Gai heaved the last crate of soda onto the pile and looked at the long table on the outer wall of the barn. Grilled meat, salads with pasta, potatoes, cucumber and coleslaw, paper plates, plastic cups and cutlery, all kinds of seasoning sauces, beer and soft drinks. There was something for every taste and age.

He pulled a beer bottle out of the top crate, opened it at the edge of the table, threw the bottle cap into a bucket provided underneath and took a sip. The ale was still cold, but that would certainly change in the next few hours, with today's temperatures. Summer was always merciful to the Maitos; every year at the barn party, pure sunshine and at least eighteen degrees, today even over twenty, the best weather.

He glanced at his wristwatch, switched the display from the pedometer to the digital digits and saw that the party was to start in half an hour. Consequently, the first guests would arrive in a few minutes and Dai would have to come down right away to throw coal on the grill.

He took a cigarette from the slightly crumpled pack in his trouser pocket, lit it and strolled through the high, red roller door of the barn down the small hill to his grandparents' house. Asami stood in the kitchen and diligently wiped the surfaces clean with a cleaning cloth. Tonight, no one would set foot in this building, except for its inhabitants when they went to bed, but the old woman was plagued by the compulsive obsession if farmer Wilfred from the farm further north could smell a speck of dust. He was a farmer of the new school, bought the shiniest machines every year and, according to the Maitos, would have been better off in a clinic than in the countryside. Things sometimes got dirty here, but the farm heir didn't understand that.

"Won't you ash on the ground, please? I just vacuumed," Asami admonished immediately, as soon as she heard Gai behind her.

"Sure," Gai answered, dutifully tapped the ashes of his cigarette into the nicely decorated ceramic bowl on the table and went to the phone on the wall between the pantry and the refrigerator. He dialled the number of the Hatakes in Manchester and when the dial plate whirred back from the six, his heart beat faster. Maybe this time..

"The party you are trying to reach is currently unavailable, please–"

Frustrated, he hung the receiver back on the hook and sullenly looked at the long spiral cable that swung back and forth in front of the delicately checkered wallpaper. Since he had returned from running on Thursday and his father had taken him aside to tell him to please call Kakashi urgently, he had tried it almost every hour, at any time of the day or night. Each time this electronic whore immediately answered, who warbled to him in disgusting comfort that the connection was occupied. It couldn't be possible that someone was on the phone every time he called! Not at eleven at night, not at six in the morning, not at any other time during the day. At some point he had to get through.

Quite aggressively, Gai stubbed out his barely smoked cigarette in the ashtray, took another sip from his beer bottle and went up the creaking stairs to Dai's former childhood room, which he now used as a bedroom when they visited his parents. He knocked.

"Come in," said a muffled voice behind the wood.

Gai pushed the door open. "Dad? Can we talk briefly?"

Dai was plucking the collar of his green-purple Hawaiian shirt in front of the man-high, oval cheval glass. "Of course, sonny. Come in, sit down."

Nodding gratefully, Gai closed the door behind him, scuffed to the wide bed and sat down on the rocking mattress, the metal bed frame squeaking softly under his weight. He didn't start talking right away, but played around with his hair, where he celebratory had dared to try styling gel today.

This seemed to arouse Dai's fatherly curiosity. He looked at his son's reflection with a frown. "What's on your mind?"

"I'm worried about Kakashi," Gai murmured, now turning the bottle in his hand. A few drops of water meandered over the warming glass. "You said he sounded depressed, and I just can't reach him."

With a heavy sigh, Dai also came to the bed and sat down next to Gai. "I understand your restlessness. I'm also worried. But he wanted to come to the barn party today, so he's coming."

Sometimes Gai hated his father's positive nature. If he had spoken to Kakashi personally, he would have been able to better assess his statement, now he had to rely on the words of others. "I just tried again, but it was occupied again. Dad, something is wrong. The Hatakes were never people who were permanently on the phone. Did he say why he wanted to talk to me?"

"No," Dai replied dejectedly. "Unfortunately, he didn't confide in me. It just sounded very important, and I'm afraid it was."

"In what way?"

Now it was Dai's turn to remain silent for a worryingly long time. He got up again and walked aimlessly into the room until he stopped in the middle of it. "He harmed himself."

Gai jumped up from the bed. "Dad, are you fucking serious?! Why didn't you tell me that?!" His pulse had accelerated rapidly and he stared aghast at his father, who turned to him with a wistful look and continued, "This is a very sensitive topic and I have to approach it with tact. We both know how unstable he can be. But the fact is that as a doctor, I have a certain duty of confidentiality, even if he is not directly my patient."

"Fuck, dad!" Gai desperately tore his hair, half destroyed his hairstyle with it, and rubbed the glass bottle against his temple. "You should have told me. How can you know that and not worry?!"

"I am worried about him!" Dai shouted, not angry, but rather pleading. "But he told me that he wants to come here today, and I trust in his word."

"Didn't it occur to you that you misjudged the situation a bit..?" Gai asked in an unintentionally derogatory tone. "You're always so fucking gullible, but fuck, dad, you know Kakashi would never admit his weakness! His worst character point is that he wants to please everyone and no one should make a fuss about him. Maybe he said he wanted to come, but if he changed his mind, he would never admit it in order to avoid a possible confrontation and any queries. He would just barricade himself in his room and ignore everything around him. So far I have only thought, maybe there is a technical defect in their phone or the cable is torn out or something, but if he has really harmed himself again and is not answering now, then.. then..."

"Gai," Dai said softly and took his son in his arms without robbing him of too much freedom of movement, so that he could push him away at any time he wanted. "I understand you. And you're right, maybe I was too gullible. But I stand by it: I am convinced that he will appear. If he doesn't today, we'll go to Manchester and check on him. Agreed?"

Gai wondered if it might not be wiser to call Hiashi first, if he knew why no one answered the phone at the Hatakes, at least that would have been the more rational decision, but then he felt a relief at his father's words and he knew that Dai hadn't suggested a detour via neighbours only because Gai would have insisted on driving back anyway, to convince himself that Kakashi was fine. He gasped heavily into the wildly flowered shirt and nodded once. "Okay. We'll leave tomorrow morning."

"If he doesn't show up," Dai added, breaking away again and smiling encouragingly. "Don't paint the world black, Gai. I'll bet you that he's just a little late and will casually come through the door during the course of the evening today. You know him."

The colourful lanterns bathed the barn in a cozy ambience and the air was filled with conversations, laughter and music. In Hawick, everyone knew: When the Maitos held their big party, there was a great atmosphere. Outside on the gravel yard was the large grill, where the family fathers of the village took turns demonstrating their talent in roasting meat, inside people romped around in small groups and chatted, and large speakers and a specially set up DJ booth provided acoustic accompaniment. Clifford, who had chugged across the border from Carlisle, played typical party hits: Walking on Sunshine, Celebration, Karma Chameleon, Sunglasses at Night or September, in between he threw in stuff like Rock Around the Clock or Johnny B. Goode to pick up the seniors.

Gai leaned against the large straw castle with his sixth beer, on which children had cavorted until a few hours ago, and was unusually quiet and unmoved for the evening of the barn party. Otherwise, he liked to thrill over the rough stone floor and dance his good, green Chucks hot. But today, several things kept him apart from the crowd: For the first time since he was a child, Kakashi wasn't here, and while he had realized last year that he didn't need him to have fun, it just wasn't the same without him. He had friends in Manchester, mainly at school, even one or two very good ones, but Kakashi was his best friend, there was nothing to alter that. And in Hawick, the tousle-head had always been there – which was good, because there were hardly any boys his age in this small town.

This brought him to the next problem: Ebisu was one of those boys with whom he got along well. Gai had imagined that every time he went shopping at Safeway, the four-eyes would have been particularly friendly to him, even flirting with him. He thought Ebisu was really cute and since he hadn't had too much success with boys so far – it was already hard enough in Manchester to get to know someone as a visually below-average homosexual – his acquired optimism had invited Ebisu to the party in the hope that they could retreat to the hayloft in the course of the evening and make out and grope and maybe even fuck, because shit, he finally wanted to have sex. He had dressed up especially for him, threw himself into his most expensive jeans and fought his way through his thick mop and now looked like a plucked bird in the best brand clothes. But Ebisu, whether with churlish intentions or not, hadn't flirted at all and had apparently only been so overly friendly to Gai because he had wanted to get to Kina through him.

Problem number three: Kina was massively drunk, properly stoned for Gai's knowing eyes and therefore far too easy to wrap around the finger – and didn't notice how Ebisu was getting closer and closer to her, in her condition perhaps only thought it was friendly teasing, while the boy's hand slipped deeper and deeper towards her butt or grazed her chest while dancing.

Hot Stuff started and a fourth reason for his comparatively miserable mood immediately revealed itself to Gai: That was Dai's song. He had been the damn whirlwind of the seventy's nightclubs and by that song everyone in Hawick and the rest of the world knew that the shirt would fly and the dense chest hair would blow. Gai had to admit that his father could dance very well and his self-given title was justified, but for once he didn't want to see him half-naked today.

It was almost midnight, and Gai was allowed to take care of loosening Ebisu's sticky paws from Kina, getting her to her room so that no Maito over forty would notice how high she was, and fishing Dai's shirt from the roof beam.

Sighing in exasperation, he emptied his bottle and threw it into the open barrel next to the plundered buffet, which was specially prepared for this purpose, and scuffed out into the cool breeze of the night. Since sunset you could tell again that they were in Scotland. Immediately, a thick goosebump dragged over his bare arms and he rubbed them shiveringly while he let his gaze wander over the many parked cars. Between all the colours, there was no small, baby blue Beetle to be seen. He would certainly have noticed Kakashi's arrival, after all, he had hardly taken his eyes off the barn door for a second, but a dissatisfied grumbling spread in his stomach. Kakashi calls, wants to talk to him, is now no longer contactable and has harmed himself according to Dai's statement – that wasn't just worry that was bubbling inside him, it was fear.

Half a year ago, when he had noticed that Kakashi hadn't even wanted to look at him after that special night, he had sworn not to run after him. Even then, after the initial shock, he had known exactly why his best friend had reacted so radically to the kiss and, well, the dry-humping with Gai. Gai was sure, would bet all his savings on Kakashi feeling something for him. Otherwise, he would never have looked at him in the way he did. And that was the only reason why he had tried a kiss in the first place – and he hasn't regretted it to this day. But this sheer panic that had flared up in the slate-grey irises at that time would have made it clear to even the most stupid empathy-wimp that Kakashi's subsequent aversion to Gai and his generally rather homophobic attitude to life were solely due to his upbringing and the fear of his father's rejection. That's why Gai had never been too mad at him. He himself was lucky enough to have grown up openly with all members and sympathizers of the queer movement, Kakashi had not experienced this privilege. And Gai knew that Kakashi needed time to accept himself and his sexuality, never wanted to corner him or clobber him for his strife.

Nevertheless, Kakashi had hurt him very much and after a long period of introspection, Gai had made the decision that he understood Kakashi's situation and wanted to support him, should he allow it again, but to put his own well-being above that of his friend. Giving Kakashi space had not only been an act of compassion, but also a certain amount of self-protection, even selfishness.

Gai's self-discovery had been a long and very uncertain road, peppered with many complexes, question marks and concerns. It had taken him a lot of courage to come out to his family, and that's exactly why he was all the more grateful that they hadn't disowned him. Even his grandparents had assured him of their support, which had made him cry hopelessly together with Dai at dinner on Monday. He was far from reaching his goal and there were quite a few hurdles that he had to overcome, such as his social environment as an adult, problems at work or university, exclusion, judgement, violence. These would cost him a lot of strength and he couldn't and honestly didn't want to give himself up completely for someone else when he had so much on his plate. Not even for Kakashi, his best friend, his love.

All the more painfully this fear gnawed at him. Kakashi had wanted to talk to him. Not to Kina or Dai or whoever, no, to him. He had been in a state of self-destruction, despair, woe and had wanted to get help from Gai. For others, this could be taken as a sign of exploitation, but Gai knew Kakashi. He knew that Kakashi never wanted to get on anyone's nerves with his problems, because he quickly felt like a burden. The fact that Kakashi had come to him of all people with this attempted call, with this request for a conversation, was not only a step towards a renewed rapprochement between the two, no, it was a gigantic leap. And it might come across as pathetic how Gai jumped as soon as Kakashi whistled, but Gai had the strong feeling that he was very serious. For that, yeah, for that he just knew this boy too well.

Gai had just lit a cigarette and toyed with the insane idea of getting into the car to drive to Manchester right now, when someone bumped into him from behind and hugged him without being asked. The lighter almost fell out of his hand and he had already prepared polite insults, when Kina cooed behind him, "Maaaan, it's much too cold out here, Gai, why don't you come back in?"

Gai rolled his eyes and pulled Kina's forearms off his stomach. "Let me go, dwarf." He stowed the lighter in his trouser pocket, took a long drag on his cigarette and turned around. His sister's glassy gaze set off his brotherly alarm bells. "How much did you actually drink?"

"From the beer?" Kina asked slurring. "Eeeeh, only three or four..?"

"Mh-hm, and what else?"

A cunning smirk stole onto her face. "Ebisu had brought a few Hayman's with him, we killed them with the other boys."

"What exactly are 'a few'?" Gai probed.

"Ah maaaan, just a few," Kina grizzled. "Did you accidentally shove a stick up your ass instead of a dildo?"

Gai gritted his teeth and hissed, "Fuck you, you facial goulash."

"I'm sooooorryyy," she whined and shivered around on his arm. "You know I don't mean it that way.. It was just a joke, just a jo-hoooke! Ga-haaaai, a jo-hoooke!"

"Holy shit, I haven't seen you tight like this since 1986.."

"I'm just have fu~n," Kina purred with a big grin and almost dead eyes that looked elsewhere, but hardly into Gai's face.

"Fun..? Kina, the guy wanted to get you drunk and is hot for your knickers. That was intentional. I'm telling you, he would have deflowered you behind the barn and you couldn't even remember it. Great fun, congratulations."

Kina snorted loudly. "He can't deflower me anymore, Kashi has already done that."

Gai became unexpectedly sick and he dragged, which didn't necessarily help. He had suspected it. Kina had never spent the night at Kakashi's in the past, or vice versa. It had happened twice during this summer. A tremendous rage came over him because Kakashi had broken his promise and betrayed him. He had wanted to keep his hands off her, why had he done it anyway? A trace of hatred flickered through his heart that almost made him just shit on that ass, let him rot in Manchester for his sake and enjoy his holiday in Hawick, but he closed his eyes, swallowed his anger and thought about the situation. Kina liked him, that was clear to everyone who spent a little time with her and broached the topic of "boys" or "Kakashi". Kakashi had promised him that he would never do anything with her, but this was said rather succinctly, he hadn't made an actual oath. And Gai had no claim to demand abstinence from either of them. If they had mutually agreed to sleep together, then so it was. Then he just had to deal with it, even if he couldn't right now.

After a long pause, Gai asked quietly, "Was it good?" In the meantime, he had smoked up half his cigarette.

"Wow, awesome!", Kina roared enthusiastically. "He licked me and everything and his cock is so fucking horny and big and—"

"Honestly now?" Gai interrupted her. "I didn't want to hear any details, just to know if he treated you well."

Kina pinched her eyebrows. "What kind of killjoy are you, eh?! First you ask and then you choke me off, you bully!"

"Dude, don't get on my nerves. I'll put you to bed now, otherwise you'll end up breaking your neck by chance or something, although that wouldn't be so dramatic today." Gai grabbed his sister by the upper arm, but she fought her way free. "No!" she said resolutely and stretched out her index finger admonishingly.

Gai raised his arms reproachfully. "Do you seriously want to get laid by this Ebisu?"

"No," Kina repeated sternly. "But I won't go to bed until you've danced."

He groaned. "You serious?"

"Yes," she nodded wildly. "It's tradishion."

Groaning, Gai ran his fingers through his hair, which had not been a real hairstyle for a long time, took a last drag on his cigarette and finally kicked the butt out on the gravel. "When I dance, do you go to bed voluntarily and stay there?"

Kina beamed and waved her long hair through the air in agreement. "Promised on kidneys and infirmities."

"You're so stupid, honestly," Gai sighed, took his sister half into a headlock and parked her in the barn right next to the DJ booth. "Clifford? Can you keep an eye on her for a moment, so she doesn't run away?"

Clifford looked at Kina in confusion but nodded.

"And can you play Footloose next?"

Another nod and an anticipatory grin.

Gai moved to the middle of the straw-stained dance floor, where Dai was still unpacking all his old moves, and loosened his muscles to Le Freak to get into a rhythm at all. Then finally the song ended and the drums of Footloose started.

Almost everyone present knew what was coming, and those who had danced around Gai turned to him, made room for him, and began to clap to the beat. Dai howled enthusiastically, threw an encouraging fist roll at his son and slipped his Hawaiian shirt over his sweaty arms – at least he still had it, one less task on Gai's to-do list.

The intro was still quite calm, rather formed by side steps and snapping, but it started with the first verse. He let his feet float over the hard stone, whirled his arms through the air in appropriate movements, shrugged his shoulders, circled his hips, pranced, flew, glided, involved someone from the audience here and there by quickly turning an older woman into his arms or helping a ten-year-old girl to do a pirouette. He had never had a fixed choreography, he just felt this song and reproduced it visually. His climax, however, came during the bridge, where he earned amazement and applause, as he always does, because he managed to time a backflip from a standing position exactly so that his feet hit the ground again as soon as the song indulged in the last chorus after the build-up.

The guests applauded, Gai finished the song and when he thanked them panting and sweating, Dai came up to him grinning and cuddled him while the others started dancing to Uptown Girl. "I'm so incredibly proud of you, son. You keep proving to me how talented you are, my goodness."

"Dad," Gai laughed, pushing his father's arm off his shoulders, "I do this all the time."

"It's still good," Dai smiled and shed a tear. "It's a shame you don't want to become a professional dancer. You've got what it takes."

"If it had been easy, you would have remained one, wouldn't you?"

Dai's lips disappeared under his moustache and he nodded regretfully. "Yes, that's probably true. It's only realistic if you don't make it your profession, so I guess I'll have to keep my winged imagination in check."

"Don't worry, dad, I'll just do it as a hobby and I can still earn money with it. But I want something solid for the future that puts food on my table."

"That's the best attitude and no matter what you do, I'll always have your back."

Gai hugged his father lovingly, but asked in his wavy hair, which had become a little frayed from all the jigging and the high humidity in the barn, "Kina and I are going to bed now. Are you coming too?"

"Aaaah," Dai moaned as he released the embrace and let his gaze wander over the guests, who had hardly diminished despite the late hour, only a few parents with smaller children had already driven home at ten. "I'd like to stay, but we want to leave tomorrow morning, don't we? And we still have to pack first."

Gai's brief frolic about the dance evaporated. "Do you think we won't come here again?"

Again, Dai's lips were hidden under the black moustache. "I want to be prepared. In the best case, we go there, pick up Kakashi and spend the next week in Hawick. In the worst case.. I just like to have our things there."

Gai lowered his head. "Then let's hope that we pack for nothing."

That night, Gai didn't get to sleep until after two o'clock, so he trotted wearily from his room, or rather one of the two guest rooms on the second floor, to the small bathroom at seven in his underpants and with wildly dishevelled hair. The low door with the peeling white paint, where he constantly forgot to duck his head, squeaked loudly and after a usual painful collision between the top of his skull and the wooden frame, he listened into the shallow hallway to see if he had woken anyone in the house with his instinctive cursing. But everyone seemed to be still asleep.

Even Kina, as he was puzzled to discover. She was lying next to the toilet bowl, her hair fanned out around her, cuddling with the towel rack and wearing only her flowered panties. The toilet lid was open and a wonderful smell of alcohol vomit came from the porcelain throne.

Gai rubbed his eyes, checked that this sight wasn't part of his aftermath of insufficient sleep, and groaned, because it wasn't an illusion and Kina really lay there as if it were the most comfortable place in the world. His bare feet splashed on the cold tiles, and he nudged his big toe into her thigh. "Hey, Kina," he murmured in a hushed voice, coughed loudly on purpose and now literally kicked her shin. "Kina!"

Kina grumbled incomprehensibly, pulled her arms tighter around the golden brass and her knees to her bare chest.

"Well, you wouldn't have it any other way," Gai grumbled, turned around, crouched down slightly and loudly let one go. The fart echoed on the tiled walls like a concert and immediately an aroma of half-digested mayonnaise spread through the room.

With a jerk, Kina thrashed around and struggled half-upright closer to the toilet, where she slammed her forehead against the foot and groaned miserably. "Ewwwaaah, dude, that stinks!"

"Just like you," Gai replied calmly and pushed his sister aside with his foot. She slid squeaking across the floor like a misshapen, heavy pillow, blinked through her arms that she had raised to her head in pain, and when she registered that Gai was pulling out his cock to pee, she rolled onto her stomach, wagging her feet through the air like a petulant toddler and moaning lilting. "Shit, I have a bloody hangover.." she grumbled into the pattering of Gai's urine stream.

Gai resisted the urge to just brazenly target his sister as punishment for her behaviour yesterday, and especially for her confession to have fucked with Kakashi. "Who is surprised with 'the few Hayman's' you killed yesterday?" He shook off, packed himself up again and flushed his piss down the drain along with Kina's vomit.

"Lick me, you wanker. I just overdid it, it happens. Or has that never happened to the dear Mister Mushroom?"

"Yes," Gai shrugged and washed his hands. "But at least I'm not crying afterwards." In the mirror, he saw a middle finger appear above the towel rack. He grinned and smeared a load of toothpaste on his brush. "Make yourself socially acceptable, dwarf, we want to leave soon."

Now Kina's straw thatch appeared over the yellow terry cloth. "Why leave? What are we up to?"

Gai paused for a moment, the brush between his molars. "Bib Bab nob polb u?" he mumbled, took the brush out of his mouth, sucked up a sneaking drop of minty spit and gargled a little more understandably, "We're going back to Manfefter."

Kina laboriously pushed herself to her feet, shoved Gai a bit to the side and took one of her fluffy hair ties from the shelf to tie up her hair. "Why?"

"Kakafi," Gai simply replied and continued to brush his teeth.

Kina understood, nodded and got a thoughtful expression. "Still haven't called him, huh?"

Gai elbowed her shoulder, Kina pinched him in the ribs as a counterattack. Gai jerked away, spat into the sink in a high arc, even hit it, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, "Cleverly recognized, you should definitely study with your brains."

"Ass cookie," Kina pouted and slipped off her panties, which remained unnoticed on the floor. "Are we coming back here?"

"We don't know yet," Gai mumbled, picked up the comb and rearranged his hairstyle, which, thanks to the gel, didn't want to stay the way he would like it to. "At best, we'll just get him, at worst not," he halfway recited Dai's words and now tried it with water, even though it wasn't washing day. "Are you sorry about Ebisu?"

Kina gave him a frosty look from the shower tray as she turned on the tap and checked the temperature. "That guy only served me as a source of alcohol and weed. My supply was used up and I wanted to smoke."

"Cool," Gai replied wryly, noting that it worked better with a wet comb. "And for that you expose yourself to the risk of being raped?"

Kina's right foot was already over the edge of the tub. "Raped? Why raped?"

Now Gai was taken aback. He blinked at his sister in the mirror, lowered the dripping comb and said, "Are you that stupid or are you just pretending? He clearly wanted to get you sloshed. And the way you were on it, it would have been hard for you to make it clear to him that you didn't want it – if you had been able to talk at all."

Kina pulled the shower curtain with the seascape a bit, but was still clearly visible from the sink, so why she had done it at all remained a mystery to Gai. "As if he would do something like that."

"Kina," Gai sighed, "you should realize that not all guys are nice. There are real swines out there who give a fuck about whether you agree to coitus or not."

"Coitus," Kina snorted amused.

"Sex, sexual intercourse, nookie – call it what you want. But you're a petite girl and it can be really dangerous for you if you don't pay a little more attention."

"Don't worry about me, little brother, I'm only touched by someone who is allowed to touch me," Kina sang.

In the mirror, Gai watched as she soaped her left armpit, wiped the white block in a frothy trail over her breasts to the other and now freed those hairs from sweat. Her nipples trembled slightly and for a short moment he imagined Kakashi standing naked behind her, putting his hands on her tits, sliding one into the depths between her legs and kissing the crook of her neck. With a disgusted pull in the stomach, he lowered his gaze and rattled his thumb over the teeth of the comb. He didn't want to think about how he had touched his sister, when he wished he was in her place. "You didn't tell me yesterday if he treated you well."

"Huh? Who?" Kina asked, cleaning her left calf.

"Kakashi."

Gai looked at his sister again, who raised her head. Their eyes, which were so different, met in the reflection and horror settled in Kinas. The soap slipped out of her hand, which landed in the tub with a dull rumble. She straightened up and for an eternally long minute only the water pattering from the shower could be heard. Then Kina blinked sadly and said softly, so that it was hardly intelligible, "I'm sorry, Gai. I mean, we never talked about whether or if or no idea something could happen between Kashi and me, but I could have guessed that you would have something against it."

"I don't mind," Gai said automatically, caught himself in this painful lie and cleared his throat. Kina didn't know anything about his feelings for Kakashi and as long as he hadn't talked to him about certain things, he wanted it to stay that way. She shouldn't make up any ideas that actually corresponded to the truth and betray Kakashi to his father at the end because something slipped out of her mouth in front of Sakumo or she pushed him to do something with her kind of very thoughtless manner. He trusted himself to have enough foresight to avoid such situations, but Kina could be quite gruff at times and wasn't always necessarily aware of the consequences of her words and actions. "If you both wanted that, then that's okay with me," he continued to swindle. "I love you two, so I don't want one of you to hurt the other."

Kina, anxious to keep her hair out of the stream of water, silently picked up the soap and let it slip through her fingers, her eyes averted from her brother in shame. "I want to be honest with you, Gai, because I know you don't judge me. When I talk to my girlfriends about it, they all always want to know the details, what positions and what exactly he looks like and what he did and everything, but you're interested In my well-being and well.. I didn't really want to sleep with him." The comb slipped out of his hand in shock, but before he could ask questions, she continued, "I wanted to, somehow, because I think he's hot and stuff, but I felt compelled to do it because I had a bet with Andy about such a shitty Prada handbag. And because I didn't want to be a virgin anymore, because it fucked my self-esteem. He said that he thinks I'm beautiful, and he didn't have a problem with my body hair and when we stroked each other, it was so incredibly good, and everything could have been perfect – but I wasn't really ready for it. I didn't tell him because I didn't want to offend him. And then his cock was so fucking big that it really hurt at times and I would have liked to just cut it in the middle of it, but he tried to prepare me for it and everything and shit eh.." She let out a frustrated snort. "Well, to answer your question: He treated me very well according to the circumstances. Nevertheless, I regret it."

Gai didn't know what to say to that. He thought it was good that Kina confided in him, but he couldn't tell her how much she hurt him by talking about Kakashi in this way. The feelings bubbled around in his chest, sometimes anger entered his heart, sometimes disappointment, sometimes longing, sometimes compunction. So, he was quite happy when he noticed that a narrow, red stripe on the inside of Kina's thigh snaked down to the knee and he could change the subject. "Hey, dwarf, you're bleeding out."

Kina tore herself out of her thoughtful rigidity and spread her legs to look at the bloody artwork. "Ah fuck, I'm going to mess up nan's towels again."

Helpfully, Gai took a wrapped tampon from a small raffia basket on the cistern and handed it to his sister. "Just shower it thoroughly, then no one in the house will notice that you dare to be a woman with a functioning menstrual cycle."

Cheekily sticking out her tongue, she snatched the tampon out of his fingers. "Just be glad that I don't bless you with a nephew."

"What," Gai laughed, "didn't you use contraception, or what?"

In response, he received a middle finger. Crackling, Kina unpacked the cotton stopper, inserted it into her vagina and pressed the foil into Gai's hand in return for his kindness. "Throw that away."

"Of course, madame, what do you wish for afterwards? Should I braid your hair or rub your silky skin with honey essence?"

"It would be my utmost pleasure, James, I prefer the tea with chamomile today, if I still have slight cramps in my abdomen."

Gai laughed and disposed of the tampon packaging in the small trash can between the sink and the toilet. "Don't dawdle like that when packing, I don't want to lose so much time because of you again." With these words, he flushed the toilet, feasted on Kina's angry nagging as she tried in vain to escape the ice-cold shower water, and left the bathroom to get dressed.