[[plot]] eternity|xi

Something seems off about Gumi these days. She hasn’t yelled at me in days, and keeps playing happy songs on the piano and hums. She even does the laundry without complaining. Gumi never does the laundry without complaining!

“Stop staring, Shin,” she says to me after dinner, as she picks up the dishes (without complaint!).

“Something’s different about you, Gumi,” I say. She rolls her eyes.

“Only in your mind, Shin,” she replies, “you and your alien brain.” I frown. Usually, she’d be beating me over the head around this point. Or not. Maybe—oh, I don’t know anymore. This confuses me.

“Something’s different about Gumi,” I tell Shuichi later, as he opens the door at my knock with a lethargic expression on his face yet once more.

“You woke me up at 3 in the morning to tell me this?” Shuichi asks incredulously. I frown, and push him aside.

“Of course not. I woke you up so that I could sleep in your room. You took all the comfy pillows for yourself!” I whine, “and doesn’t she?”

“Yes, no, I don’t know! It’s Gumi. She’s hard to decipher. How should I know how she feels?” Shuichi says, “and you have a perfectly good bed of your own, Shin. Go sleep in it instead of my bed.”

“But it’s missing something!” I say back, pushing Gumi’s strange behavior to the side for a minute. Shuichi sighs, and asks the question he knows I want him to ask.

“What is it missing? You have an antique bed from 19th century France and Egyptian cotton sheets. With a thread count of 210, might I add,” Shuichi scowls, attempting to push me off his bed, which I have already made myself comfortable in.

“Why, it’s missing you, of course!” I smile. Shuichi twitches, and he kicks me off the bed, and mutters for me to stay off and stop talking nonsense. But his face is red in the dark, and I smile.

–

My bed is never empty. When I am a child, my nursemaid sleeps with me, comforting me in my nightmares and tending to me, the second son of Lord Yamada. When my eldest brother lies ill, trained assassins sleep next to me, preventing their comrades from doing harm to other sons of Yamada. When I discover women, the maids find themselves coerced or coaxed into my room. Strange, isn’t it, that although from birth there have been people around me constantly, I have always felt alone?

I am the second son, and one day, my older brother will inherit everything and I will have nothing. My eldest brother, Daiki, is like my father, overbearing and serious and slightly cruel in his ways. My youngest brother, Nao, is like my mother, mild and calm and peaceful. I am like none of them at all, wild and decidedly unserious and with a striking face that resembles neither my father nor my mother. Daiki, in a fit of jealousy, screams at me one day when I have beat him at Darama-san ga koronda.

“I bet you’re not even really my brother! You’re probably just some bastard from another man!” He screams with the jealous tears of someone used to getting his way in his eyes. It is the first time—and the last—I can remember Daiki being punished. As his punishment is laid out and we are sent away, Daiki shooting me a scathing look, Nao finds himself besides me, and with a wisdom that seems almost frightening for his age, cautions me.

“You know, you shouldn’t agitate Brother,” he says, “he’ll be Lord one day, and who will question what he says then?” He looks at me, very pointedly, and I understand the meaning in his words. And then I sigh and look away, because what can I do? I am the second son, and I have no power at all.

–

“Gumi,” I say one morning, flabbergasted, “why are you all ready for school?” She glares at me in response, but it does not quite meet her eyes.

“Because you never wake up on time, Shin! Now we’re going to be late and we’ll have to run laps or—” she begins, but Shuichi comes downstairs silently from behind both of us, and informs Gumi.

“It’s Saturday,” he says, “there is no school.” Gumi turns red, and then mutters and ‘oh.’ I feel aghast, a bit. How could Gumi get this all mixed up?

“What’s wrong with you, Gumi?” I find myself saying, “you’re not yourself!” Gumi looks a little confused, and then suddenly, snaps back.

“What are you talking about, Shin?” she says then, “maybe I just want to go to school.”

“But you never want to go to school,” I whine back, but then I perk up, suddenly, coming to attention.

“GUMI!” I shriek, “ARE YOU DATING SOMEONE?”

“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” she shrieks back, although a little too quickly in my opinion, “WHY WOULD I EVER DATE SOMEONE FROM OUR SCHOOL?!”

“You’re dating someone!” I realize then, stepping back in horror and bumping into what feels like Icarus, but not turning around, “aren’t you, Gumi?!”

“I am not,” Gumi hisses, as Icarus clears his throat, and I turn, laughing nervously and realizing I am stuck between two very volatile people at 7 in the morning. But something, something still seems strange with Gumi, and I cannot help but think I have hit the mark completely on its head. Although none of the guys at school would even dare look at Gumi. I think.

–

Her name is Jane, and she is a foreign exchange student from America. She is very cute. Very, very, very cute, and I cannot stop staring at her all throughout the day. So, I ask her out around lunch time, and she smiles and bobs her head and her ponytail and says yes. I expect Gumi to pop up any minute and explain to me yet again why I shouldn’t date these girls and why I’m a lecherous old man, but she seems to be deep in discussion with Yume. For some reason, this makes me pout, and so I decide to show off my new date to Shuichi. So I take her to Class D, where Icarus and Shuichi are currently having one of their ridiculous fights.

“Long sleeves!” Icarus roars, as half the class mutter their assent.

“Sleeveless!” Shuichi roars back, the other half of the class chiming in this time.

“Three-quarters!” I interject, causing the entire class to look at me. Behind me, Jane laughs a bit nervously.

“Look, Shu,” I say, “this is Jane! We’re going on a date next Saturday.” Shuichi, along with the rest of the class, stares. Jane smiles nervously, her eyes big and doe-like. And then she opens her mouth and says something I cannot understand, and Shuichi’s face turns a very strange shade of red.

“What did you say?” I ask Jane quizzically. She smiles.

“I have no idea!” she replies.

–

“Something’s different about Gumi,” I tell Yume later, as she walks besides me as we are heading home, Icarus and Shuichi continuing their argument behind me.

“Oh?” she says, a smile encroaching on her face, “really now? What makes you say that, Shin?”

“Do you know something about it?” I ask Yume in reply, suspiciously. She giggles, her hair swooshing behind her as her head moves cutely.

“Maybe,” Yume replies mysteriously, “but that’s Gumi’s own secret, and I won’t tell.”

“Not even for me?” I wheedle, “not even for a kiss from me?” She smiles back, charmingly.

“Not even for all the kisses in the world from you,” she says, and then turns to where Icarus is now gesturing wildly at his shirt, and Shuichi is declaring something about ripping off shirts.

Ooh. Ripping off shirts. That sounds rather enticing. And so, I push Gumi, who is walking ahead of us all and humming yet again, out of my mind, and instead imagine a certain someone shirtless.

–

When I am fifteen, the reality of my full-but-empty bed gets to me, and I decide, in a stroke of genius, that I am going to go west. West, to the land they call Europe, a distant fairytale. I don’t tell anybody of my plans, and leave in secret, but somehow, a letter from Nao still manages to reach me, and inform me of my esteemed father’s death and Daiki’s rise to Lord Yamada. Of course, this has no consequence for me, and I press forward with the caravan I am traveling with, to the land they called Europe.

They ask me where I’m from and who I am, but I just smile at them in the way that makes them melt inside and forget all their questions. The women are still there in my bed, coming and going like the sunrises and sunsets I see. The desert is lonely, and even with the women still in my bed and the caravan around me, it remains lonely still.

“What do you think you’ll find when we get there?” one particular woman asks me one day, stretching out in the small pallet. I look at her. It’s a question I haven’t heard before, although it seems like one that would have been asked already. And I find that I don’t quite know the answer.

“Maybe,” she says then, “you’re just running away from something you’re afraid to face.” It’s a very interesting idea, but…

What am I running from?

–

“Something’s different about Gumi!” I say to Icarus, as he herds me and Shuichi out the door so we can play football. Although I really have no idea why he wants to play football. Usually Icarus wants to practice with those wooden swords that leave bruises everywhere.

“What are you talking about?” Icarus scowls, “Gumi’s fine. Normal. Which is more then I can say for you, Shin.” I frown, as Icarus tests the ball.

“Are we playing American football or the rest-of-the-world football?” I have to ask then. Icarus’s response is to throw a pigskin at my head to answer my question.

“American it is,” I sigh, and resign myself to being tackled by Icarus for the next thirty minutes. Although, maybe I can get off by being the referee…

Sore and bruised, I limp softly into the kitchen, where Yume and Gumi are talking.

“Shin thinks something’s up, doesn’t he?” Gumi is scowling, scrubbing at a pot. Yume laughs, softly.

“Oh, Gumi. It’s hard not to see, dear. You’re should be glad Icarus and Shuichi didn’t notice too. Although they’re rather dense when it comes to these things, so it may be expected.” She muses.

“It’s none of his business!” Gumi says then, causing the plates in the sink to tinkle as they crash into each other. Yume laughs.

“Gumi,” she says fondly, “don’t be so defensive. It’ll get out eventually, no matter what you try. And then they’ll all have to meet him.” I am thoroughly confused at this point. Meet who? What sort of things? What is going on that I have no clue about?

“But I want to keep it to myself as long as possible,” Gumi mutters. Yume sighs, dreamily.

“Oh, Gumi,” she says, her voice thick with emotion, “you’re in love.”

In those three words, my world seems to stop, crash, and grind, all at the same time, and for some reason, they give me a pang in my heart.

–

I am now in the land they call France, a land of great differences and similarities. There is a great palace, glittering as it receives me, the weary brother of a lord in exotic Japan, an unheard of land, and the powdered ladies admiring me, their dresses taking up more room then the men’s egos. But then there are the peasants of France, living in near poverty, the children clad in rags, circling me as I make my way back to my lodgings. France is very different, indeed.

It is about this time that my brother Nao finds me again, with a letter and wisdom that seems to belie his young years. He writes me that now our eldest brother is dead, and I am now Lord Yamada. This makes me laugh. I am not in any position to be in charge of a small household, let alone and entire fiefdom. But Nao manages to address this, too, and informs me that despite all my shortcomings, I am still Yamada Shin, son of the fiercest lord in the area, and the noble blood of my ancestors runs strong in my veins.

He tells me I should begin home as soon as I receive his letter. Instead, I throw the letter onto the nighttable besides me and head to the nearest tavern, where I sit down at the counter and immediately order the strongest thing I can think of. Besides me, a voluptuous barmaid sits, her own drink in her pretty cream hands. She surveys me through the corner of her eye, and then smiles, like a cat that has just found a mouse.

“Had a bad day, darling?” she coos at me. I have the distinct impression that she is probably one of those night ladies—you know, the ones that offer…services.

“You could say that,” I reply. She pouts prettily, and then traces one long, pointed finger up and down my arm, in a manner that cannot be proper in any society. Then, she smiles.

“Well, darling, I have an idea. How’bout we go up to my room and we have a good time and make your night much more…enjoyable?” she smiles seductively, as the barkeeper thunks a dirty mug of something so strong I can smell it. I tip the mug glass as far as it will go, downing every last drop, and then set the mug down on the table with a clank, and then grin at the woman in front of me, standing.

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” I tell her, and she smiles, taking my hand and leading me up the stairs.

When I wake up, my throat burns, and the sheets are covered in blood, blood, blood. My blood, I can tell, although I don’t quite know how I know this. And my throat will not stop burning, no matter how much water I drink or how much I scratch at it.

–

“Something’s different about you, Shin,” Gumi says later at dinner, frowning. I smile, weakly.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that, Gumi?” I reply, poking at the stalk of broccoli on my plate. She frowns.

“I told you, Shin. Nothing’s different about me,” she replies, standing up and clearing her plates, “and eat your broccoli. It’s good for you.” She snaps.

“I don’t need to eat broccoli,” I reply, aware that I sound like a child, “I can sustain on nothing but blood.”

“Yes, but then you’d never excrete anything,” Icarus interjects bluntly, and I have to push my plate away then.

“Now, I really don’t want to eat,” I say. Icarus rolls his eyes, and Gumi huffs. Shuichi, however, stares at me with the concern of someone who can discern emotion from a single glance. Shuichi has always been surprisingly good at that. So he catches me, as we are wrapping down for the night and getting ready to sleep, and looks at me with those gold eyes of his.

“You alright?” Shuichi asks me, quietly and slowly, but not without worry. I smile.

“Yes,” I reply. Shuichi stares, for a moment longer, and then turns.

“Liar,” he proclaims. My smile falters, before coming back. He is right, of course. Shuichi is always right when it comes to me.

–

I never thought much about whether Gumi would ever leave us. In my mind, there was always her, Shuichi, and me, together. Shuichi and Gumi delude themselves into believing that they are not as close with each other, with me, as they really are. I am a little narrow-minded in that respect, I suppose. There is the world, the outside that is only good for feeding off of and having dalliances with, and then there is family, so important and intertwined, and always, always, returning to each other. Despite all her griping and yelling and scolding, she has always loved us. I do not doubt that.

It is her other loyalties that make me worry, because I know love better than Gumi does. And I am afraid that in the end, she will get hurt.

[[plot]] eternity|x

Yume wakes up and sits straight up in bed, and I can almost feel her alarm as her brain processes everything that has happened. And then I feel her looking at me, trying to decide if I am a dream, if last night was a dream. So, open my eyes and smile at her disheveled bed head, and chuckle at her relieved eyes.

“Morning, love,” I say, pulling her down to my chest.

“Morning,” she replies, wriggling down so her hair splays all over my chest and her ear is pressed to it.

“What are you doing now?” I ask her. She smiles.

“Listening to your heartbeat,” she replies, “so I don’t forget it.” I laugh, and she frowns, shifting.

“How would you forget it?” I ask her, but she shoots me a look that tells me to be quiet, please. So, I pull a blanket over the both of us and wrap my arms around her, letting her fall back onto the bed, and then hold her close, and let myself drift back into sleep.

–

It is the sizzing of eggs that finally wakes me up again, and Yume’s even breathing catching as she feels me move.

“Morning again,” I say. Yume smiles, and snuggles deeper into my arms.

“Are you hungry,” I press. She shakes her head.

“No,” she says, “I want to sleep more.” Yume closes her eyes and tries to tuck herself into that warmest spot between bed and person. I lean in, tracing my fingers along her side and watching her face twitch as I hit her sensitive spots.

“Are you sure?” I ask her again. Her eyes open again, as I add another finger, and begin tracing swirls, until she is shrieking with laughter and trying to get off the bed and away from my fingers. I grin, and chase her, right into the hallway, where I catch Yume around the waist and she collapses like one of those dolls whose limbs loosen as soon as you put pressure on it, and we run into Shuichi, who looks decidedly too sleepy to be up this morning, as usual. He stares at me, and then stares at Yume, and then stares at my arms around Yume, and then nods.

“Finally,” Shuichi says, “I was afraid you’d decide you liked being single and I’d have to deal with two sets of strange girls running around the house.” I don’t know whether to be offended or laugh at that statement, until Shuichi calls into his room, where Shin has decided is the best place for beauty sleep, and yells.

“Shin!” Shuichi yells, “they’re back together!” A pauses, and then Shin yells back.

“Aww! Just when I was getting ready to woo Yume over, too!” he calls. I feel myself twitch, and although I know Shin is just saying that because he is glad we are ok, I push through the door anyways and decide that Shin needs to be taught a lesson before breakfast.

When we finally make it down for breakfast, Shin’s lesson finally taught and Shuichi tending to him yet again, Gumi has moved on to frying bacon, and she and Yume have one of those silent girl-conversations that girls always seem to manage to have with each other. The ones that make you feel like they’re talking about you.

“Well, Icarus,” Gumi says, “it’s about time.” I just roll my eyes.

“So,” Yume says, “we were planning to visit Hito again next month. Do you…want to come along?” she asks me, hesitantly. But I am done opposing Hito. He is my brother, still, after all.

“Sure,” I say, “I’ll come.” And then, as Yume looks surprise and then beams, I rap the table.

“Come on, cook,” I say to Gumi, “hurry up with the food.” Gumi glares in response.

“Shut up, otherwise you can slave over the hot stove and burn your fingers.”

–

Yume seems to know this part of Scotland like the back of her hand, now. She flutters through the airport with the certainty of someone who has done it a million times, and converses with the taxi driver and tells him exactly where we want to go. And then she leads us through a giant field that I would have gotten lost in, to a rather old castle. And she bounds up the steps, knocks on the door, and then smiles as a scared brunette opens the door.

“Hi, Four!” Yume chirps. Four looks at Yume, and then at Gumi, and then at me. When she sees me, her face turns absolutely ashen, and she looks like she might faint right then and there.

“I-I’ll get Seven for you,” Four says then, opening the door wider so we can slip in past her. Yume shakes her head.

“No need!” she says, a bit mischievous, “we’re going to surprise him today.” Four looks even more terrified at this, if that is even possible, but nods, faintly. Yume grins.

“I’m going to go find Two,” Gumi says, and she escapes down another hallway and door, as if she knows this place like a second home—which, all things considered, she does.

“Come on,” Yume says to me, “you’re going to talk to Hito today.” Before I can protest, she takes my hand in hers, and leads me through the halls, frowning and turning her head every once in a while, before coming upon a room, and knocking on it. And then, as there are footsteps, Yume pecks my cheek, and then makes herself scarce. Before I can even muster a sound, there is Hito standing at the door, looking absolutely shocked.

“Icarus,” he says then, as if he cannot believe it.

“Hito,” I say back, calmly. He looks at me, just like the lost vampire I found all those years ago. Lost and found and lost again. He opens the door wider, and gestures for me to come in, looking all the more disbelieving as he does so.

“I know,” I tell him, “what you are.” Hito’s eyes flash at the familiar words, and he answers with the same.

“So why aren’t you running?” he asks in reply, closing the door. I smile, and walk over to where he stands, one hand loosely on the doorknob, and I clasp him on the shoulder.

“Because,” I say, “you are not a monster. You are my brother. And I am sorry I did not remember that sooner.”

For a minute, he is silent, even more so then he usually is, and I am afraid he will tell me to go away and that I mean nothing, nothing at all to him. But instead, he looks at me with grateful eyes.

“I didn’t want you all to get involved,” he says then, “but I guess I underestimated you. All of you.”

“We’re like weeds,” I tell Hito in reply, “we never go away.” He smiles, hesitantly, the smile of someone who has been told not to smile often. But I smile back, and wordlessly, it is said again.

You are my brother.

–

He talks more then I can ever remember him talking, about the Council, about Yume’s surprise visits, about everything. Hito is seems almost fond of the Council—they’re not bad people, he reasons, not even One. I doubt this, however, but I don’t say anything, not wanting to alienate Hito again when we’ve just patched up. Hito, though, has a curious look on his face, and he tells me, hesitantly, something very interesting.

“You know…I’ve told you about One and Five and all the others…but not Three,” he says. I remain silent, but raise an eyebrow. There is usually a reason Hito says things, and this time is no different.

“Icarus,” Hito says then, “Three is your creator.”

My first response is to jump and scream ‘WHAT?,’ but I refrain from that, although I do jump up. Hito doesn’t flinch, but stares levelly at me. I force myself to swallow this news, and then force myself to process it, rather than rush out the door and do something that will end up in broken bones. Broken bones are all good and well when they leave me home from school with Yume fussing over me, but not when they potentially mean I’m going to left defenseless in the dwelling of a decidedly mad vampire.

He had asked for five swords. The first time he had requested my services, so long ago, he had been picky, detailed. This time, though, he had just waved me off when I asked him what kind. It was as if he was preoccupied with some other notion.

Some other notion, like taking over the world as we knew it. Oh, shit.

As I lower myself into my seat again, Hito is still staring at me calmly.

“Well, then,” I ask him, “what are you going to do? You’re in the Council, yet there’s….him.” My mouth refuses to say the words. Hito looks away.

“I was thinking…I’d wait it out,” he says, seeming to choose his words carefully.

“Wait it out,” I repeat, incredulously. Waiting seems like the wrong choice, here. The sooner we act, the sooner this can be done and dealt with, and the sooner we can go home and have everything be alright again. Hito seems to know something, though, something that would change my outlook on this situation. But he doesn’t say anything. So I lean back, and curl my hands together impatiently, and turn to look at Hito.

“Alright, then. But if it gets worse, you’ll come home, right?” He hesitates, but then nods, slowly.

“Yes. I’ll come home,” he says.

I am a little relieved he said that. For a minute there, I thought he wouldn’t.

–

I go home feeling much more relieved than I have been in months, over looming threat of him or not. Yume is pleased and Gumi is in a surprisingly civil mood, but my own placid mood is broken when we enter the kitchen and I see Shuichi standing at the stove, wearing Yume’s pink apron (the one with the vintage lace from France) and poking at burnt fishcakes, as Shin sits with a fake pair of glasses and a newspaper. Oh, and a pipe sticking out of the corner of his mouth, even though none of us smoke. Not even me or Shuichi. We fake it.

Gumi looks like her good mood is gone too, evidenced by the disgusted look on the face.

“Shin, why does this look like a bad American 50’s sitcom?” she growls before I can. Shin looks up, and brightens.

“Gumi! Yume! Icarus! You’re home! And just in time for dinner, right, honey?” he directs at Shuichi. I never hear Shuichi’s answer to that, though, because I take that opportunity to drag Yume out of the room before she can figure out what’s going on. And when I get back Shin is holding an ice pack to his head and Shuichi has (thank God) taken off the apron.

“So,” Shin says then, with a smile that is entirely serious, if that is even possible, “how’s Hito?”

“If you want to know,” I say scathingly, “go figure it out yourself.” Shin laughs, and leans in.

“Why would I do that when I can just ask you?” Shin says, “and besides, someone has to man the fort.” I twitch, and contemplate if I could clean up all the blood before midnight. Shuichi interrupts my thoughts, though.

“But everything’s good, right?” he asks, leaning back. He asks the question that even Shin is thinking too. I think of Hito, my brother once again, and then I think of the truth of the Council. And then I nod.

“Everything’s good,” I say, “and even if it isn’t, we’ve got Hito.”

–

Shuichi finds me in my forge later, sitting at my workspace and not really paying attention.

“You look stressed,” he comments. I shrug. Shuichi and I know enough about each other that we know how to decipher each other’s gestures. It’s why we work so well as the delinquent pair of Class D.

“Why did you agree to wear the apron?” I ask back, looking up at Shuichi. Now he shrugs, looking a little annoyed.

“Shin’s idea,” Shuichi said, “he near burnt down the kitchen.” I roll my eyes.

“And fell right into his trap,” I mention, leaning back in my chair. Shuichi sighs, and leans against a barrel.

Shuichi, after Hito, is my confident. Shuichi understands without just listening as Hito does. Shuichi, in everything, is my partner.

“I really am glad you and Yume finally made up,” he mentions then, “it was kinda getting weird. Especially when Shin got up and brought Yume back to my room.” I frown at this. I don’t remember this happening.

“Wait, wait,” I say then, “I don’t remember this. Shin—”

“Eavesdropped, and then took Yume to my room after she stormed out. And then to Gumi’s room thereafter,” Shuichi says. I twitch, and vow to get Shin the next morning.

–

“Want to come again?” Yume asks me, as she ruffles through a drawer of lace.

“Nah,” I say, my thoughts on Shuichi in an apron again and wondering just what would happen if I left those two alone one more time, “that way you can tell Hito more about home.” She leans back on her heels, a handful of clothes, and looks at me.

“You sure? I was thinking about really stopping in Prague afterwards,” she says. I raise my eyes at her, kicking her open suitcase lightly to her. Yume smiles.

“I suppose you’ll want to come carry my bags then, won’t you?” she teases.

“I’ll meet you in Prague,” I reply, catching her lips.

I think, for once, I am going to wait things out. I am going to wait and see if what Hito believes will happen will truly happen, and if it does, I will wait for him to come back then. If he needs my help, I will come. But otherwise, I will stay here and let Yume be the messenger. And both of us know, still know, that we are still brothers.

[[plot]] eternity|ix

His name is Two, and when I see him, my heart skips a beat. He smiles at me in turn, as if I am beautiful and unexpected, neither of which I really am. But then Yume whirls off with Hito, and I am left with him.

“Megumi,” he says, smiling as he says my name.

“Yes?” I reply. He startles, as if remembering I am there, and then laughs, half to himself.

“Beg pardon,” he says then, “I was talking to myself. You have a very beautiful name,” he says, smiling gently.

“Not really, when you think about what it means,” I say, before I can censor the words that seem to spill out of my mouth. Two laughs, though, not at all offended.

“ ‘Blessing’,” he says, “your name means blessing. Your parents must have been very glad to have you, Megumi.” My mouth decides right about now to betray me.

“Oh, no,” my unruly mouth says, “they didn’t name me Megumi. They named me—well, I’m not sure what they named me. The ones who changed me gave me this name. Because I came along and they were hungry and so I was a blessing.” I fully expect him to back off from me after the words come out, but instead, he looks rather amused.

“Well, that just proves my point, doesn’t it? You were a blessing,” he smiles kindly, and I find heat rising to my cheeks. This must be how Shin’s fangirls feel whenever he stares at them for too long.

“Would you like to see the other garden?” he asks then, standing. I must look a bit hesitant, though, because he adds, “we could stay here, though, if that’s what you prefer.” I pause, and the words slip out of my mouth yet again.

“I prefer oceans,” I hear myself say. Two laughs, a deep, rich laugh.

“Well, then, Blessing,” he says, “maybe I’ll just have to show you the ocean next time you come to visit us. But in the meanwhile, then, how about a game of cards?” He produces a pack from nowhere, and I hate to do it, but I have to decline yet again.

“I don’t know how to play anything but ‘Go Fish’,” I say, a bit regretful that I had never taken up Shin’s offer to teach me right about now.

“That’s alright,” Two says, “I’ll teach you.” He pulls out the first card from the top of the deck and shows it to me.

“This is the queen of diamonds,” he tells me, “second only to the king of diamonds and higher than the jack of diamonds and all the cards that come below him.” As he explains the different cards to me, though, I can only focus on his head, bobbing enthusiastically as he discusses the cards and suits and values. His hair is like spun straw, shimmering and gold. I’m not saying I’m a shallow person or anything—but his hair was mesmerizing. And altogether too soon, Yume came through the door, a regretful look on her face that told me Hito wasn’t coming home, and then there is One, who attempts to fly, and Two, cradling him and telling me he’s sorry that he wouldn’t get to teach me the rest today.

While I am regretting it too, though, Two comes in the next morning, pack of cards in hand.

“Good morning, Blessing,” he says, “ready for lesson two?” I laugh, and he smiles, and as the hall scatters, he pulls out a chair for me, and then sits down, and we begin again

–

The next time, Two takes my hand gallantly, as if I am a fine lady, and waves his hand towards the entrance I have just come in.

“I’m taking you somewhere today, Miss Megumi,” he says, his hand lingering on mine for a moment before he drops it and directs my gaze to a rather new looking car.

“What,” I ask, “no carriage?”

“No,” he replies with a smile, “last time we took it out, One tried to drive it and went over a river without a bridge.” He drives me down a dirt road, and then a smoother one, until wild grass gives way to neater, trimmed ground, and then wild grass and dirt road again, and then Two stops, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

“You said you wanted to see the ocean,” he said then, opening the door for me, “and I can’t do that today, but I can bring you to water.” He takes my hand then, and leads me away from the car, until I am standing in front of a large lake. I hear myself gasp, and see Two beam, pleased.

“I brought a hamper for lunch,” he says. I feel myself nod, but my eyes remain on the water.

When I finally tear my eyes away from the ocean, Two has already set up a light lunch.

“I hope you like sandwiches,” he says, setting one in front of me, “they’re just about all anyone has time to make around here.” I take a bite, my eyes widening as I chew.

“This is very good!” I say, around my mouthful. Then I feel embarrassed and ill-mannered for talking with my mouth full. Two looks pleased, though, and leans in.

“So, then, Blessing. I think it’s only fair that I tell you something about my name, now that I know about yours,” he says. I am instantly curious, and make sure to swallow before I reply.

“Oh?” I ask. Two smiles.

“My real name,” he whispers, “is Arthur.” He leans back then, smiling, and I smile too. Arthur. I think that it fits him, very well.

“And how,” I ask, “did you get ‘Two’ from ‘Arthur’?” His eyes crinkle up, as if remembering a fond memory.

“The same way you get ‘One’ from ‘Fleance’,” Two replies. But he smiles, and leans back.

“Next time,” he says quietly, “I’ll take you to the ocean.”

–

It is not the next time that he takes me to the ocean, but a few times after that. The weather is just beginning to get warm—not quite time for visiting the beach, but not cold enough so that it is a bad idea. This time, he does take me by carriage.

“I thought you said One drove the carriage into a river,” I say, as Two jumps gracefully up and snaps the reins of the horses lightly and the carriage begins to plod along.

“He decided he wanted a new one,” Two said, “but then he forgot about it. So I decided it needed to be made use of.” I feel a little touched, and expertly, Two guides the horses. By the time I can almost smell the shore, the bumping of the carriage has numbed my feet, and as it stops and Two helps me down, I can’t feel my legs, or my knees, which give out, and I flail, right into Two’s arms.

“Easy there,” he says, smiling kindly before setting me right on my feet. His face lingers towards mine for a second, so close I can count the diamonds in his eyes. But then he half-smiles and half-grimaces, and then pulls away.

“We should make a sand castle,” he says, “that’s just about all I’m good for at the beach.” He smiles then, but it looks distracted.

“Why?” I ask then, as he rummages through the bag he has brought and pulls out a towel, shaking it out and spreading it on the sand and then gesturing.

“Well,” he says, “that’s usually the only thing One does on the beach. He doesn’t like going in the water for some reason.”

“Oh,” I reply. And then I pull Two’s bag towards me, and pull out various plastic sand molds, and a bucket. Then, I hand Two the bucket.

“You can be the water fetcher,” I say. He smiles and salutes.

“Yes, m’lady!”

We build a sand castle, a over-detailed, gigantic thing, which I realize halfway through is the Council’s castle. And then we build another castle, one that Two traces the walls of with a sort of secret look on his face, as if remembering something. I catch him staring at me as we finish the castle, and then almost next to me as I turn to ask him for the bucket of water.

“Oh!” I startle then, because he is so close to me again and his eyes are diamonds. Call it a sixth sense, but I know what he wants before he does it, and I want it too, but then instinctively I duck, and his lips meet air instead of flesh. He looks a bit mortified, and then I blush.

“Sorry!” I exclaim, as he opens his mouth to do the same.

“No, I’m sorry,” he says then, “that was a very forward and unchaste thing to do.” He is serious, but his use of the word ‘chaste’ makes me snort. Of course, that just makes him look even more mortified.

“No,” I say hastily then, “it’s not that I didn’t want you to—I just didn’t think it was—um…oh, crap.” My thoughts scatter and trail off, and then I settle for a simple, “…I’m sorry.” He shakes his head, almost smiling but grimacing. And then he stands and holds out his hand, still.

“We should get back.”

We are silent as we return back, the only sound the clop of the horses’ hooves and the ground crunching beneath wheels. Two drives us back to the stable, and helps me out of the carriage. He then turns to unharnessed the horses, and as he does so, I make a split-second decision and tap him on the shoulder. As he turns, I squeeze my eyes shut and lean forward. Luckily, I find his lips. Unluckily, it is awkward and gangly and all limbs and movement and surprise. This time, I pull back, mortified.

“Sorry,” I say then, again. Well, that didn’t turn out very well at all. I turn, blushing and ready to just bolt, but Two catches my hand.

“Wait,” he says, and then pulls me in, closer, and leans down. This time, I make myself go perfectly still, and his lips meet mine, finally. This time, it is perfect, and when we do pull away, although it feels like ages before we do, we are both smiling.

“I think,” Two says quietly, “I like you very much, Megumi Takeda.” My reply is to smile broadly and pull him down once more, for a kiss that would make Shin faint if he saw it.

–

We are home and there is the sound of Yume rustling in her bed, and then opening and shutting the door. There is the sound of another door opening from down the hallway, and then a kettle whistling indignantly. Throughout all of this, though, my mind remains firmly planted with a lovely, blond man who I think I may like very, very, very much too.

[[plot]] eternity|viii

This time, we come home late. This time, we come home too late. We come home late, and later that night, as Icarus is looking over receipts, he frowns, and I have a strange feeling that my time is up.

“Yume,” he says, “I thought you said you were going to Prague.” I look up, from where I sit by my vanity.

“I did,” I say, arranging my face as blank as possible. Icarus frowns.

“Then why are these receipts for stores in Paris?” he asks. I pause, mid-brush, and the red rushes to my cheeks before I can stop it. I am silent.

“Yume,” Icarus says then, again. He frowns, looking at my reflection in the mirror. I have to look away, because if he looks at me like that now, I will have no choice but to tell all.

“Yume, are you lying to me?” Icarus asks, half as if the idea is impossible, half serious. I should laugh, and smile, and play it off, but instead, my throat catches, and Icarus stands.

“You are,” he says then, almost awed, “What aren’t you telling me?”

“It’s nothing,” I say, but my voice is dry, and altogether too quiet. His hands find their way to my shoulders, and force me to look at him. Heavy hands.

“Do you even go to Europe, or somewhere else completely?” he asks, quietly.

“Of course I go to Europe!” I say then, “because where else would he—” the words slip out of my mouth before I can stop them. He looks incredulous, and I almost see myself, scared, reflected in his eyes.

“Who’s in Europe?” he asks, dangerously. For the first time, I find myself a little afraid of Icarus. Afraid of what he’ll do to me, afraid of what will happen.

“Who’s in Europe?!” he asks again, louder. He slams my vanity, and the bottles rattle, a few tipping over. I shriek, afraid, and the word slips out of my mouth.

“Hito!”

Icarus’s eyes widen, disbelieving and silent for a moment. Then, he steps back.

“How could you?” he says then, as if I had betrayed him and not gone to bring back my—our—his brother, “he chose to leave us! He chose to join them and everything they stand for! And even after he’s near killed you, near killed all of us, how could you go after him?”

“Because he is our brother!” I say back, “because despite everything he has done, he is still our brother!” Frustration fills me to my core. “What kind of sister would I be,” I say then, letting the frustration seep in, all the frustration of hiding thing from Icarus, from Hito’s refusal to come home, at all the little things that pile up in my life, “just what kind of sister would I be if I didn’t go after him?” He frowns, and opens his mouth to say more, but I simply cannot take it anymore.

“What kind of brother are you for letting him go?” I say then. Icarus’s eyes widen, because that phrase is probably the single most spiteful thing I have ever said to him. Before he can say anything more, though, I have to get out of there. So I brush past him, and out the door, where Shin is pressed against it, with a surprised expression on his face.

“You heard,” I say, flatly. Shin detatches himself from the door, and then wordlessly takes my hand. And that is when I start crying.

–

That night, I sleep with Gumi in her room, and the next morning, Icarus has gone to school early for once. He has eaten breakfast, as foretold by the lingering smell of greasy eggs, but there are no dishes in the sink, as if he hadn’t been there at all. As if he doesn’t want to leave any trace of himself behind. When Icarus is mad, he is furious.

At school, too, Icarus stays away. I hear him having one of his usual arguments with Shuichi, but when I drift out into the hall, they are already gone. It feels rather strange, not having Icarus around, or at lunch. When school finally ends, I walk home with Gumi, who sagely doesn’t say anything.

“Let’s go visit him next week, okay?” I ask. Gumi looks at me.

“We have school,” she says, ”not that I really care, but you…?” I just smile, although I do not quite feel it all the way.

“Oh, that’s ok. The faster I can get Hito back here, the better,” I say, my voice feeling vaguely far away. Gumi takes a look at me, and then tugs me down a different street.

“Come on,” she says, “let’s get ramen.”

–

I am packing during a time when I’m almost certain Icarus will not be there, because I don’t know what’d he say, and I don’t have enough clothes piled up in Gumi’s room, because she is surprisingly more petite then I am.

As I am packing, though, Icarus pushes through the door suddenly, in the middle of a laugh. As he turns and sees me, though, his laugh fades, and he sort of just…stands there. For the first time since that first time we met, we have nothing to say to each other.

“Going somewhere?” his voice is overly polite, calculated.

“Yes, Europe,” I reply, standing up, clothes in hand. His eyes narrow for the slightest second, but then they relax.

“Have a nice trip,” he says then, and because we are being civil and it is a habit, I reply,

“Don’t miss me too much.” His eyes light up in surprise for a second, before dulling, and then there is another silence, and an awkward pause. And then I push past him again, and near scurry to Gumi’s room. Which, for some reason, is surprisingly empty, so I turn around and decide to go find her, but as I reach the door, I see Icarus coming out of the room, and Gumi coming towards him, and I shrink back in a little.

“Hey, Icarus,” Gumi says, pausing in front of him. He raises an eyebrow.

“Yes?” he asks. Gumi puts her hands on her hips.

“Can you please just apologize or something so that you and Yume can get back together? It’s kinda weird—no, REALLY weird with you two not even looking at each other,” she says.

“Like it’s that easy, Gumi,” Icarus replies with a snort, “she’s at fault here. She lied to me. And besides,” his voice softens, “I don’t think she wants to be around me.”

“But she lied for a good reason,” Gumi counters, “you can’t doubt that.” Icarus is silent, and Gumi leans on the wall, next to him.

“We’ve never really fought before,” Icarus says then. Gumi snorts.

“No, you haven’t,” she replies, “and if I had known it was going to be this crazy, I would have tied Hito to the kitchen so he couldn’t leave.” Icarus’s mouth twitches up.

“You’re supposed to be making me feel better,” he says.

“Is that what this is called? I thought this was the obligatory ‘best friend attempts to mend rift.’” Gumi says, and then pushes herself off from the wall.

“But anyways. Soon, please. Otherwise Shin will decide my room is good for camping out in too and I’ll never get any peace,” she finishes, and walks down the hall more, as I shut the door slowly and pretend I am going through Gumi’s closet. As the door clicks open again, I smile from the closet as if I haven’t heard a thing, and then tell Gumi,

“You should wear this dress! It makes your legs look longer!”

–

He sees it on my face before I can tell him, and Hito nods as I sit down.

“So, he found out?” Hito asks. I smile wryly.

“Of course. You were right, Hito,” I sigh, “you were right about it all.” Hito looks at me with an express of almost pity.

“I warned you,” he said. I don’t reply, but sigh, instead.

“Tell me something interesting, Hito,” I say.

“Two’s taking Gumi to the ocean today,” he replies instantly, “and One’s going Christmas shopping.” I have to smile.

“The ocean?” I ask of Hito’s first statement.

“The ocean,” he replies fondly, and I make a mental note to ask her about this.

“And Christmas shopping, hm? Is that why the castle’s so empty?” I ask then. Hito nods.

“Ir—Five and Four had to go and carry his bags,” Hito explains.

“So, we’ve got the whole castle to ourselves, then,” I say. Hito nods.

“Then, Hito,” I reply, “You should show me something very interesting.” His eyes flash, knowingly, and then he stands.

“Today,” he says, “I’ll show you the armory.” There is something underlying in his words, but I cannot decipher what it is. So I just get up and follow him, down a wing that Hito has never taken me to before. And then, he pushes the door open, and I have blink as I adjust to the vast amount of metal in this room. And, along a wall, five very familiar looking swords.

I would recognize Icarus’s handiwork anywhere. But…I frown.

“I don’t understand,” I say to Hito. He pauses.

“You don’t remember him?” Hito asks, slightly disbelieving. I wrack my brain, but I cannot remember what he thinks I should be able to. I shake my head. Hito frowns. Then, he sighs, and opens the door again.

“Never mind, then—I think it would be better if you didn’t know anyways,” he frowns, and then shakes his head.

“I’ll show you One’s candy stash next. It’s in a surprisingly obvious place, and we all have to pretend not to see it otherwise he gets upset,” Hito switches the subject, and I let him, pushing away all thoughts of mysteries from my head.

–

Somehow, Megumi looks different on the way home. Like she’d like to tell me something, but isn’t sure how I would take it. It’s a very interesting face she makes, half-longing and half-dreaming. Gumi doesn’t like to dawdle with longing or dreaming, and there’s not much she’d dream or long for. The look on her face, though, is very familiar. It’s the look of a person…a person…

“Gumi!” I exclaim suddenly, sitting up against the belt in my lap. She startles, then blinks.

“Yes?” Gumi asks. I look at her with new, wondering eyes.

“What happened today?” I demand, eyes wide. Gumi’s eyes widen even wider than mine. She looks defiant for a minute, but then I am tugging at her sleeve, “don’t even hide it, I can see it in your eyes!” She glares at me slightly, but then looks away.

“IkissedTwo,” she mumbles in one breath. I take a moment, then, first to decipher these words, then to let them sink in. My jaw drops, and then I am elated and a bit jealous all in one. My schoolgirl gossip senses sink in, and then I am grinning at Gumi, a little too enthusiastically, and bombarding her with questions.

“You kissed him, or he kissed you?” I demand, “because that’s two completely differently different things.”

“How is it different?” Gumi demands back, her face scrunching into a familiar scowl.

“Because,” I demand, and then cross my arms, “now fess up.” She eyes me, trying to look fierce, and then sighs.

“He tried to kiss me first, but I dodged,” Gumi says.

“Gumi!” I scold, because I can just imagine her ducking to the right, wide-eyed, and then kicking him somewhere unpleasant.

“I didn’t do anything!” Gumi protests then, “but he apologized for some reason.” She says this last part with a bit of affection and a bit of pride. I nod.

“Good, he’s a gentleman,” I declare, “now, you kissed him?” I lean in at this part. Gumi looks away pointedly, the red continuing to spread across her cheeks.

“When we got back,” she says, “and before we went in. Nearby.” She looks both a little mortified and a little proud. Oh, she definitely is falling for him. While I should be happy for her, though, my thoughts drift back to Icarus for a second, Icarus who is still mad at me, Icarus who I still love, despite everything.

I beam at Gumi, though, and am happy for her.

–

It is the middle of the night, and it is cold and my nose is frozen, but my eyes won’t shut again and let me rest into dreamless sleep. Instead, my mind rewinds to the beginning of the twentieth century, and my uncle is yelling and loud, and he steps forwards so I flinch, but then this time, there is no one to save me. So, I slip out of bed, and wrap my robe around me, and step out of the room into the dark hallway. I pause as I pass Icarus’s room. From beneath the door, light is visible. I pause in front of the door for just a second, letting my mind wander as to why he is still up, but then I continue forward, and down the stairs. As I reach the bottom, though, I have the distinct impression that the door has opened, but I just hold my breath and slip past the light, down into the kitchen, where there at least is a hot cup of tea ready for me to boil and drink until my nerves are settled up enough to go back to bed.

I set the kettle on the stove and pull up a chair, letting it boil, and stare at the clock, at the passing time that has no consequence, that goes in endless circles. And then, somehow, I am jolting awake, and Icarus is standing over me, a hand outstretched towards me. He pulls away, hastily, as he realizes I am awake, and he turns, so he doesn’t have to look at me. I look away too, and we are silent for a moment.

“I heard the kettle whistle,” he says, nodding towards the stove so I have to look at him, although I do it through my lashes, “so I came down. You were asleep,” he adds.

“Thank you,” I say, nodding. He doesn’t seem mad anymore, but now we are at that awkward phase where we are not fighting but we are not making up, either.

“Do you want some tea?” I ask then, standing. He looks a little surprised, although his face flickers back to normal.

“Sure,” he replies, and then moves as I move, towards the kettle. I laugh nervously, and he attempts a half-smile awkwardly, and it is like we have just met each other or something.

“I’ll…get the cups,” he says then, and I nod.

“I’ll get the tea,” I reply. He then heads towards the cabinet with teacups, and I towards the kettle. Icarus likes his tea black, with the slightest hint of lemon. He sets the cups on their saucers quietly, and I pour. His hands twitch for a moment, as if he wishes to take the pot out of my hand, but settles for taking the cups to the kitchen table. We sit, opposite each other, and sip our tea and try not to burn ourselves in the cold.

“I had a bad dream,” I say suddenly, not quite sure why I say so. The words come out of my throat like Hito’s name did that night, slippery and sudden. But Icarus doesn’t scoff or say anything. He just nods. And then he frowns, and shakes his head, and then laughs quietly.

“I did too,” he confesses. And unexpectedly, he continues, “I dreamed I couldn’t save you. I dreamed…I dreamed you were dead.” His lips curl as he grimaces. I laugh, softly, but gently.

“I dreamed the same thing,” I say back quietly, “I dreamed I was dying and there was no you to save me.” For the third time that night, we lapse into silence, but suddenly, Icarus takes my fingers, limp on the table, and presses them to his lips.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “you were right. I should have been the one to go after Hito from the start, because he is my brother, and I don’t do him justice by letting him go. I’m so sorry, Yume.” My lips quiver and my fingers twitch, but then I am blinking back tears.

“No,” I reply, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lied to you. It’s not right, no matter why I did it, and I shouldn’t have hurt you like that. You don’t deserve—” I start, but then Icarus shakes his head, and stands up, and makes his way around the table, and takes both my hands now.

“I missed you,” he admits. I squeeze his hands back.

“I did too,” I say, and smile, tentatively. His reply is to tilt my head up, and slowly, hesitantly, lower his face to mine, brushing his lips against mine as if this is a first kiss and not one of thousands. And then he crushes me to him, burying his head in my neck.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers again. My hands wrap around his body, gripping the warmth of his sweatshirt.

“I love you,” I reply, my own apology.

[[plot]] eternity|vii

When we land in Scotland this time, Gumi is the one who looks nervous. But at least she won’t end up lost like I did.

“Do you think I can convince him this time?” I ask Gumi, as we turn on the road and take a smaller, less-maintained one. Gumi shrugs.

“Hito’s Hito. We can only hope, I guess,” she said. I raise an eyebrow at her.

“Why are you coming, then?” I ask.

“You still need an alibi,” Gumi replies, “and I’m kinda curious to see this castle and that Council whochamacallit.” She grins, hefting her bag over her shoulder, and I laugh, and we continue forward.  I take the path Four took me through, and soon enough, we come upon the giant castle yet again. Undaunted, because after you’ve done this the first time, it gets much easier, I skip up to the castle door, and knock. After a pause, the door opens slowly, revealing Four—who still looks rather petrified.

“Hi, Four!” I smile, “I’m back!” She nods, as if afraid I’m going to pounce, and then opens the door slightly wider, allowing me in. Her face as she sees Gumi becomes one of sheer fear, though. I frown.

“Gumi,” I say, chiding, “be nicer!” Gumi frowns.

“I’m not doing anything!” she says. But Four has already scurried off, leaving me with Gumi in the hall again.

“It’s big,” Gumi comments, looking up and around.

“It is!” I reply, spinning slightly. It is not Hito who finds us first today, but One and a pretty blond man, rather.

“Seven’s sister!” One says, skipping over, “you’re back!”

“Yes, I am,” I smile back, letting him take my hands, “and I brought my sister too.” One peers at Gumi, behind me, but she seems to be staring at the blond man who was accompanying One.

“Her name’s Gumi,” I say then. One smiles, and then skips over to Gumi, causing her to break her stare.

“Pleased to meet you, Gumi!” One says, skipping around Gumi,, who follows him, a little confused.

“Um…pleased to meet you too,” Gumi replies, as One skips back to me.

“This is Two,” One says, tugging on the blond man’s hand with affection and knowing.

“Hello,” he says, accent British, with a smile. I smile back, and Gumi manages something not a grimace.

“Waiting for Seven?” One asks, smiling. I nod.

“Yep. We came all this way to see him. And you,” I giggle, and One beams, as from behind us, there is Hito.

“You’re back,” he says, a bit surprised, although not entirely so. He comes down the stairs, and as he sees Gumi, adds, “and you came too, Gumi?” Gumi smiles.

“Can’t leave you all to Yume,” she says, “and I missed you too.” Very awkwardly, as neither Hito nor Gumi are prone to hugs, Gumi embraces him, looking all the while as if this was something she’d actually rather NOT repeat.

“I was going to show Yume the other garden,” Hito says then, “I didn’t expect you to come, Gumi. I mean, you’re welcome to join us, but the tea table’s only set for—”

“I’ll take her around,” Two interrupts us suddenly and unexpectedly, then adds, as we all turn to look at him, “if…that’s alright?” One beams up at him.

“You’re so nice, Two! You can go play with Megumi for an afternoon,” One decides then, “Maybe I’ll play with Five today!” I watch as Hito’s lips sort of twitch for a minute, before returning to their usual position, and then turn to Hito.

“So, a garden?” I ask. He nods, and holds his arm, very gentlemanly. I take it, and we set off, but not before leaving Gumi and Two looking rather awkward in the hall. We pass through a shaded walkway, out into a garden filled with vines and roses. I sigh, happily.

“This is nice,” I tell Hito, as he pulls out my chair for me. Then, I lean onto my hands on the table, and smile at Hito as he sits down too, “but don’t you miss the warm cherry trees back home?”

“But the ocean is so much closer here,” Hito comments, looking out to the side where an ocean was, indeed, visible in the horizon.

“Japan is an island, Hito!” I laugh, pouring the tea, “a small, island nation whose roots begin in the ocean. Scotland is a foggy island that has lots of grass.” I take the sugar and add it into his tea. Three lumps of sugar and a teaspoon of milk.

“We know, back home, how you like your tea,” I say, “do you have that here?”

“Here,” Hito counters, “there is coffee.” I point the small sugar spoon at him, knowing that I am breaking at least twenty-five rules of tea here.

“Coffee, Hito,” I say, mock seriously, “is a stimulant.” Then, I smile, and he smiles back, and asks me the same question he did last time.

“How did you get Icarus to let you come?” he asks. I always smile, and always reply,

“I didn’t.”

–

When we finally go back inside, Gumi and Two are still in the hall, but they are now sitting at a table, and he is holding out what looks like a deck of cards, and explaining something animatedly. Gumi laughs, and smiles, and points at a card. Two nods enthusiastically, as Hito and I approach.

“Looks like you two are getting along quite nicely,” I say with a smile. Gumi laughs, not the evil laugh she uses towards Shin, but the kind, happy laugh that I can usually elicit from her.

“Two here’s trying to teach me card games,” Gumi said, “I haven’t heard of some of these before.” I have to smile a little at this, and Two looks like he’d like to say something, but we are interrupted by what sounds like One’s voice, from the top of the stairs.

“Two! Seven! Seven’s sisters! Watch me!” He waves from the top of the stairs, what seems like mattress behind him. And, carrying the mattress, a weary-looking brunette.

“One,” Two says then, suddenly standing up and looking very serious, “what are you doing?”

“I’m gonna slide down the stairs!” One states. From behind him, the brunette shoots Two a look that seems to say ‘this is all your fault,’ and then sighs silently.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, One,” Two says then, his voice slightly strained. One pouts.

“Three said I could!” he declared. When Two says nothing more, One smiles triumphantly, lies on the mattress firmly, gripping the sides, and then nods, and at his signal, the brunette pushes him, and he slides down the stairs. It looks like he will reach the end safely for a minute there, but then the mattress shifts, and One tumbles the last few steps. His face is in shock for a few seconds, as if he cannot believe he has failed, and then it screws up in the remains of childish anger, but Two is already there, picking him up and dusting him off.

“I told you,” Two says simply, and One gives him a teary glare, that unfazes Two, “but you’re alright.” One frowns, and then throws his arms around Two, and refuses to let go.

“Sorry,” Two says to us, although more to Gumi then to me, “I guess I won’t get to teach you after all.”

“It’s ok,” Gumi replies, “we still got a couple of days.” He smiles briefly, and then hefts One up, before pausing again, “Five, you’ll find a room for Gumi, won’t you?” The brunette, who must be Five, shrugs.

“Yeah,” she says, “ I will.”

–

We stay, again, for three days, and then make our way to London, this time, for the new fall fashion lines. Hito is still not convinced, but that’s ok. At least he’s still willing—and eager enough, it seems, to see us.

As I hold up a particularly cute green top that would look gorgeous on Gumi (her eyes!), she asks me a question.

“When are we going back?” she asks, waving me away, even though I shove the shirt into her hands anyways.

“When do you want to go back?” I ask her, weaving my way towards the shoes and a particularly cute pair of kitten heels. Gumi just smiles, and I smile too, because I know that look. So, I shove a pair of flats at her.

“Try them on,” I command.

“Why?” She shoots back automatically. I think Gumi has a sort of built in mechanism against shopping for some reason, although I can’t figure out why she would.

“Because I think Shuichi would like them,” I say. Gumi stares at me.

“Shuichi is a cross-dresser?” she deadpans. I frown.

“No, I meant Shuichi’ll probably like how you look in them,” I correct. Gumi’s face twitches, a little.

“Why would I care what Shuichi thinks about me?” Gumi grumbles, and sets the shoes aside. I frown. Hm. Maybe I deducted that part wrong. I take the shoes and wave them in her face again.

“Try them on!” I say, “they’ll be cute. I bet Shin would like them!” Gumi really twitches then.

“Shin’s an idiot. I would trust anything he likes further then I could throw it,” Gumi grumbled.

“They’re cute,” I press on, “and will fill up the suitcase!” Gumi grumbles again, and then takes the shoes from my hand, finally.

–

The next time we visit the council, Gumi is whisked away by Two like the Cinderella I think she is, and then Hito takes me to the library this time. I expect Hito to start the same arguments we have been having for the past few visits, but he surprises me this time, asking a question that I really didn’t—or want—to think about.

“How long do you think you can hide this from Icarus? He’s bound to get suspicious at some point. Even you can’t take that many shopping trips, Yume,” Hito says, picking a book from the shelf and letting it fall into his hands on an open page. I shrug.

“I’ll hide it as long as I need to,” I say, “but I wouldn’t have to do any of this if you would come home,” I add in. Hito is silent, and then, with his usual insight towards all of us, looks at me.

“Icarus…doesn’t care to be deceived. Especially if the person deceiving him is you, Yume,” Hito says quietly. I purse my lips.

“He just doesn’t…” I start, “I don’t want you two to…” I drift off, and Hito looks straight me, with his unsettling blood red eyes.

“Our own relationship isn’t something you can patch and fix for us, Yume,” he says, gently, “especially if you’re ruining yours to do so.”

“But,” I say, “I want you to come home.” He looks at me, and smiles wryly.

“I know,” he replies, “but I can’t.”

–

As we fly home, Hito’s questions still in my ear, Gumi decides to feel insightful today, too.

“How did you know you were in love with Icarus?” she asks me, waving away the persistent flight attendant who was trying to offer her apple juice. I have to think about that a moment, as I in turn am handed a particularly bubbly cup of Sprite.

“I guess I didn’t know,” I finally said then, “it just sort of…hit.” I laugh at that, “Wow, that’s a bad description.” Gumi laughs too.

“What does it feel like, then?” she asks. I lean forward on the tray in front of me, resting my head on one hand, the other toying with the straw wrapper besides my cup. I see Icarus, smiling at me, holding my hand through a particularly busy intersection, waiting for me after classes, after school.

“It feels like trust,” I mumble, and then bury my head in my arms, because I know that Hito is right, and yet all I can do is continue to try.

²

The next time I tell Icarus I want to go shopping again, he finally frowns, face knitting together.

“Again?” he asks, “you’ve had at least three in the past month alone!”

I have to admit, this relieves me a little, that Icarus seems like he is going to say no. But then, he sighs, eyebrows unfurrowing.

“This’ll be the last trip for a while, alright, Yume love?” he says then, smoothing my hair away from my face. My heart skips for a minute, and suddenly I feel guilty. Oh. So it’s yes again.

“Last trip, okay?” he asks again, tilting my eyes to meet his. I love Icarus’s eyes. They’re so brilliant and clear.

“Last trip,” I agree, secretly crossing my fingers in a childish gesture. Because I can’t stop going until we’re all back together again, even if it means breaking a promise again.

[[plot]] eternity|vi

“I’m going shopping,” I tell Icarus one day before break. He raises an eyebrow.

“Want me to come with you?” he asks. I shake my head.

“Oh, no, Icarus,” I say, then I smile, “I’m going shopping.” And then I laugh, an elated laugh, and he looks at me, bemused and not quite understanding how I went from sobbing to alright, but a little afraid to ask.

“Bring me something nice back too, then,” he says, kissing me. I giggle, and smile.

“Of course.”

If I have my way, I’ll bring back Hito.

–

As I board the plane, I am a little excited and a little afraid at the same time. I feel a little guilty about not telling any of them, but I know that if I do, they’ll try to talk me out of it. And for all of our sakes, I cannot be talked out of this.

The plane takes me to France, where I have told Icarus I am going to spend a few days shopping, and then I take a plane from there to Scotland, where Hito told us the Council lived. From there, though, I had no idea really how to go. Hito had never really described where the castle was located. All I could do, I guess, was wander and hope I would find it eventually.

It’s actually like a fairy story, in a way. The lost, tragic princess on the empty, plain moors, searching for a magic castle and her true love trapped inside—although, I’m neither tragic nor a princess, the castle isn’t magic, and I’m definitely not in love with Hito!

Well, around this part of the story, the heroine would start screaming for her love and he would magically appear. What if…well, no one can hear me, anyways.

“HITO!” I shriek into the moor, hearing my voice expand into the open air. However, unexpectedly, there is a scared scream and a dropping of what sounds like a full set of dishes. An expensive set of dishes.

“Hello?” I call then, softer. There is a frightened noise in a tone that I know all too well, and then a head of curly black hair, attached to the most frightened girl I have ever seen.

“Y-you’re looking for Seven,” she stutters, wide-eyed. I smile, gently.

“Yes, I am,” I reply, “did I make you drop the dishes?” She turns pale and lets out another scared noise, as if remembering her dishes. I think of Gumi and the last time she dropped a full set of dishes, and then I hold out my hands.

“If you show me where he is, I’ll buy you a new set!”

–

Three hours and a shopping trip later, I stand in a large hall framed in red and gold, and wait. I had tried to get the girl on the moor to talk to me while we were buying new plates, but she hadn’t told me much more than her name, Four. Which, if you think about it, is kind of a strange name for a person.

However, keeping her promise, she brought me back here and told me to wait, saying she’d get Five to bring Seven down. Whoever Five was. But it was ok, because the castle was so large and pretty.

It reminded me in a way of Gumi’s cleaning. Not the part where Shin spills ice cream all over the couch and then she chases after him and so ruins everything she just finished, but how she meticulously cleans everything and pays such close attention to details!

I think Gumi was Cinderella before she met us.

–

No one ever told me Gumi’s past. Whenever I mention it, she looks away pointedly and Shin and Shuichi give each other nervous glances. But from what I’ve heard though, Gumi used to do a lot of menial labor. And lived with people called ‘Adelaide’ and ‘Estella’. They must have been her stepsisters. Her evil stepsisters.

So, she must have had to do all the hard work in France for her stepsisters. And then, one day, I overheard Shin and Gumi talking as Shin dried the dishes for Gumi

“You never said thank you to me for saving you!” he said, with what was clearly a pout in his voice.

“Thank you. There, happy, Shin? I’ve said it a million times before,” Gumi grumbled back.

“I was the knight in shining armor and everything!” Shin whined then, as Gumi threw a dishtowel at him and a broom. It seemed like she was embarrassed to me.

Shin must have been Gumi’s knight in shining armor and taken her away from her scary stepsisters. I know! They must be lovers! That’s why Shin changed Gumi. And besides, they’re always together anyways. And Shuichi…Shuichi was like the sidekick!

–

I continue to wait, until there is the sound of silent footsteps, and I turn, and there stands Hito, looking completely surprised and in shock. He does not move, so I take it upon me to smile broadly and make my way across the room and throw my arms around his. His arms come around me too, but his face still looks a bit stunned.

“Hito,” I say warmly, and smile despite myself.

“What are you doing here?” Hito asks, looking altogether shocked still.

“I came to visit. I can come visit, right?” I teased him. Reflexively, his mouth twitches up.

“Yes, you can come. And…I’m…glad. That you came to visit,” he says, “I thought you all would have hated me by now.”

“Of course I wouldn’t,” I say, wagging my fingers, “you’re our brother,” my voice softens, “I could never hate you, Hito.” He is silent for a moment, and then, asks another question.

“How’d you talk Icarus into letting you come, anyways? I don’t think he would have forgiven me at all if he had a choice,” Hito said. I smile, innocently.

“Oh, Icarus doesn’t know I’m here,” I say sweetly, “he thinks I’m shopping.” Silence, and then another stare from Hito, which makes me babble on suddenly.

“Of course, it’s not really a lie, you know. Because I did go shopping. And I’m going shopping before I got back home, too,” I smile. Hito shakes his head, slowly.

“I never thought you would lie, Yume,” he says, but there is something like a laugh in his voice.

“It’s not lying,” I say, mock indignant, pleased that this seems to be going well, “it’s a half-truth. They tell them all the time in politics!” And then I smile, and change the subject.

“So then, are we going to stand and chat in this drafty hall all day or are you going to show me around?”

He hesitates, and then gives a wryer smile, “You’ll have to meet someone first.”

–

“This is One,” Hito explains, standing very formally behind a nine-year-old boy, who looks very curious.

“One, this is my…sister. Yume,” Hito says. One looks at me, face scrunched up in thought, and I smile back prettily. This seems to be the right thing to do, because One smiles prettily back and declares,

“You’re pretty!”

“I was going to show Yume around the castle,” Hito said. One nods enthusiastically.

“I know! Why don’t I show both of you?! Because you’re new and all here, Seven. You don’t quite know where all the good stuff is yet,” he nods, and then jumps off the oversized chair he has been sitting in, and then takes my hand with a cool one, and grabs Hito’s other hand, and leads us through room after room after room. After the last few rooms, though, One declares he is tired, and wanders off to find some form of food from a person called ‘Three,’ and leaves me and Hito alone in the garden.

“Hito,” I ask then, “won’t you come home? It just doesn’t feel the same without you there!” He pauses, then turns away.

“I can’t, Yume. I just can’t,” he replies. I frown, and cross my arms.

“Why not?” I demand. He looks at me, his eyes pleading, strangely.

“I don’t belong there, Yume. I—I’ve never belonged there,” he said quietly, “you all would be better off if I wasn’t there.”

“That’s not true!” I say, “we love you, Hito. You’re our brother, you’re one of us too. Why wouldn’t we welcome you back?” I grab his hands, squeeze them. Hito looks down at my hands, holding his, and then slowly, squeezes them back, and then pulls his hands out of mine and turns.

“When’re you going back to Paris?” he asks.

“Milan,” I correct, “and the flight is in three days,” I pause, and then smile sweetly, “Three more days to convince you, Hito.”

–

I come back to Japan with, sadly, no Hito, but a large luggage overcharge and a set of new suitcases to hide the lack of clothes I have actually bought. Icarus, of course, takes one look at the bags and asks nothing, because he loves me too much to want to have to think about the cost of all this, and so stoically takes about half of the items and barks at Shin to take the other half, not noticing that the load seems particularly light this time around. Gumi, though, stares at the bags with a strange look. Then, she raises an eyebrow and shrugs, and follows us to the car.

“You didn’t really go shopping, did you?” Gumi asks me later, as we are chopping tomatoes for tonight’s dinner. I raise my eyebrows innocently.

“What are you talking about, Gumi? Didn’t you see all those bags? I hit all the latest stores!” I say. Gumi shakes her head.

“Oh, don’t play coy with me, Yume. You didn’t get that bag you were pining over last week or those boots that you pinned to the stairs. If you were really going on a shopping trip, you would have definitely gotten those,” Gumi says, pointing a spatula at me. I blink, surprised, and then I giggle.

“You actually do have girl senses, Gumi!” I say then, giggling more. Gumi twitches a bit, but doesn’t disagree. So, I lean in, and smile again.

“Wanna know a secret, Gumi?” I ask her.

“You have a lover in England and that’s why you haven’t brought back as much?” she deadpans, but then pauses as I giggle again.

“Please don’t tell me that’s true,” she says then. I shake my head.

“Of course not,” I say, “But you’re close.”

–

Gumi leans back against the counter after I finish telling her, and lets out a ‘huh.’ She looks thoughtful, and a bit interested.

“Well,” I say, “now that you know, can you cover for me if Icarus asks? Because I don’t think I’m going to tell him next time either.”

“I think,” Gumi says, frowning as she pokes the eggs in the frying pan, “that it’s strange when you don’t tell Icarus everything.”

“It is,” I reply, “but it’s for his own good.” Gumi stares at the eggs for a minute longer, and then tells me,

“I’m coming with you.” I frown.

“But why?” I ask, “Someone has to cover for us.” Gumi shrugs.

“Say you’re taking to get me a makeover or something. Besides. I want to get Hito back too. It’s too…strange, without him,” she gives the eggs a jab and flips them over, frowning as she stabs at the black parts, and then turns off the heat and sets the burnt egg on a plate.

“Shin! Your food is ready!” Gumi yells, burnt egg plate in hand. I have to smile.

–

“Another trip?” Icarus asks, a little worried and doing mental calculations in his head.

“Yes,” I say, snuggling closer into his side, “because I want to go shopping for Gumi. She’s starting to steal Shuichi’s clothes again.” His arm pulls me in closer, as he imagines last time Gumi stole Shuichi’s clothes for copious amounts of time.

“Ok then,” he says, after deciding that the cost of buying new clothes for Gumi is much less than the cost of replastering walls after Gumi and Shuichi were done with them. I smile, and imagine Icarus’s face as I bring back Hito.

“I love you,” I whisper into his ear. He chuckles, and his mouth finds the sensitive spot at my neck.

“I love you too,” he whispers back as I sigh, contentedly, and then Hito is pushed out of both our minds.

–

I wake up in the middle of the night and pad downstairs for a glass of water, but the lights in the room are already on.

“You never wanted to go shopping before,” Shuichi is saying to Gumi. I hear her shift, and shrug.

“Like you know me at all, Shuichi,” she replies. He snorts.

“I think I know you well enough, Megumi. You wore the same thing for a year in France and didn’t think twice about it,” he shot back.

“Yes,” Gumi countered, “But in the 18th century where there wasn’t regularly cloth available!”

There is a shift of movement again, and a thump, the unmistakable sound of pillow hitting skin.

“…I still think that dress looked pretty good on you, though,” is muttered from Shuichi. But Gumi doesn’t answer, and instead repeatedly thunks Shuichi over and over, the springs of the pull-out couch squealing under the rough treatment.

Ohh. So I was wrong about Shin being Gumi’s lover. It’s Shuichi!

[[plot]] eternity|v

There is pain. My throat burns, but not with thirst. It burns because something is wrong, and my head spins. There is Hito, telling me he’s sorry. Why is Hito sorry? There is Icarus, cursing under his breath, frantic. I should tell him not to curse, but my throat won’t let the words out. There is silence, and then someone is holding my hand, and I open my eyes slowly, because they hurt too.

Icarus.

“Welcome back, “ he says, hoarsely. He tries to squeeze my hand reassuringly, but I see his eyes frantically looking over me, checking.

“I-Icarus,” I manage to whisper, although my voice is soft, and my hand moves to feel my throat, bandaged. I try to sit up, despite Icarus’s protests, and so he helps me up, and I survey the scene around us.

Shin is bandaging the gashing wound across Shuichi’s chest, his hands firm and gentle at the same time. Shin’s hair sticks out in tufts from around the bandage on his head, already bleeding through, and being bandaged in turn by Shuichi. By the both of them, Megumi lies motionless. Shin finishes, and Shuichi stands, tentatively, his hand on Shin’s shoulder for balance.

“I’ll go boil tea,” Shuichi says, as if tea could solve the damage left here. He walks slowly, wincing every few feet or so. Shin looks at him, then back down at Gumi, as if he cannot decide which he would rather keep an eye on at the moment. But then, with one more reluctant look at Gumi, he stands, and pulls Shuichi’s arm over his shoulders, and they hunker into the kitchen.

I hear Shin’s muffled voice from the kitchen.

“I have to admit, I was a little worried about you for a minute there,” he says. There is silence, and then, Shuichi’s irritated reply,

“I wasn’t. You have too thick of a skull to die from a head injury.” Icarus laughs at that, and I giggle too, and I feel him relax.

“Are you alright?” Icarus asks into my ear, smoothing my hair and letting his arms drift down so he can hold me.

“Yes,” I reply, my own voice still soft. From the kitchen, Shuichi’s irritated voice rises.

“Shin, please get off me. Your thick head is bleeding onto MY bandages.” I laugh, again. Icarus, however, is frowning.

“He really wasn’t who we all thought he was,” Icarus says quietly. I take his hands in mine, and interlace them.

“Goddammit,” he breathes, squeezing my hands, “how did this happen?”

For some reason, though, I keep seeing Hito leaning in, and his words, said in a manner I could not quite decipher.

I’m sorry.

The words repeated in my head, over and over. Maybe…maybe he said it because he didn’t really mean it. This was Hito, after all. Hito, who held pots for me when I cooked and held watering cans when I gardened and was Icarus’s best friend.

I’m sorry.

Maybe…maybe it was regret.

–

“How regretful,” they murmured at me, as if I was some lost opportunity and not a child, living and breathing.

When I was five, my parents died. When I was five, I lived, in the months following my parents’ deaths, with my uncle, a politician of the highest, wiliest degree, who only looked at people and things and calculated, calculated, calculated. He calculated my value, and then decided I wasn’t worth much, and so I was taken away by my great-aunt, a strict but reasonable old lady who took good care of me. It was she who, despite her old age, woke me up in the middle of the night whenever I had nightmares, and who taught me to sew and the proper manners of a young lady.

And it was she who watched me get on the train back to my uncle, who had decided a married young lady was a very, very good addition for his political campaign, and so had sent for me to come back to be married off.

It was she, who told me not to trust my uncle, who told me he was not human.

–

Dinner that night was a subdued affair, all takeout and silence and shaky recovering smiles. Shin steals the peanuts off Shuichi’s plate, and Gumi, healing, conscious, and grumpy, scowls at the both of them, trying to keep her head straight. Suddenly, Shin drops the peanut he is holding between his chopsticks.

“Oh,” he says suddenly, face blank, “tomorrow’s the start of the new term.”

“Oh,” I hear myself saying too. I had forgotten about that. We had gone shopping, a few weeks before. Hito had shown no sign of wanting to leave then. He had stoically born it as I held up shirt after shirt on him. It seemed kind of strange to think about it starting tomorrow, now that he wasn’t here.

“Should we go?” Gumi mused, setting down her chopsticks.

“Can you go?” Shuichi replies, earning a kick in the shin.

“We should go,” Icarus says then, firmly, “it would look bad if we didn’t. And besides, it’ll be better if we don’t have to think about—” he stops, abruptly, and then tightens his lips, “—if we don’t have to think.”

Icarus is quick to anger and stubborn to forget. In his mind, Hito is no longer someone worth remembering.

“It’ll be alright,” I say then, and I smile despite how shaky I feel, “we’ve always been separated at school anyways.” Gumi nods, absentmindedly, and Shin and Shuichi give each other glances. Icarus’s arm finds its way around mine.

“It’ll be alright,” I repeat, faintly.

–

My uncle, who had uprooted me from my home in order to further his own ambitions, gave me one cursory glance, nodded, pleased, and promptly forgot about me. This, I discovered, was somewhat of a good thing, because it allowed me, one day, to meet a man while I was out at the market. A man named Takahashi Icarus.

There are no words for what he was to me. He kept me together where I might have otherwise given up to despair. He made me love like I hadn’t loved anybody since my parents died.

One election season, though, my uncle lost, and suddenly his attentions, unwelcome and never a good sign, were upon me yet again. After the votes had been counted and my uncle had been declared the loser, it was me that the blame fell on. It was me the blame fell on, until I was backing into a mental and physical wall, and then there was something changing, and then there was Icarus again.

–

I’m nervous. Hito’s leaving, the way he left, has left us all on shaky ground. Shin and Shuichi stand on either side of Gumi, declining their fangirls, for once, and Gumi, although she frowns in disapproval, does so halfheartedly, and eventually she finds herself leaning on Shin to propel her forward, and Shuichi steadying her back.

I, in turn, cling to Icarus, and he doesn’t even complain when I know I squeeze too hard. Altogether too fast, we are at the school.

“You know,” Icarus says, “we don’t have to go.” I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, and then give him a playful look that I don’t quite feel.

“You only say that because half the time, you skip anyways,” I say. I tug him reluctantly into the school, and we separate into our respective classes. He goes to 2-D, I go to 2-A, where Gumi is already waiting for me. The teacher comes in, introduces himself, and goes through the usual routine of school. Then, though, he calls roll, and he gets to Hito.

“Takeda Hito?” he asks, peering over his glasses.

“He won’t be coming this year,” I find myself speaking up. The teacher pauses, looks over his glasses at me now.

“Won’t be coming? And why is that?” he asks me. The true answer lodges in my throat, but luckily, Gumi comes to my rescue and keeps me from making a fool out of myself.

“He’s sick, sir,” Gumi says, “deathly sick.” She says this with wide eyes, and so he chooses to believe her, and moves on. And then, as he continues, she presses down on her notebook with her pencil so I can almost hear the indent, and then pushes it so I can read the words.

I want to go home.

–

Maybe it is not in my nature to forget people the way Icarus does. I just…can’t imagine what is going through Hito’s mind. Doesn’t he know that we’re his family, still? Even if he makes a million stupid decisions, we would have followed him?

He is the person who holds us together. Our trump card, our ace of spades. Doesn’t he know this? I wish I could talk to him right now, and tell him this. Tell him that he is our ace of spades and it is just not right without him. I wish I could bring Hito back.

–

“Gumi, are you coming up to the roof?” I ask her, during lunch break. The roof is where we all eat lunch together, all six—five of us. She hesitates.

“Nah,” she says, “I’ll stay here.” She inclines her neck stiffly, so I take my desk and push it up against hers. I don’t want Gumi to be lonely. We unwrap our lunches and eat in silence. I have always looked up to Gumi. She is proud and defiant and headstrong where I cannot find the words to be, a truly independent person.

“Do you hate him?” I ask her. She hesitates, because the question is such an unexpected one, and such an even more unexpected one from me.

“No,” she says, “I don’t believe I do.” But she sighs, and then she drops her chopsticks and leans back, looking away, “I’m not hungry anymore.”

“I wonder what we did wrong,” I say then, setting down my own chopsticks and resting my head in my hands, wincing slightly as my neck moves. Gumi looks at me.

“We didn’t do anything, Yume. He choice to leave on his own. We tried to stop him. We failed,” she shakes her head slowly, “we can’t do anything more.”

“Why not, though?” I ask, “we’re not going to even go after him?” Suddenly, I find myself infuriated. I am not letting this fall apart. I am not letting the closest people to me drift away.

“I can’t believe we’re not going after him! What kind of family are we?” My voice hitches, and then I am crying, and I cannot seem to stop. I cry, because I’m sad and I’m hurt and Hito, oh, Hito.

“Hey,” as I sob, there is suddenly a warm, deep voice next to my ear, and Icarus’s hands on my shoulders, his face so close to mine that I can see the shards of blue even through my tears.

“It’s ok, Yume,” he says, drawing me into his arms and not caring who sees, “it’s alright, love.”

That just makes me cry harder, though, because it is not alright. It is not alright, because Hito is gone and no one seems to care but me.

I wish I could go after Hito.

–

They send me home, at Icarus’s insistence (and he can be rather insistent when he wants to be), but send him back to class, so I enter an silent house, slowly peel off my school clothes, and curl up in my bed.

And then, I think.

The words he said ring in my head again, I’m sorry. There had been something in the way he said them that made me think; maybe he didn’t really mean to hurt us. And besides, if he had meant to kill us all, wouldn’t he have done so? He could have stabbed Shuichi through the heart; he could have thrown Gumi out the window. He could have crushed Shin’s skull, he could have beheaded me. He could have done a million other things to have told Icarus he was wrong, but he didn’t. He immobilized, he didn’t kill.

I wondered, then, what would happen if I went after him. And then, I realize, I should go after him.

I am going to bring Takeda Hito back to us, where he belongs.

–

When they come home, I have cooked dinner and am waiting. Icarus gives me a worried look, but I smile, and kiss him full on the lips.

“Welcome home, love,” I say, “did you have a good day?” He eyes me, a bit suspicious.

“Yes,” he answers, “are you alright, Yume?”

“Yes,” I reply, “I’m fine. I’m fine, now.” I am not going to tell any of them. Maybe Gumi, in due time, but not Icarus. He…he does not understand. Icarus will always be my lover, but he does not understand.

The queen of hearts is the queen of charm. I can definitely bring him back.

[[plot]] eternity|iv

Before anything fell apart, there was a strange hitch in our daily routine. The house was quiet for once, except for the occasional ring of metal from Icarus’s forge outside, and the occasional grunt from Shuichi or Shin, from where they were sparring. There was the sound of sizzling vegetables and piano music, and then there was the sound of a firm, ringing knock on the wood of the door. I was the one who answered the door, answered the door and found a strange, foreign man standing in it. He looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

We usually didn’t get strangers anywhere around here. We were too careful for that. So I just blinked, and asked, “Yes?” For some reason, his eyes narrowed, as if something in his mind had not gone according to plan.

“I’m looking for…Takahashi Icarus,” he said, reluctantly. If I was surprised, I did not show it.

“Go around the back. He’s in the forge, you can’t miss it,” I said, and then shut the door. There was something about him that made me uneasy.

“Who was it?” Yume peers into the hall, pushing back a stray strand of hair.

“Someone for Icarus,” I reply. Yume frowns, thinking.

“He’s not expecting anyone today, though,” she said. I follow her back to the kitchen.

“Maybe he’s just an unexpected customer,” she muses then, and returns to the food. But I am now curious, and so I slip out the side door, and down to Icarus’s forge, where he looks rather hostile, and the man looks rather smug.

“What are you doing here?” Icarus snarls. The man smiles.

“Is that any way to talk to me, Takahashi? Me, your creator?” he laughs, and I see Icarus’s hands tighten around the hammer in his hands.

“I never asked you to—” Icarus began, but the man cut him off.

“But you never said no, Takahashi. And now, I require your services again,” he smiles, knowing that he has already won the argument. Icarus looks away, his mouth a taut, straight line.

“Why would you need a sword in this day and age?” he stalls. The man shrugs.

“For my memories. Not all of us can be young and in the present, no?” his smile grows wider. I turn away for a minute, and see Yume coming towards the door, her curiosity having overtaken her. I think this is a bad idea, and so I grab at her, but I tug at her sleeve a bit too late, and she has already pushed open the door.

“Icarus?” Yume asks, peering into the tense scene. Icarus’s face tenses, and the man notices this.

“Yume,” he says, his voice low, “go back inside.” She looks confused for a minute.

“But—” she starts, but he shakes his head.

“Go inside. Please,” he says. She hesitates, and then complies. And then, Icarus turns his attentions back to the man in front of him.

“A…lover?” the man asks, his tone a bit mocking, “and others, too? My, what a interesting group you have assembled, Takahashi.”

Icarus does not acknowledge this comment, but then snaps, “Two weeks. That’s how long it’ll take. And I’ll meet you in Tokyo. Don’t come here.”

“One might think,” the man comments, “that you didn’t want me to come and visit you at your humble home.”

“No,” Icarus replies, grimacing, “it’s all for your convenience.” Another moment of tension, and then, he leaves, following the path that goes around the house. From inside, I hear Icarus curse, and then the ring of metal again, as he throws the hammer in his hand. So then I decide it’s time to make myself known.

Icarus doesn’t even acknowledge my coming in.

“I hate him,” Icarus says, knowing I have been listening the whole time, “I hate him.”

“He changed you,” I state. Icarus nods.

“When I was a young, ambitious man,” Icarus says, “he changed me.” He stands, and picks up his hammer.

“What’s his name?” I ask then. Icarus pauses, and then laughs.

“You know, Hito, I don’t even know that. I don’t think I want to,”

–

Now, of course, I knew him as the man they called Three, One’s most trusted advisor on the Council, and he was trying to take over the world. And now, as I stand on the Council, that isolated incident makes all the more sense to me. There are not many ways we vampires can die. Rarely are we even scratched by humans. We are stronger, faster, with the wisdom of our ages behind us. Mortal wounds do not take half as long to heal for us as they do humans.

However, vampires versus vampires is another story. The best way to kill a vampire if you are a vampire is by beheading. Of course, any sort of mortal injury will do, but beheading is simplest. And what is the simplest way to behead?

With a sword.

[[plot]] eternity|iii

Nothing about the house has changed. The front yard is still neatly trimmed and maintained, Yume’s plotted flowers lining the stone path leading to the front door I follow, until I am standing in front of the whitewashed door I helped paint just this summer. My hand hovers over the doorbell, wondering if I should ring it, or if I should just walk in as if it were still my home.

Before I have to make a decision, though, the door flies open of its own accord, and Yume stands there, as if she sensed me behind the door, her eyes widening with shock, and then her face breaking out into a delighted smile. She shrieks, and throws her arms around me happily, screaming again.

“You’re back!” Yume says in delight, “you’re alright!” Her scream has sent Icarus running from inside the house, but he slows as he sees me, and his face becomes a wide grin too.

“Hito,” he says, and the way he says it this time is all warmth. Yume beams up at me, and Icarus clasps my shoulder, and then Gumi walks into the foyer, wiping her flour-covered hands on her apron.

“Don’t let the cold air out,” Gumi says, but she smiles as she turns, “Welcome home, Hito.”

“What’s all the fuss—Hito!” Shin clambers into the room behind Gumi, and stops as he sees me. Then he smiles, a delighted, yet creepy smile.

“Shuichi!” Shin crows, “Shuichi, come down here!” He skips over to me, and managing detatch Yume and Icarus, envelops me in a really uncomfortable, tight, awkward hug.

“No one will let me sleep.” Shuichi mumbles, padding down the stairs, but slowing as he saw me.

“…well, I stand corrected,” he then says, and then turns around and begins to pad upstairs, “remind me to spend a few hours with you, Hito.”

“How are you feeling?” Yume asks then, grasping my hands, as if to warm them up, “you’ve been away so long, Hito! I was afraid you’d never come back!” Icarus chuckles.

“She was worried. We all were,” he says. He smirks, but it falls off his face as he sees my expression, serious and sobering.

“I’ve got to tell you all something,” I say.

“That much is clear,” Gumi says from the doorway where she has come back to, “But come into the kitchen and have some soup, and then you can tell us all about it.” I step forward, and they follow.

I hadn’t ever noticed it was like that.

–

And so, I tell them. I tell them about One, and Five, and the castle in Scotland. I tell them of what One intends to do, and how he intends to do it. I tell them everything, and then I sit back, and wait for their reactions.

They are silent. I can almost see Shin’s cotton candy mind unraveling and revealing the deeper thought process within, gears and wheels turning smoothly. Icarus’s brow is furrowed, already ready to fight and protect his world. Gumi’s eyes flash—it is in her blood to defy those who would rule tyrannically. Yume turns a little pale, not quite sure. Shuichi sits intently for once, not even feigning drowsiness.

And I am silent too, because I have said what I came to say, and I have been welcomed back with open arms. But now that they know the truth, I wonder what they will think when I tell them I am leaving.

“That is…” Icarus starts then, and then he stops, frowns, deeply, and finishes, “we can’t let that happen.”

“We’ve never interfered with anything before, though,” Shuichi points out.

“It’s never affected us like this before!” Icarus bursts out. He stands up suddenly, punctuating his point.

“Icarus,” I say. Slowly, he turns to look at me, with a face that seems to ask me what our plan was. I was going to tell him to run, run and hide so he would be safe, but instead, I look away. He has already been betrayed enough times by those he should trust most.

–

Icarus told me his story while a few weeks after he had first called me his brother. He left parts out, and so had to backtrack and explain, but I could tell as he told the story that it was one that needed to be told.

He had been born to a drunkard father and a beaten down mother in a small village. His father was a farmer when he wasn’t drunk, and one of those men who always seemed able to coax up plants from any form of soil. Of course, Icarus told me, he didn’t realize any of this until later. All he remembered was his father roaring at his mother for more beer, and when she said there was none, slamming her into a wall.

Icarus had learned, early on, to stay quiet whenever his father was in one of his drunken rages, and to come out only when he was sure his father had left yet again, most likely to go and drink himself into a stupor again. He had learned to keep a bucket of water behind he house, and he always ran out there and brought it in so his mother could always, always, pick herself up again. And then she would smile, shakily, and hug Icarus, and tell him,

“Someday, you’ll get away from all this.”

Icarus admitted to me that sometimes then, he didn’t want to get away from it all. He wanted to stay and protect his mother from his father, because his mother looked like she would break under all that pressure, and his father looked like he always hit harder than a normal person would. But he never got a chance to do that.

–

“What is it, Hito?” Icarus asks me now, because he knows me better than anyone else. He is still standing, so I stand too.

“I have to go back,” I say then, surprising even myself with the confidence in my voice. He frowns.

“Back? What are you talking about, Hito?” he questions, “you’re not thinking about going back—back there, are you?” He laughs, at the absurdity of his own question, but it dies down as I do not reassure him of this, and instead remain silent.

“You can’t go back!” he bursts out then, “you’ve just told us what they were planning to do! You can’t do that, Hito. You’re not that kind of person.” I choose my words carefully then, because they are the words that will let me leave.

“Maybe I always was, Icarus, and you just never knew it.” The strained noise this time is not from Icarus, but from Yume, who believes in the good of everyone.

“You can’t leave,” he repeats. Icarus cannot bear to be wrong in his evaluation of me, and he is not. But as long as he thinks he is, they are safe.

So I reply, “You can’t stop me.”

Our living room wall is a half-decorative, half-defensive wall of weapons. I walk over to it, and take down my own personal favorite weapon, a Chinese jian that Shuichi first introduced to me years ago. And then I pull down Icarus’s own weapon of choice, the katana, and throw it to him. He catches it reflexively, while all the while staring at me as if he cannot believe the person in front of him.

“You’re not serious,” he says, hands loose on the sword.

“I am,” I say calmly, and unsheathe my own sword. Icarus frowns.

“I won’t fight you, Hito,” he says. Well, then I’ll just have to make the first move.

Betrayal, betrayal, betrayal, my mind screams at me, as I let my body move itself forward, propelling me at Icarus.

Betrayal.

–

The first betrayal, of course, was his father. His father was supposed the one Icarus looked up to—but, of course, he wasn’t. The second betrayal came from his mother. It had been another one of those days, and Icarus, now old enough to understand just what was going now, helped his mother up. But she waved him off, and pushed herself up.

“We’re going away,” she said, after a pause. Icarus was confused.

“Where?” he called after his mother, who stood up and was now exiting the little cottage.

“Away,” his mother said vaguely, “far, far away.” Her voice too, seemed far away. So Icarus ran to catch up with his mother, who seemed much more determined now. He looked back, at the tiny house they had lived in, which somehow looked empty now, but his mother didn’t even look back once.

They walked for ages, never really stopping, and passed through many, many villages before Icarus’s mother didn’t merely walk through it, like she had the others, and instead led him through town, as if she had been there before, and knocked on a door. When it opened, there was a broad-shouldered, scruffy man, who took one look at Icarus and nodded.

“Thank you,” his mother whispered to the man, and then bent down, crushing Icarus to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said to him, and Icarus opened his mouth to tell her that it wasn’t her fault, but then she was pushing him away, and the man’s rough hands were firmly placed on his shoulders, and his mother had turned around and returning the way they had come.

And no matter how loud he screamed, Icarus’s mother did not turn back to look at him.

–

Reflexively, he blocks me. There is a loud clash of noise as my sword hits his scabbard, and we remain still for a moment again, muscles tensed.

“This is unreasonable,” Shin says suddenly, laughing and standing also. He faces both of us, “you two can’t fight. It’s just not—”

“Shut up, Shin,” the words come, surprisingly, not from Icarus, but from me. Shin’s eyes narrow, and then he steps back, warily.

“You don’t know what you’re doing, Hito,” Shin says then. Icarus pushes me back, and unsheathes his own sword. I see, out of the corner of my eye, Gumi tugging Yume away, her eyes wide and unbelieving, and Shuichi, crouching like a cat.

“I know exactly what I’m doing,” I assert, and then, I twist, suddenly, blocking Icarus’s sword with my scabbard and thrusting at Shin with the real sword. Shin steps back as I thrust, though, and a second sword, a broadsword, counters. Shuichi.

“You go back, you’re our enemy,” Icarus says then. I am silent, and I see Shin take the proffered French rapier from Shuichi’s hand.

“In the end, that doesn’t really matter, does it?” I ask. Shin swings, but his weapon of choice has always been somewhat ridiculous, and I avoid it easily. Shuichi swings then, but his swing is slow, wide and heavy, and so I push back Icarus, who stumbles slightly, and swing my sword across, catching him across the stomach. There is an intake of breath, and then he stumbles, collapsing against the wall. And then, another gasp as Gumi stands then taking a few steps towards Shuichi, and then looks at me. And then I am reaching towards her, and my hand finds her spine, and I press down, there is a sudden crack, her eyes glaze, and she falls. Shin yells, and then he is advancing towards me.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Shin roars, and then he is on the offensive, swinging and thrusting and pushing me back, back, to where Icarus is standing, ready to take the offensive again, and I duck at the last moment, swinging my legs in order to tangle Shin’s, and he falls too, and his head hits the corner of the glass table.

“So then, Icarus,” I ask quietly, as I circle around Shin’s body, “do you think I’m a monster now?” He is silent, circling me, too. I wonder if he knows who I am heading for. I don’t think he does, until I am already there, and my hand finds its way around Yume’s soft, warm neck.

“Don’t you dare touch her!” Icarus booms then, but this time, I ignore him. Instead, I focus on Yume, and her scared eyes.

I lean in, and whisper to her, “I’m sorry.” And then, ignoring Icarus’s enraged roar, I strike, and slash her throat.

–

He learned to be a blacksmith. He was trained to create, not to destroy. And how he did create. Icarus did all the usual, menial tasks of blacksmiths, but he also dreamed and created swords. They were wonderful, sturdy things that attracted attention from many people. Especially from a mysterious, foreign man who came in one day and asked for a sword.

He offered payment in the form of gold, but when the sword was made and shown and praised, the man offered Icarus another form of payment.

Immortality.

–

I place her gently down, although it will look like I just let her drop to Icarus, and then I turn to leave.

“Takeda!” he roars after me again. He takes a step forward, and then I turn, and glare.

“If you chase me, she’ll die. Is that worth it, Takahashi?” I ask him.

His face pleads and scolds and angers and wheedles, but then it turns away to save his dying lover, and I turn back into the foyer, and toss my Chinese jian, forged by Icarus, onto the floor, and then I enter the sunlight, and leave to return to the Council.

–

He welcomes me back with a hug. One latches himself around my waist like a child visiting a favorite uncle, and then he smiles.

“Welcome back, Seven! We’re all ready to meet you!” he says, tugging my arm.

“All…?” I ask. One shakes his finger at me, tsking.

“Did you forget, Seven? I told you I’d introduce you to the rest of the Council!” He tugs me into the hall once again, where a group of four sit. There is Five and Four, who I already know, sitting on opposite sides of the table, and then there is a young blond man, who looks somehow royal, and…him.

His eyes rise, surprised, as he sees me, but they lower as One skips around me and beams at the table.

“This is Seven,” One introduces. Five gives me a cursory glance, then takes a piece of toast and begins to butter it violently. Four peeks at me through her bangs, then averts her eyes as she realizes I see her. The blond man stares at me, interested.

“That’s Two,” One says, pointing at the blond man, who raises a goblet at both of us and nods his head.

“You already know Five and Four,” One says, his attention turning to the girls, “and lastly is Three!” He points to the man, who smiles at me.

“So, you’re the illustrious Seven,” Three says smoothly, as if we have never met, “the ancient one.” He smiles.

“Welcome to the Council,” he says, amicably.

“Thank you,” I reply back, formally. He turns back to his meal and his newspaper, but I continue to stare.

“I hope you’re hungry,” Five interjects, breaking me out of my stare, “because we’ve still got lots of breakfast left.” She gestures to the chair next to me, a note of warning in her voice.

“Sit,” she says, smiling pleasantly. I comply, and then she leans in, under the premise of having spotted something on my shirt, and then whispers in my ear harshly,

“Don’t look at Three like that unless you want to get yourself killed. Despite whatever he’s done to you to hurt you, One still listens to him like he listens to no other,” she gives me a pointed look, and then draws back, smiling blankly.

“I do hope Five’s not trying to seduce you already, Seven,” Two says then, “that would be rather disastrous.” A pointed look passes between Two and Five.

“Of course I’m not,” Five retorts, “but you’re just jealous because I stopped trying to get to you ages ago.” And then she laughs, a fake but passable laugh, and Two smiles and chuckles politely, and I smile, and One burst into childish giggles.

And Three, Three smiles straight at me and eats his cereal.

[[plot]] eternity|ii

I do not know how long I have run or how many days have past. What I do know is…Thirst. Water, blood, wine. I do not care which one, but I thirst. I thirst, and so, lurch and stumble my way into what I can feel in my bones is Europe, and then I laugh, because I ache and pain and clearly I have a knack for making stupid decisions in the name of saving myself. I laugh as I stumble, for I have half run and half walked across the world, and all I have to show for it is thirst and pain. And even then, I manage to press through it all, and I finally break through the trees and come upon a beach.

Well. I left a beach and came back to a beach. How ironic. But that is the last thing I think, for as my foot hits the sand my knees buckle, and I fall. And before I pass out completely, in the distance, there is long flowing hair and a dress and olive skin, growing larger in my perception, and fuzzier, until my eyelids fall shut and the world eludes me yet again as I succumb.

–

I wake up in a real bed. A real bed, with feathered down and comforters and, strangely, a canopy. I sit up, pushing the covers off, and startle, as I turn and see the same girl I saw before I passed out, hair and dress and all. She says something, in some language I do not understand, and I give her a quizzical, blank look. She frowns, and tries again.

“French?” I say, surprised. She smiles.

“Yes,” she says, “and you are awake.”

“Where am I?” I ask, sitting up even more. The girl shakes her head as I sit up, and pushes me down.

“You are exhausted. One says you have travelled a long way and without any food,” she says, rising slightly so she can lean over and pour me something red into a heavy, golden goblet.

“Drink,” she commands. I take the goblet.

“Where am I?” I repeat. She smiles again, and her eyes take on a faraway look, as if remembering some distant memory. There is something about that smile that I cannot place. Something that makes it seem…

“You are in Scotland,” she says, interrupting my thought, and stands up, “Scotland, where everything begins.” Before I can ask her what she means by that, she has strode across the room, and closed the door behind her. It is only then that I sniff the goblet handed to me, and nearly drop it in surprise.

Blood?

I nearly set the goblet back down, but instinct overcomes wariness, and I down the goblet in one gulp. As I wipe the trail from my mouth, though, I have to wonder. Just where am I?

–

When the girl comes back later in the day, she finds the bed made and me staring out the window, the goblet loosely in my hand, the pitcher besides me empty.

“Recovered?” she asks, striding over as efficiently and silently as she first left. She takes the pitcher from where it sits on the carpet, and the goblet from my hands. Her finger brush mine, freezing.

“Yes,” I reply, “thank you.” She smiles again, and I realize it is about her smile that strikes me. She has the smile of a drowned person. Of someone who cannot claw her way out of whatever she has found herself immersed into, and so drowns in it.

“It’s time for you to meet one,” she says, and turns.

“Who is One?” I ask, but she continues to walk, and so I have to stifle my questions and follow her so I do not get left behind.

She leads me down one carpeted hall, and then another. The walls are stone, the floor is carpeted, and on the wall there hang multiple tapestries and paintings. It is like a castle, I realize, a European castle, looking out upon a moor. The girl makes turn after turn until even I cannot tell one hall from another, and then we are going down a grand, sweeping staircase, where the carpet gives way to marble, and she glides down the staircase, and knocks, five times, on the door.

“Enter!” A voice, muffled, calls out from within. But it is not a deep voice, or even a half-grown one. It sounds gleeful and very pleased with itself, as if it were playing some sort of excited game. She throws the giant doors open, and then I blink.

Sprawled over an ornately decorated chair is a little boy, about eight or nine, who smiles and jumps up as I enter the hall.

“You’re old, aren’t you?” he asks eagerly, circling me. I turn, trying to follow his energetic movements, but he is too fast for my eyes to follow, and the girl seems to have disappeared from the room entirely.

“You’re ages old,” he crows happily, clapping his hands together. I stare at him, as he smiles.

“You can tell too, right? How old I am?” I startle at his words, but then I realize that it is true. Despite his young age, I know he has lived for a long, long time. Almost as long as I have, but not quite.

“What’s your name?” he asks, smiling still and stepping back, as if to take a good look at me.

“…Hito,” I reply, after a brief pause. He smiles, and leans in to me.

“My name’s One!” the boy says, “now tell me, Hito. Have you ever thought about ruling the world?

–

Strangely, this proposition reminds me of one made to me earlier before.

I am sitting in a bar in Europe and trying to decide how many bottles I should drink before I am drunk. I am sitting, alone, downing one shot after another. I am sitting, and then there is someone else there, and he turns to me and says,

“I know what you are.” I jerk up in surprise at this, and then turn to glare. What I see is an unexpected man, with startling blue eyes. He smiles at me, as if to say, ‘relax.’ But, I am wary.

“Then you should run,” I reply. He smiles again, the smile of someone who has been turned down many times before, a more grimace then smile.

“That would defeat my purpose,” he says calmly.

“What is your purpose, then?” I shoot back, downing the mug in my hands. He sips from his, emptying it, and tossing coins onto the counter. He gets up to leave, but turns, looking straight at me with his blue eyes, the exact opposite of my red ones.

“You don’t want to be alone,” he tells me, and then he leaves, not knowing how much he has hit the mark, and I sit there, for a few minutes more, and then snort to myself, and throw my own coins down on the bar.

–

“We would be safe,” One says, leaning in, “we would be free. It would be the perfect world, and we could rule it better than any mere mortal could!” He smiles, as if enticing me to see the image he wove.

“There would be no more pain for what we were,” One presses on, seeing some spark of agreement in my eyes, “and no one would call you a monster for being what you were. Don’t you see it, Hito? Isn’t it wonderful?”

I imagine the world as it is described to me, crumbling beneath our feet. I imagine the power that could be granted to me, to lord above everything. Tempting.

But then I see them, suddenly and unexpectedly. I see Megumi, screaming at Shin, at Shuichi, warning them to stay back, trying to hold herself together. I see Shin, his smile wavering before finally disappearing altogether. I see Shuichi, stumbling back from it all before everything can fall to pieces as it seems it will. And Yume, her limp, cold body in Icarus’s arms, his face silently wet.

To say yes would be a betrayal.

“What about the others of our kind, in the world?” I ask, half-stalling.

“They join us, or they die too,” One shrugs, “But why wouldn’t they? Do you not see what we would have, if we could accomplish this? And with your help, we would be unstoppable.”

I pretend to contemplate this. Icarus would resist it. It was not in his nature to lord above anybody, as much as he might try. Yume would follow him, of course. Megumi would staunchly oppose it–it was in her blood, of course. And Shin and Shuichi would follow whatever she wanted, just for kicks. I eyed the man above me. If they succeeded, my family would be destroyed.

One seems to sense he is losing me, because he interjects my thoughts.

“Just think about it for the night, okay?” One says, bouncing back to his chair, “Five will take you back to your room.” He smiles, as the girl—Five—reappears silently by my side. And then we turn, and as the doors close, I hear One, giggling.

Five has only led me halfway back to my room when she turns, suddenly, startling me, and tells me,

“You cannot take his offer.” I blink, surprised, and look at her quizzically.

“Why not?” I ask.

“Because,” Five says, “all that pain is not worth it. All that loss and grief and— One is a…a child! What does a child know of consequences?” Her face takes on a frightened look as she says this, as if she were afraid someone would reveal what she had said. But then she inhales, and lets out a shaky sigh, and then shakes her head.

“It’s not worth it,” she repeats.

–

I never intended to accept his proposition.

“We’re going hunting,” he informs me, “and then you’ll see.” I stare at him, as he shrugs on his jacket—not tattered, but still very well worn.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say. He gives me a look, this strange man who seems determined to win me over.

“Trust me,” he says, and he grabs my arm firmly and tugs me out the door, and I find myself not protesting. Trust him, hm?

He leads me down one empty alleyway, and then another, until we have come upon a group of leering, knife-wielding men.

“Evening, gentlemen!” he says, and they stare at him, and his blue eyes glittering in the moonlight unnaturally. Then, he laughs, and I take that as my signal, and the little monster in me, which appeared even back then, feeds like the glutton it is. I feed for ages and ages, until only a firm hand on my shoulders brings me back, and he pulls me up.

“You alright?” he asks me, and I realize, he really is worried.

“This is why,” I say, a wry laugh in my voice, but he shakes his head, as if he will hear nothing of this.

“Are you alright?” he asks, again. He holds out his hand to me. And I stare at it, and realize that no one has ever held out a hand to me like he has.

“Thanks…?” I say, as I take it, and trail off as I realize I do not know his name.

“Icarus,” he finishes, “Takahashi Icarus.”

“Hito,” I reply, “Takeda Hito. A monster.” I add at the end, a half-laugh. But Icarus shakes his head at this pronunciation, and, staring straight at me, dispels it.

“No,” he says, “my brother.”

–

Five is silent for the rest of the way back, and she pushes the door open, standing aside to let me in. I pause as I come level to her, and then say,

“I haven’t decided yet, you know,” She smiles, and shakes her head.

“But by saying that, you know you already have,” she says, and she steps back into the shadow of the hall.

“Good night, Hito Takeda. I hope you don’t make the same mistake the rest of us did.” The door shuts behind me, and it is only after it is shut that I decide.

The moon filters through the heavy curtains, seeming to illuminate my path for me. I do not intend to take him up on his offer, just as I did not intend to take up Icarus, but the idea repeats in my head. We wouldn’t have to hide. That really is what convinces me in the end. But, the part of me that still feels loyalty towards my old family tells me that I owe them all, at least, a warning. I owe them, at least, a chance at survival.

The next day, Five is there when I open the door of my room, like an apparition.

“Good morning,” she says, as if she waited outside of doorways daily.

“Good morning…” I reply, slowly. She turns, and begins to walk down the hall. I follow, as she answers the question in my head.

“I thought you might like to not get lost this morning,” Five says, “it does take a rather long time to get used to.” There is the edge of a laugh in her words.

“And if you’re late for breakfast, One will always make your breakfast for you,” she finished, saying it in a way that made it clear that One did not make very good breakfast choices.

“I’m not staying for breakfast,” I say, “if I can.” She stops abruptly at this, and turns, eyes wide with shock, as if she cannot believe I have actually listened to her.

“I’m leaving,” I explain, “so I can come back.” Her eyes narrow at this, trying to reason me out.

“And why would you do that?” she asks, as we reach the grand staircase yet again.

“Because I have people I need to save,” I say. She sighs, and turns slightly.

“Don’t we all? But the best way to save them still is to never come back,” she says, and pushes the doors open again, where One sits yet again, but this time in front of a long table with many empty chairs.

“Good morning!” One calls down the hall, “Four made toast and jam!” Five sighs, and makes her way down the table. I mirror her on the other side, and as I reach One, he beams.

“Did you sleep well, Hito Takeda? And have you thought about my offer like I told you to?” he asked.

“There is…” I start, choosing my words carefully, “something I must do before I give you an answer.” One looks downcast for a moment, and then, warily, asks me what it is I must do.

“Am I free to leave for today? It will only take a week at the most,” I say. One blinks, then smiles.

“So you are coming back, then?” One says, grabbing my arm. I blink, and he takes that as assent. So One beams and tells me,

“Of course you may! You are free to leave whenever you want, Hito Takeda! I know! So you don’t end up at your home half-dead, you can take a plane!” One claps his hands together, and a pale, dark haired girl appeared, looking a little afraid of One’s enthusiasm and Hito in general.

“Four will take you to the airport, right, Four?” One asked, in a tone that sounded like it dared Four to even protest. But the girl called Four just nodded timidly, and scurried away. Like a mouse. And then One beamed again, and pumped my hand up and down.

“When you get back,” One said, like a child promised a grand treat, “you can meet the rest of the Council!”

“The…Council?” I ask, a little confused. One reveals his teeth, fangs glittering strangely in the mouth of a child.

“That’s what we are,” One says, “we are the Council. And now, you are too. Welcome to the family, Hito!” He frowns, then, the second time in this whole conversation where he has been beaming otherwise.

“No, that won’t do. We can’t call you Hito now. Seven! You’re Seven now!” One proclaims.

“What happened to Six?” I ask. One smiles.

“Oh, there won’t be a Six,” One says, and there is something hidden under those words. Something dangerous.

As I leave the hall, Five’s eyes meet mine, and her eyes flash before she turns. So I turn too, and tell myself that I am saving them. I am saving them.