began to form a crowd around the body, but he heard Oishi's voice yell, and soon there were uniforms around the body, pushing back the curious onlookers, and the distant sound of an ambulance siren.

"We need to get down there." Tachibana moved away from the window, turned his back on it and hoped that by the time he got down it would be gone, and he would not need to see that, that - that thing, and know that it had once been his colleague, his friend. A man he had killed.

The corridor was empty when they stepped out of the apartment, but the elevator was busy, and with the fire alarm still ringing, and the sprinklers on, they knew it would be busy until everyone in the building had gotten out, so they took the stairs. But even the stairs were packed with panicked people, some carrying trunks, others their pets, and even someone with their television set with them. Children that clung either to their parents or siblings, others who held on tightly to stuffed animals, and a few who stared wide eyed, but calmly at all the people trying to get out, pushing each other out of the way. It was a miracle no one got trampled on, that there was no panic. But the absence of smoke and fire seemed to both confuse and calm people.

On the last floor the press of people around them finally eased, and Tachibana elbowed his way through the crowd to where he heard Oishi's voice shout orders. He pushed past the last person standing between him and the open space where at the centre of lay a body, still with the curtain wrapped around it, a pool of dark blood around it. He watched a man in a paramedic uniform kneel beside the body and carefully lift the edge of the fabric.

"Smashed up," the paramedic said, and let the fabric fall down. "It's a big fucking mess of brain matter and bone, but it's mostly contained by the curtain."

The uniformed officer Tachibana stood next to covered his mouth with his hand, and looked away at the paramedic's words.

"Got any problem with us hauling him out of here?" the same paramedic that had kneeled down asked, chewing on a gum. The ease in which the man was handling this felt wrong and inappropriate to Tachibana, but he forced the feeling to the back of his mind. The man had probably seen worse, and you could get used to the most terrifying things. A smashed up body was not the worst Tachibana had seen, after all.

"It should be fine," Oishi spoke up when Tachibana simply stared down at the pool of blood on the still wet asphalt.

Inui had taken out his notebook and had begun scribbling down details on it. Tachibana heard him mutter, "Apple flavoured." when the paramedics brought out the stretcher.

"When I touched wrist, to check…" Oishi swallowed. "To check the pulse…" he shook his head, realising perhaps only now how ridiculous that action had been. "He was already ice cold. Like he'd been dead for hours."

Tachibana glanced after the ambulance, and then noticed the other one still parked before the building. "How's Akutsu?" he asked Oishi.

"Fine, now that he's finally gotten a cigarette," Oishi remarked dryly. "One of the ambulance drivers is a smoker, apparently, and gave him a light. I don't think it's such a good idea, considering he's just taken a bullet to the shoulder, but at least it calmed him down."

"But…" Tachibana frowned, and turned back to the building. If Akutsu smoking hadn't triggered the fire alarm, then what? He saw no signs of smoke. "Has the building been cleared? If there really is a fire, when I told people to not worry…"

"The firemen are still looking, but so far there's been no sign of a fire," Oishi assured him.

Tachibana nodded, but kept his eyes on the building. The open window of Yagyuu's apartment caught his eye, as it was the only open one. "No fire, a conveniently open window…" Tachibana shook his head. "What the hell is going on here?"

0

0

The ambulance doors slammed close, and the paramedic that had been chewing gum managed to sit down right before the car started moving. He pulled his hand through his hair, pulling off the brown wig, and revealing red hair. He glanced to the front of the car and met the driver's eyes through the mirror, and grinned. "That was too fucking easy!"

"For you, maybe," a disgruntled voice remarked from midst bloody curtains. "You're not the one that had to fall over eleven floors and then hit the fucking pavement. That fucking hurt!"

"On that subject," the driver commented calmly. "Did you have to drag the curtain to its death with you? Those were very expensive curtains, Niou-kun."

"It's only blood, it washes off!" Niou shouted, pulling the curtain from his face. He still wore a pair of glasses on his nose, and miraculously they were undamaged, as were his face and arms, though he was covered in his own blood. "Besides, I though it added a little dramatic flare to it. I bet it looked cool."

"I don't care if my death looked cool," Yagyuu informed him from the driver's seat. "You ruined my curtains."

"You're never gonna see your fucking apartment ever again, why the hell are you bitching about the curtains?" Niou asked and ruffled his short, brown hair. He'd put off dying it again until tomorrow night. Standing in front of Yagyuu, while wearing Yagyuu's face was a strange feeling, but one Niou rather liked, if only because it was one of the few things that made Yagyuu visibly uneasy.

"I decorated my whole apartment to match those curtains," Yagyuu said and turned the steering wheel, making a turn so abrupt Niou was thrown from the stretcher on to the floor of the ambulance. He picked himself up, balled the curtain that had been wrapped around him, and threw it on the stretcher. He picked himself up, and moved to the front of the car to look over Yagyuu's shoulder.

"Considering the hardship my mother will have to bare, I would have at least liked to have left her with a nice apartment." Yagyuu spoke again, never taking his eyes of the road.

Niou looked sideways at the man whose death he had just faked, and wondered how it was possible Yagyuu could speak so calmly about it. But it was that callousness that had caused Niou to notice him in the first place. Yagyuu could spring a cold blooded murderer out of jail without feeling any kind of remorse, and he did it all because of money. He was more of a monster than Niou could ever claim to be. His mother was the only person to ever cause any kind of emotional reaction in Yagyuu, and even those emotions were expressed in a manner that was calm and controlled.

"Why are you looking at me like that, Niou-kun?" Yagyuu asked, and glanced at him through the rear view mirror. He wasn't wearing his glasses, and without them he looked so much less like himself. Niou was a little startled to notice that it mattered to him, that Yagyuu would look like himself.

Niou took the glasses from his nose and held them beside Yagyuu's face. Yagyuu glanced at them, then looked back at the road. "I don't need them, I have contacts."

"Put them on," Niou whispered, and Yagyuu looked at him again through the mirror, but only for a fraction of a second before his eyes returned to the road. Then he sighed and took the glasses from Niou's hand and placed them on his nose, pushing them back with one finger.

"Better?" he asked, turning another corner.

Niou grinned and manoeuvred himself to sit on the passenger's seat. He felt giddy, that Yagyuu had done something he had asked, light headed at the knowledge that Yagyuu would do just about anything if he asked. "Better," he echoed Yagyuu, but with smugness in his voice.

Niou looked out of the window, and frowned. "Where are we going?" he asked, noticing that they weren't heading towards the more secluded parts of the city.

"To the morgue," Marui answered from the back.

"Why?" Niou asked.

"For me to remain dead, there has to be a body. But we have no body," Yagyuu said.

"So?" Niou prompted.

"So, we will need to blow up the morgue," Yagyuu answered and turned another corner. "An explosion, if done right, will destroy the remains in the morgue so there will be nothing left of them."

"There'll be people there," Niou pointed out.

Yagyuu took another sideway glance at him, and the corner of his mouth twisted up, just a little, and he reached out to drag his finger down the side of Niou's face, the clogged up blood still covering almost every inch of Niou's face like a horrific mask, sticking to his finger. "Well, I imagine you'll be hungry," he said.

"So cruel," Niou purred with a smirk on his lips, and caught Yagyuu's hand by the wrist before he could pull it away, wrapping his fingers around it and shivered at the feel of Yagyuu's heart beat under his fingers. "And so brave," he added in a murmur, not surprised at all that the pulse under his fingers had not sped up even in the slightest.

0

0

Ryoma had finally gotten his shower, but was still waiting for the tea.

He'd come out of the bathroom, dressed in an overly large bathrobe to hear Oshitari yell, "I put some clothes out for you in the bedroom!" He'd crossed the hallway to the bedroom, and on the bed there had been a pair of worn jeans that were a little too long for him and a T-shirt that Ryoma suspected made him look like a kid wearing his father's shirt. Thankfully there was no mirror, so he couldn't confirm it.

Barefoot, dressed in a shirt he almost drowned in, and in jeans so big he had to hold on to the waist so they wouldn't fall off, Ryoma appeared in the living-room, and was faced with the maniac from the hallway.

The man glared at him with his eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Ryoma glared back, wondering if he wouldn't have been safer inside the bedroom. If he moved the bed against the door, he could form a sturdy barricade.

The man crossed his arms, stared at Ryoma, and finally let out a puff of air and said, "Yuushi explained everything to me. I'm Gakuto." After the introduction the man huffed and walked towards the kitchen, then stopped and turned back. "There's belts in the top drawer of the cupboard," he added, looking pointedly at Ryoma's hand holding up the jeans.

"Okay, uhm… thanks…" Ryoma muttered.

The man's nose scrunched up, and he opened his mouth, possibly to say something insulting, but then changed his mind, turned and disappeared to the kitchen.

Ryoma shifted from one foot to the other, lifted his hand to rub his eyes, and the jeans fell to his ankles. Face hot Ryoma quickly pulled the jeans back up, and both hands holding the jeans up he returned to the bedroom, where he found the cupboard. He pulled open the top drawer and as promised, found belts. With one hand holding on to the waist of the jeans he stuck the other inside, and paused as his fingers touched solid plastic.

He knew what his father would keep in his belt drawer, if he was single and had a belt drawer, but that didn't mean Oshitari kept his porn collection there. He probably kept his porn in the sock drawer. Or on a shelf in the living room.

Besides, even if it was porn, Ryoma had absolutely no right to go through a man's belt drawer in search of porn. Just because something was plastic and square, and hidden under belts, didn't mean it was a DVD full of porn.

With every intention of just taking out a belt, Ryoma closed his fingers around the plastic and pulled out a DVD … "Gone With the Wind?" Ryoma said out loud and blinked. "Really fucking strange place to keep your movies," he muttered, placed the DVD back in the drawer and took out a black belt.

Finally with jeans that didn't fall to his ankles when he forgot to keep them up, Ryoma returned to the living room, and took his time looking around. There was a big TV on the bookshelf to his right, surrounded with shelves stacked with books, DVD's and CD's, a stereo next to the bookshelf on the left of it, and a big potted plant on its right. A small coffee table in the middle of the room with a blue couch and two chairs surrounding it, right a head of Ryoma the hallway where he knew his shoes were, and to the left the kitchen doorway, and even more to the left a window with the curtains pulled aside.

Ryoma walked over to the couch and sat down, his eyes fixed on the blank TV screen. He glanced at the remote on the coffee table, wondering if anything interesting was on, but then decided to just wait until Oshitari remembered he was there.

A large, white mug was placed on the coffee table before him, and Ryoma leaned closer when the scent of hot chocolate made his mouth water.

"Out of tea," Oshitari explained and sat down on one of the chairs on Ryoma's left, cradling his own mug in both his hands. "I always forget to buy it. Gakuto's the one who insists I have it, since he doesn't like coffee."

Ryoma tore his gaze away from the steaming hot chocolate and looked at Oshitari. The man looked just like he did when they were in school, but there was some difference. He looked more comfortable, more at ease here, in his own living room, surrounded by his own things. Even when he acted like a leering pervert, there was still something in him that reminded Ryoma that this man was an authority figure, their teacher. Now, now he was just a man sitting in his own living room entertaining a guest.

"I hope it's okay," Oshitari smiled at him. "The hot chocolate, I mean. Or would you have preferred coffee? I should have asked, but kids usually-" then he cut himself off with a loose grin, and coughed into his fist. "Not that I think of you as a child, Echizen-kun, of course," he added swiftly, when he noticed Ryoma frowning at being called a kid.

"Your boyfriend thinks I am," Ryoma said and picked up the mug from the table, and waited until Oshitari was taking a sip from his coffee before adding, "He called me a child prostitute." and smirked behind his mug when Oshitari spluttered and choked, and then yelped when he spilled hot coffee all over his chest.

Still coughing, Oshitari placed the almost empty mug on the table and grimaced when he lifted his coffee soaked shirt up from his skin. "I apologize for Gakuto, he's a little…"

"Crazy?" Ryoma suggested.

"Dramatic," Oshitari said, frowning down at his ruined shirt.

Ryoma sipped his hot chocolate, and savoured the sweet taste. The warmth spread through him, and he pulled his feet up on the couch and leaned back, cradling the mug closer to his chest. He yawned, and blinked, suddenly very tired. He wondered what time it was.

"You can sleep here, if you want," Oshitari said. "But I wish you would re-consider letting me call your parents. They must be worried."

Ryoma shook his head, not looking at Oshitari. "I don't want to go home, I just…" he trailed off, staring down at the brown liquid inside the mug in his hand.

"You will have to, eventually," Oshitari continued. "Your father regrets yelling you, you must know that."

"He's sending me off to some stupid boarding school," Ryoma spoke to his hot chocolate. "Like it would change anything to send me off somewhere."

"Are you sure it wouldn't?" Oshitari asked, and Ryoma's head snapped up. "After what you've been through… A change of scenery, a chance to meet new people and experience new things might be just what you need."

Ryoma swallowed the angry retort he had on the tip of his tongue, and thought about what Oshitari had said. A change to get away from all of it, from the nightmare his life had turned into… But then he shook his head, knowing that even if it were possible, he didn't want to. And he knew he couldn't explain it to Oshitari, or to anyone without sounding crazy. Even if Oshitari would believe that vampires were real, trying to convince him that Ryoma wanted to stay here where they'd never leave him alone, would label him as some type of crazy.

Things had changed for him. What had once mattered, didn't anymore, and he thought differently about some things, things that had defined his whole being at the time they'd happened.

When he thought of his kiss with Sakuno, he knew it shouldn't have felt like something infuriatingly incomplete and lacking, not when he remembered how happy and perfectly content he'd felt then. Kissing Sakuno had been like floating on clouds, seeing her smile had given him wings, and just by holding his hand she'd made him feel like king of the world. And now the thought of her wasn't that different than the thought of sitting in a classroom next to Kachirou.

Ryoma brought his hand up to his neck and placed his hand over the bandages there, and licked his lips, images and sensations flooding his mind as he remembered all the times cold lips had been pressed there. He hardly even thought of the attack that had sent him to the hospital anymore, and even though the fear wasn't completely gone, other, more powerful feelings had pushed it aside.

"It wouldn't make any difference," Ryoma finally spoke and looked at Oshitari, who let out a deep sigh and rubbed his forehead with two fingers.

"You will have to go home eventually," Oshitari said. "You can't live out on the streets."

When the doorbell rang, Ryoma's head turned sharply towards the hallway, and he let out a strangled sound. Suddenly he felt trapped, sitting in the comfortable couch, with his legs crossed and the taste of chocolate still in his mouth.

Gakuto appeared from the kitchen, a white apron over his clothes, and frowning at the door. "It's that woman again," he muttered and glared at Oshitari as if it was his fault. "'Out of coffee, Oshitari-sensei' my ass. She just wants to stick her breasts in your face. I swear Yuushi, one of these days I'm gonna strangle her with her own hair."

Ryoma felt the tension drain out of him at the red head's nagging voice, and he let out a relieved breath.

"We could just pretend we're not here, Gakuto," Oshitari suggested with a fond smile. "It's not worth the trouble," he added.

"No!" Gakuto's voice was almost a shriek by now and his cheeks were flushed. He waved his left hand and Ryoma noticed he was still holding a wooden spoon with some kind of brown sauce on it. "I'm going to shove this down her throat!" He pointed the spoon at Oshitari, and some sauce flew through the air and landed on Oshitari's nose.

Ryoma stifled a giggle as the fiery tempered red head stomped towards the front door, not apparently realizing he'd sprayed his boyfriend with dinner.

"He's going to get me evicted," Oshitari sighed and wiped the sauce from his nose.

Ryoma was about to ask why Oshitari put up with the man, when Gakuto's body landed face first on the coffee table before him, the arm that still held on to the wooden spoon stretched out on the table. Ryoma stared at the hand, willing it to move, and no matter how annoying he thought the man's voice was, he'd give anything to hear it now, because he couldn't, couldn't be dead, not because of him, he didn't want to be responsible for someone else dying, because he knew, knew that it was his fault the man was lying there, still, unmovable, his fault they were dead, his fucking fault-

"Gakuto!" Oshitari screamed and turned the man around and cradled his head in his hands. "Oh my God Gakuto, open your eyes, look at me!"

Ryoma, still sitting on the couch with his legs crossed, and the warm mug held tightly between his hands, turned his head slowly, and tried to breathe through the paralysis that had taken hold of his lungs, and clenched closed his throat. He didn't know what he expected to see step into the room, but Yanagi would have never even entered his mind as a possibility, not when there were so many other monsters he'd seen handle human life like it wasn't anything very special.

"Echizen, call an ambulance! Echizen!" Oshitari yelled and when Ryoma didn't answer, turned to look at the boy. "Echizen!" he screamed again when the boy wouldn't even look at him, but stared blankly at the doorway. Oshitari followed Ryoma's gaze and saw the man in the doorway. It did not take him long to put the pieces together, and soon he'd stood up and was running towards the man with his hands fisted, growling.

"No, don't!" Ryoma screamed, snapping out of his trance. He got to his feet and jumped over the couch and ran after Oshitari, but was too late.

Oshitari had reached Yanagi, and pulled his fist back to hit him, but stumbled because Yanagi wasn't there anymore, but standing behind his back, hand beside his neck, pushing. Oshitari's face hit the wall and he slid down, a speck of red on the white where his head had hit.

Yanagi spent a moment looking down at Oshitari before he turned to Ryoma and extended his hand. "Come," he said, and when Ryoma backed away, he sighed. "This will be easier for me if you are not conscious, you do understand that, don't you?"

Ryoma swallowed, and after glancing at Gakuto's unmoving body once more, closed the distance between himself and Yanagi, and took the hand that was offered to him.