Tokio stayed true to his words and came back to me a few days later and from there on, our meetings steadily increased. In fact, he would now seek me out more often than I would more or less accidently meet him around the island. He came to ring my doorbell in the evenings and stayed over night and I saw him painting less and less. I thought he might have some sort of crisis and was almost worried, and also a little sad because I actually liked his paintings so much, as well as seeing him creating them. But on the other hand, I thought, maybe all artists needed some time off their work and I happily provided him distraction from it.

I still hadn't learned much about him and his past other than what he had told me at the very beginning, but as he educated me some more on the nature of the marks, he slowly began to reveal some more things about himself. It still wasn't much, partially because we were busy with other things, but at least something. I learned that he had fallen out with his family – although he didn't want to tell me any details – and resided on Southern Cross to study the ruins and origins of the Cybodies on his own. Of course, this still wasn't the whole truth about his involvement with this research organization, but I didn't know that at this time.

All in all, Tokio was closed up as always, revealing information only if he really had to, and only in small bits. I didn't urge him about anything, though. We may have gotten closer, but it felt a little strange.

I still didn't know how he felt about me. He said he liked me, liked my presence, my beauty and all, but I couldn't tell if his feelings for me went any deeper than that. On the other hand, I was still not ready to tell him how I felt, that my love for him had grown even more.

I had arrived at this point where Tokio was more important to me than my own life.

This almost made everything painful.

Our meetings were in private, closed up, and thus felt more like an affair than like a relationship. If it had ever been a relationship to him to begin with. At that time, I didn't even know that it was indeed closer to an affair than anything.

Of course he couldn't tell anyone about this, I understood that. Back in these days, our relationship would have been frowned upon, and if Tokio was in the process of building up a name as an artist, any rumors or badmouthing would put an instant stop to his career.

Little did I know at that time that he didn't care at all.

His daytime was still reserved for his other friends.

Sometimes I still saw them all together in town, but the air seemed different. Before, they all three had been warm, shining. They had all been so radiant.

But now, for some reason, the picture of them felt colder, as if they had all put some sort of distance between each other. From what I could tell from afar, they laughed less.

Sometimes I walked along Tokio's house after work, wondered if it was alright to knock at his door. I had never seen his house from inside.

Often, I could see through the large windows he had in his atelier or whatever it was, saw canvas after canvas lined up and him in between. And most of these times, he was not alone, there was this woman too. The pretty one, his friend, his muse. Sometimes, she was naked.

I couldn't help but starting to wonder how he felt about me. Each time I saw them together, the pain in my chest grew. I wanted to be in her stead, I wanted Tokio to paint me, I wanted to walk by his side. When we parted in the mornings, I felt terrible, I didn't want to let him go.

After all, he was all I had. I didn't want to lose him.

I finally had to tell him.

Usually, we ended up in my bedroom sooner or later during these meetings. I think the only time it didn't happen was when I got sick and hadn't been telling Tokio beforehand, and while he still spent the time with me instead of going home immediately, I couldn't help but feel like he was disappointed.

But this was really an exception and even though I can't quite say if he had come to be with me more than with his other friends, we were together quite often, and ever since that first night had broken the ice, so to say, we were being intimate a lot.

It almost felt like an actual relationship, even though I was very aware that it wasn't.

But it was the best time in my life.

On one of those evenings in my bedroom, I ended up sitting on his lap after a passionate round of kisses. Tokio's kisses were always amazing.

He began fumbling with my shirt, unbuttoning it bit by bit to let his hands and lips run across my chest. His fingers came to rest just below my collarbones and seemed to draw something onto my skin with invisible paint. I had no idea what he was doing, it seemed like a letter, but then I realized it was my mark he imitated.

It reacted unexpectedly quickly, the heat I had wished to forget forever returned and a bluish glow filled the room. It almost hurt.

It had been a long while since it had surfaced the last time, during one of my first meetings with Tokio, and I had still no idea how he managed to make it appear. I could do that too, if I concentrated enough, but I never wanted to. And him being able to do this to me felt weird, as if I had no control over my body. He said I wasn't strange, but that was not true at all.

Like back then, he looked extremely infatuated with it, he touched the place it appeared on, but ultimately couldn't grab anything. I could see the mark's shape reflected in his eyes, he didn't even really look at me anymore and the blue glow mixed with his purple eyes to turn everything into a very intensive shade, as if Tokio's eyes themselves glowed.

I winced, I didn't want this to be here anymore. The longer this scene kept on, the worse I felt.

I remembered moments of my childhood, my family looking down upon me, shouts, laughter, panic.

I took Tokio's hand to push it away from the mark. He sighed.

"It's so beautiful… you should be proud."

I just shook my head. He had no idea, there was nothing to be proud about. I squeezed his hand, feared I would lose control over the situation, and over this thing.

"Please…"

It was his turn to shake his head now, laughing a little. "Don't worry. Remember what I told you? Calm down, concentrate, and you can control it. It's a part of your body, it will listen to you."

Once, when he had been teaching me a little more about all these things like marks and phases, he had shown me how to take control of my mark, to make it appear and disappear, but I had never really trained this. Despite all explanations, I didn't want to remember I had it.

I wished it could get rid of it somehow.

I took a deep breath, tried to calm down as Tokio had said. I imagined how the mark would disappear, how it would feel if the accompanying heat left my body and the room would get darker again and it worked. The mark slowly faded away.

I left out a big sigh of relief, but also saw how Tokio seemed disappointed. He leaned back, his gaze left my chest and trailed off into nowhere.

"Really… I fail to understand why you hate it so much…"

He leaned back until his head ended up on the windowsill behind the end of my bed, painting his hair and face in shadows as the setting sun didn't reach this house anymore. I don't know what he was looking at.

I swallowed.

"…and I don't really see what you think is so great about this. I hate it…"

It was actually the first time I had put my displeasure with it into words. There was more to it, but I didn't want to bore Tokio with my life story any further. I had done that enough on earlier meetings.

"I envy you", he said, almost whispered, "you were born with this, it fell into your lap, so to say. I've spent years on end with the promise of getting one just to receive nothing after all…"

That was a surprise.

I had no idea Tokio came from a marked bloodline too, although it posed a reasonable explanation about his vast knowledge when it came to Cybodies and everything. In fact, I had wondered before already, but had never found a good moment to ask him. But now I didn't need to do that anymore.

I didn't even know what to reply. He didn't even wait for a reply.

"My father drilled me all throughout my childhood, he put me through hell. Training, he called it, yeah… I was supposed to inherit his mark one day, but did that ever happen? No. I went through all of this for nothing."

That explained his conflict with his family, why he had left them to come here. Through the shadows of the evening, I saw the bitterness in his face and heard it in his voice.

"He didn't even give me a reason…"

I couldn't quite understand why he was so angry about this, why he wanted a mark so much, but on the other hand I felt kind of bad for him. He had been training for years in preparation and was left with nothing. And then there was me, who had one of these marks and never wanted it.

What if seeing this mark hurt him more than me, just like it hurt me to see this girl at his side?

"I'm sorry…"

He sat up again, finally faced me. He wore one of his usual, confident smiles, which made no real sense to me.

"No, don't be, it's not your fault. You've just been born with something you don't want while I'm left without the thing I wanted. But know what? I believe we don't have to accept that. We can change our fates, and for that I'm willing to do anything it takes."

I wasn't quite sure what he was trying to change his fate into at that point. In fact, I would never really get to know that, he never told me what his actual plans were and when I knew what was going on, it had already been way too late. Back then, I had never imagined what kind of extreme steps he would take.

Back then, I just wanted to believe in what he said. I wanted to believe that, like him, I could change the way my life looked like. I could feel his ambition, his libido itself seemed to embrace me.

I sighed.

"I wish I could just give you my mark, then we'd both have what we want…"

He looked up to me, into my eyes, raised his eyebrows. He seemed delighted, his smile even brighter.

"Actually, that's not a bad idea."

He let one of his hands wander up my back until it reached my neck, pushing me down slightly until he could kiss me.

"In fact", he continued afterwards, "I think it might be possible. I need to ask around a little first, but I know just the right person for that."

I hadn't expected that. It had just been wishful thinking of mine, without any thought that it might actually be possible. But imagining that it could work made me quite happy, and I even went as far as thinking it could bring Tokio and me even closer to each other. Maybe, if I managed to fulfill his great wish, he would finally love me wholly.

I would do anything to achieve this.

Another kiss. His hands went back to working on my shirt until it was off, while I removed his.

Somehow, the conversation before had managed to raise the intensity of the atmosphere, or maybe it was just me being happy about the prospect of it all. Getting rid of my mark, making Tokio happy, this was more than I could have ever dreamed of.

"I pray it works", I whispered between kisses. Again, he smiled at me.

"This is nothing some gods can influence. But I'm sure we can."

He pushed me backwards until I lay on the bed, fingers busy with my pants. More kisses followed.

The night was great.

The next morning, I woke up alone as usual.

I wished that at least now, after this passionate night, he would stay with me afterwards, but once again he had managed to slip out of my embrace unnoticed.

He had left one of his usual notes on the kitchen table.

I have to research a bit, but I'll contact you soon about yesterday.

Which was indeed what he did.

A few days after this, I found him waiting outside one of the buildings above the ruins, where the administrative work took place. I had never told him where exactly I work, but he had somehow found the right house.

Well, he did have friends working there too, after all.

He greeted me with a smile that could rival the sun in brightness and seemed to shine through the unusually clouded weather. I didn't know why he would come to pick me up from work, but it made me happy. I hadn't heard of him for a few days, just saw him from afar sometimes, never wanting to bark into his round of friends. I don't even think they knew I existed.

But he had come now, and it made me happy enough for my heart to nearly skip a beat.

He waved at me from afar, easily distinguishable from everyone else by his hair, his posture, everything. Every little thing about Tokio was so deeply burned into my mind and heart that I would always, always recognize him.

To my surprise, he didn't take me off the area.

He went underground with me, into the actual ruins.

I lacked the official permission to go there and was a little nervous as to what might happen if any of my superiors would realize I was down there, but Tokio just all laughed it off. I didn't have to fear anything as long as I was with him, he said. I don't even know why he could enter the mine. If there was one thing about him I knew for sure, it was that he didn't work there.

He introduced me to the leading researcher, Hideki Shibuya, a man of many disciplines.

The professor seemed very interested in our plans of trying to transfer a mark from one person to the other. According to him, this had never been done between members of differently marked bloodlines. I couldn't say how much of what he talked about may be true or not, but he appeared very learned about all of this.

He was also a doctor of medicine, as it turned out, and the one that would tend to me for many years to come. But even before my long sleep, he voiced his interest in me, someone who had never consciously apprivoised but still possessed a quite strong mark and first phase.

He decided that it would be a good idea to run some medical tests beforehand, talking about how my first phase might be repressing my libido flow or something like that, which could potentially be dangerous. I didn't understand a single word of it, but I was happy that the possibility of helping Tokio achieve his dreams got closer with every little step.

Tokio seemed very excited about all this too.

Once this was all done, I decided, I would finally tell him about my feelings.

"What are you doing here?"

I thought I knew this voice, and when I turned, I saw Tokio's friend, Ryousuke.

He wore an eyepatch I had never seen on him before, but remained silent on the circumstances that forced him to have it. With the one visible eye, he glared at Tokio.

I had always thought it had been him who'd granted Tokio permission to enter the ruins, but it seemed I had been wrong. He apparently had no idea how he got in there either, and wasn't very happy about the fact.

He didn't seem very excited about Tokio's plans either, if his looks when he revealed them were any indication. I don't know how much Ryousuke had ever known.

This was the first time I was introduced to one of Tokio's friends in person; he laid one arm around me and looked very proud. He held me close, as if to signal that we belonged together.

I was incredibly happy.

When we left arm in arm, he remarked how he wanted to be called by his pen name from now on.

I wasn't really keen on that, I must admit, because I really liked his birth name. But if it made him happy, I would go along with it.

After all, Tokio was my everything.