Chapter Fifty-Two

His Hands Only

(Part 3 of 3)

 

Abihiko's... hands?

Nekohiko drew back, sickened. Morokata steadied him with his arm, his eyes never straying from the dirty, thin boy before them.

"And how do you know about that?" Morokata sounded suspicious. "You do not look like one of the potential victims of this place."

True. Everything about him was unsettling -- the way the boy stood, slightly swaying as though bored, the way he picked at the button eyes of his rag doll, the way he seemed so unbothered by the grimy corridor, or by the terrible ruckus down below that Iokirihime unleashed, or -- most importantly -- by the man collapsed under Morokata's boot and pleading for his life.

What disturbed about the child even more was that the man gaped at him in abject horror.

"Don't ruin this man's body too much," the little boy said detachedly. "I hate it when people ruin bodies and make them unusable."

Morokata cocked his eyebrow. "Unusable in which way, sweet child?"

Rather than reply, the boy kept fidgeting with his doll, which was somehow both sad and scary.

"Hibiki! Step away from them! They're dangerous!" a shrill voice of a woman called from deep in the corridor, then another voice echoed her.

"Protect him! Protect Hibiki at all costs!"

Subtly, Morokata inclined his head as though intrigued.

He pushed Nekohiko out of the way, then stepped over the man on the floor. Five, seven, nine people gushed into the small spot by the bottom of the staircase -- all armed, all snapping their hands in Binding formations to attack Morokata. One of the men grabbed the young boy as soon as he could and tried to stash him behind himself.

The boy hardly reacted, still focused on his ugly doll.

"Kill the intruders!" the shrill woman snapped at the others, to Morokata's surprise.

"We are under sixteen¹As usual ^^, just to remind. Murder of Binding kids (anyone under 16) is forbidden. ." He smiled, charming. "Are you sure you want to waste your time attacking us?"

"No problem for me," another woman answered and lunged for Morokata with a knife.

Nekohiko chilled just from the manner of her speech.

Such thick, stiff accent.

A foreigner.

Of course. In the whole Empire and its law against harming or killing young Binding children -- there were only two exceptions to this rule. Both rejected the foundation of this law. The Spirits of the land would know the intent to harm or murder young children -- and thus, they would stop the murderous action. Or would punish the perpetrator severely if it still occurred.

The first exception was the members of Hisome family who could trick the Spirits of the land about their true intentions.

And the second exception was -- foreigners.

People who did not listen to this land's Spirits and thus could hide their intentions from them. Most of the foreign visitors who remained in the Empire didn't want to harm anyone and were peaceful people, but rarely... some of the foreigners could abuse the law of the Spirits, on accident or willfully.

Thus, a vile organization had formed for that specific purpose -- of stealing foreigners to make assassins out of them or by hiring them when a local citizen needed a certain child killed, or kidnapped and tortured for monetary gain.

The Dark Sisterhood.

Nekohiko had met one of these Dark Sisters a couple of times in his life. The last time he had, his loyal retainers were slaughtered as the result.

Frozen in panic, he backed into the damp wall, his heart thrashing in his ribcage.

He almost missed the woman's attack on Morokata.

But Morokata was ready.

He swerved out of the way and blocked her strike with his arm brace. Nekohiko didn't see what Morokata did next -- only the devastating effect it had on the others.

The young man's hands rushed to his face, fingers clawing as though to rip his own skin off. Then, they assembled a formation -- a vague Hisome technique, mind-numbingly complex.

And suddenly, all of the Binders around him went insane.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

"Noooo!"

Every single one of them screamed so blood-curdlingly loud, Nekohiko's ears felt stabbed. He blanched from the distorted, agonized grimaces of their faces -- their eyes squeezed shut, blood pouring from under their eyelids like tears, hands dropping their weapons and Binding signs -- all going for their ears as though to plug them in the last desperate attempts to stave something horrific out.

"Stop it! Please! Aaaaaaaaaaarghh! MAKE IT STOP!" a few howled, shuddering away from where Morokata stood.

One by one, they all dropped to their knees then to the floor. Their eyes were blank, their faces greying from unconsciousness. Whatever Morokata's attack had been, everyone who had seen it blacked out.

Except for the young boy who only now lifted his dazed eyes away from his doll and to Morokata. With a deep sigh, Morokata straightened his clothes, then turned to the boy, a perplexed expression on his face.

"What kind of Binding technique was that?" the boy asked.

"Secret Hisome Family trick," Morokata said, coy.

The boy scowled. "Aren't all Hisomes useless pansies most of the time?"

"I don't know," Morokata said. "You tell me."

Through stupor, Nekohiko forced himself to move. He tripped on the man lying unconscious on the bottom steps of the stairs, then wobbled toward the boy. He grabbed the lapels of the boy's unkempt clothes and tugged him near.

He was still shaking from what he'd seen and heard. But he pushed it all out of the way.

He yelled, "Where is the prisoner whose hands were cut off?"

The boy gave Nekohiko a glare and wanted to make a Binding sign of a repelling spell. But Nekohiko slapped his hands out of the way.

"Where is he?!"

"Hey, hey." Morokata broke in between them, pushing both boys to the opposing sides. "There's no need to hurry now. If his hands are cut off, there's not much we can do about it, but it also means he's safe from something far more dangerous. They wouldn't have gone to such lengths unless they wanted to secure him and keep him safe."

Not much we can do about it?

Keep him safe?!

Nekohiko had half the urge to slap Morokata now. But luckily, the creepy boy spoke up.

"They just split the hands," he said. "They can be Bound back easily."

Split?

Like... the magical opposite of Binding? It was an Utsuro spell, and a hard one, too, and would have required an incredibly potent Binder to do.

Nekohiko balked, but a trickle of hope made its way to his heart.

A Split, like all Binding, could be undone. It was merely a way to prohibit one's use of that body part. It wasn't a permanent removal.

But Morokata seemed rapt. "That takes a lot of effort, Splitting. And for what?"

The boy blinked slowly. "For overtaking his body later, duh. He'd be a very useless doll if he had no hands," he mumbled lower, hugging his stupid rag-doll to his chest.

"A human made into a doll, ah. How peculiar," Morokata laughed. "Tell me more, sweet child. What is your name, again?"

The boy studied Morokata up close, but the more he watched his beautiful pale face, the less guarded he became. "Hibiki," he said. "You look like a doll yourself."

"Why, thank you, Hibiki. Now, tell me about that human doll thing -- how come you know so much about it? And how come every one of these Binders was so obsessed with keeping you safe, mmm? Very curious."

"That's obvious, I'm very good with doll-making," Hibiki said, finally exposing a satisfied, albeit grim smirk.

Hells...

Nekohiko couldn't believe his eyes. They were wasting time as though nobody but them existed, as though nobody but them mattered!

He didn't want to go anywhere without Morokata and his skills, judging by how creepy this place was, but he couldn't allow Morokata to stall him either. He needed to get to Iokirihime, if so. Or at least make these two pay attention to something other than each other.

"Where is that boy kept?" he hissed at Hibiki, giving him a hard shake with both his hands. "Take us to him! Now!"

Hibiki trailed his blank gaze to him as though in a dream. "No. Big Bro Koto would get mad. You are strangers. I don't know you."

"Tsk," Morokata said, leaning to the boy who immediately lost focus again, staring at Morokata in a strange, slightly murderous yet needy way. Morokata didn't seem to mind. "If all these Binders treated you so favorably, no doubt you are a powerful Binder, however young you are. Trust me, sweetie, this place won't survive the next hour, even before we bring the Imperial investigators here." Gently, he poked his finger into the tummy of Hibiki's rag doll. "And everyone in this place, including Big Bro Koto will also probably die gruesome and diverse deaths. But you don't have to, Hibiki."

Hibiki cocked his head in a silent question.

"Unless, of course, you mind becoming part of the useless Hisome pansies," Morokata ended with a delighted chortle.

Yet even before he finished, Hibiki smiled though his words meant far more to Nekohiko than they ever did to Morokata:

"Deal. Follow me. I'll take you to that boy."

 

---

***

 

The smugglers' den was a hellhole. A rotting, decrepit, miasma-ridden place with shadows breeding in the corners along with Demonic Spirits warded off by meager talismans. But the amount of these Demonic Spirits here! The place's fetid aura attracted so many or corrupted those few normal ones that had wandered in by accident.

Like a trained Spirit Wayfarer, Morokata constantly stopped to mark the spots these Spirits were in to return to them later for purification and exorcism.

Nekohiko rushed forward and tried to push Hibiki to go faster, too, but the boy never strayed far from Morokata. It was as though all of his attention was glued to Morokata, and, to be fair, Morokata's attention constantly returned to the boy as well.

"I'm here," Morokata told Hibiki every time Hibiki glanced back to check.

People darted in and out of the tiny rooms choke-full of wooden and metallic dummy carcasses. Some of these people were Binders who attacked Morokata, others -- mere carvers and welders who were defenseless against a Binder's wrath and thus didn't find anything better to do than crash to their knees and beg Morokata's forgiveness.

And also to save them from the "raging Coldsnap Lady", oh, please, oooooooh please!

Iokirihime's presence was obvious the deeper they went into the den's mazing corridors. Hoar and rime glistened along the walls and the floor, and crystallized limbs and sometimes whole people were clasped by the icy cocoons tightly in the corners like some bizarre chrysalises.

Nekohiko curled inward, breathing out white plumes of hot air because the temperatures in the halls had dropped so low. But he never stopped.

He kept thinking about how cold and miserable Abihiko must feel now, and this vivid image pushed him on.

At last, Hibiki halted in some narrow corridor walled on both sides with charred wooden screens.

Charred? The entire part of this place looked like a fiery explosion had happened here some time ago. These must be traces of Abihiko's Binding!

"There, past that corner." Hibiki pointed with his overlong sleeve, then wanted to turn to Morokata.

But a man's sudden harsh roar cut him short.

"Fuck it, Hibiki -- what are you doing! You brought them right here?!"

From the opposite side of the hallway where Hibiki pointed at, a burly man darted out. But Nekohiko hardly gave a damn about him. His eyes pinned to the corner where he needed to go to.

The shadows of several other people were shifting there chaotically, hauling up something that fought uselessly against them.

Nekohiko's insides dropped at the sight.

Was that... Abihiko?

He shouldered past Hibiki, his hands already going for the most potent Nagare spell he knew.

How dare they.

How dare they do this to Abihiko?!

He was only marginally aware that the man behind him launched an attack at him. A hiss whistled through the air on the lashing strike of a whip.

Nekohiko ducked out of the way. Yet the whip had never been directed at him. It went for Hibiki, and Hibiki was much slower in reacting to its attack.

With a sickening clap, the whip landed on someone, wrestling a gasp of pain out of them.

But it wasn't a young boy's voice. It was Morokata's.

Morokata had jumped in between the whip and both boys behind him, bending down to cover them. Nekohiko only gave him a disoriented side glance before he ran forward to the crooks that were busy tackling Abihiko. But even in that one glimpse, he still saw how bright was the gash across Morokata's fine face.

The wound wasn't merely deep, it was hideous. The whip must have been barbed.

Morokata held the back of his hand to his bleeding face, tremors passing through him. Enraged, his voice sounded even more quiet and polite than usual.

"Did you just... ruin my face, dearsome?"

He slowly straightened from his hunch, then took his hand off his face. He didn't speak a single word more. But then again, he didn't need to.

His eerie, calm demeanor alone struck menace into one's heart.

Nekohiko dashed past the corner and out of their sight. The men who had dragged Abihiko here a moment ago had all withdrawn deeper into the corridor and now were trying to barricade themselves inside a small cell.

Behind their backs -- the bright yellow clothes flashed, and Nekohiko set his jaws hard.

Nagare smashing bolt left his hands right when the terrified-looking men in the cell pushed a metal door closed in Nekohiko's face.

The force of his spell zoomed through the corridor with a sizzling noise. The door blew right in.

The thick metal clanged, torn. All the people behind the door flew backward, propelled by the impact, screaming, their limbs snapping against the metal. Something crashed, something toppled inside. Several yelps of pain surged only to be cut short.

And with them, came the high-pitched noise of something sharp slicing the air behind Nekohiko.

An arrow, was his delayed thought. A dart. A throwing knife.

Shit!

He'd forgotten there could be more Dark Sisters around who had no qualms or restrictions about killing children!

The thrown knife clinked when it met the lashing strike of the Towa energy sent to intercept it. A blinding, icy-white spear made of Towa magic deflected the knife into the wall.

Nekohiko hadn't even noticed Iokirihime near, but there she was. In a sinuous move, she redirected her ice spear toward the person who had thrown the knife, her face as impassive as always.

The ice spell impaled the bastard smashing his back into the wall, and Nekohiko felt safe to run into that cell at last.

Inside, several adults had been plowed in by the thick metallic door. Some of them out cold, others moaning and trying to get to their fours. The closest ones recoiled away from Nekohiko when they saw him.

And frankly, they should.

They should really be scared of him.

He had never desired to hurt other people so much in his life.

In the farthest corner, Abihiko's limp body lay amidst the crates and filthy straw mattresses. His torn bright-yellow clothes covered him only barely, leaving the pale skin of his chest, arms, and legs to the drastically chilling air inside the compound. His skin had already turned blueish, further highlighted by the constellations of bruises across his limbs and face.

Worse still, the boy's arms lying on his lap ended abruptly and nauseatingly at the wrists.

Nekohiko forgot about everyone else in the room. He jumped the rubble and bent down to Abihiko. After only a second of doubt, he hugged his shoulders gently with his own hands.

Abihiko's skin was goosefleshed and so so chilly, Nekohiko's heart panged. He disliked the idea of touching someone so personally, but none of that mattered to him at the moment. Abihiko was unconscious and he was gradually losing heat.

First, Nekohiko doffed his outer robes and tried to cover Abihiko with them to get him out of the cold air. Them he drew Abihiko into his embrace, pressing him to himself with all his might. To warm him up, to wake him up, to have him know he was safe now.

"Abihiko... I'm here. I won't leave you."

Please don't ever leave me.

He snapped to the closest of the people -- a greasy-looking woman. "Where are his hands?!"

Quaking all through, the woman reached out toward one of the other crooks and pulled at his small cloth bag from under the door that had buried him underneath.

"H-here, young mistress," the woman bleated, stammering. "Please, don't harm me! Please, I'll do anything--"

Nekohiko ripped the bag out of her hand, only now seeing that Iokirihime loomed in the doors.

The girl stood solemn and still, eyeing the wreckage in the room with an unreadable expression. Under her blank gaze, Nekohiko tried his best to help Abihiko up.

"Please, wake up! We have to go!" Nekohiko whispered at him, dragging him up by the shoulder.

"Spare us! Spare us, young mistresses," the disgusting woman kept pleading from the floor, the wounded, concussed men around her adding their plaintive moans to her words. "Please, we haven't done anything wrong! We aren't Binders! Just peasants!"

Nekohiko had hauled Abihiko up and wanted to make his way back outside, but the woman grabbed his knees.

"Please! Please, sweet mistress!"

"Let go of her." Iokirihime's voice had the physical quality of ice now.

So lifeless, so inhuman, Nekohiko chilled to the bone just from the sound of it.

"Give me the bag," Iokirihime ordered when he passed her by. She opened the pathetic sack, taking two familiar hands out of it.

Nekohiko's breath hitched from seeing them so detached and object-like, but Iokirihime didn't react at all.

She turned Abihiko's palms around, checking the seam where they had been cut with Splitting magic. There was no bloody or fleshy wound there -- only a black gap of Binding energy meant to separate the hands from the wrists, but not for permanent damage.

"I have called for help some time ago. Several Great Lords are coming to our aid," Iokirihime said numbly. "They can attach the hands back, so just go meet them as soon as possible."

Drastically, Abihiko's hands grew icy and frost-covered while she held them.

"This will keep them pain-free when they will be attached back," she said, then passed the icicle hands to Nekohiko who took them in both his, pressing to his chest next to Abihiko's body he was hugging.

Iokirihime freed his way out, but didn't follow. She stayed behind. She nodded to Nekohiko to leave, and he didn't ask further.

Something about the way she looked at this small room and everyone gathered here made him never want to see -- or even question what would happen the moment he was far away enough. And the remaining people felt that, too.

They started screaming and pleading long before Nekohiko had moved out of the hearing area. But he still heard the beginning of other sounds from that room.

The howls of agony.

He did not bother to think about it.

In the hallways, something utterly infernal was happening. There must have come Binder reinforcements to help fight to intruders, and Morokata was dealing with all of them while Nekohiko slowly waded through the halls toward the staircase.

He met Hibiki at some point, not far from Morokata who was fending off a group of illegal Hira Binders flinging fire at him. But like those two didn't pay him any attention, Nekohiko didn't stop to make sure they were all right.

Judging by how fast and unbothered Morokata was -- he didn't need anyone's help.

Even his face looked fine already. Not even a trace of the terrible gash he'd received earlier.

"Ahh. What a wonderful doll he'd make, this handless boy," Hibiki mused as he gave Nekohiko and Abihiko a passing glance. "Pity he's your friend, though." Eerily, the boy smiled into his rag-doll, cuddling with it in the corner. "Friends are not dolls, Hibiki," he told the rag-doll and immediately replied, "I know that. Don't I? I do. Still a pity."

Nekohiko gave Hibiki as wide a berth as he could.

The only trouble he met in his and Abihiko's escape was on the ground level where a few people, including a Dark Sister were keeping an ambush for anyone who would come out.

But Nekohiko didn't even flinch when he saw them.

Here, he had someone much more capable of protecting him.

Ashflake flickered and swept through the dilapidated house in a silvery, slightly violet mist, snapping its phantom teeth at the bastards, drawing their breaths out of their throats to leave them choking and slowly convulsing on the floor in its wake. The Spirit Fox was fast, and by the time Nekohiko stumbled out with Abihiko slumped against his shoulder, Ashflake was already done with the little ambush gang.

It nuzzled Abihiko's face with its snout, then made a ghostly lick at Nekohiko's hair like a pat on the head. Then it lowered itself to the ground, inviting both boys onto its back.

"Some Great Lords are coming to save us," Nekohiko told it, lifting Abihiko onto the Spirit's fluffy shoulders and securing him there. "Can you bring us to these Lords to meet them faster?"

Ashflake was very gentle as it straightened to its full height with Nekohiko and Abihiko on its back. Nekohiko held Abihiko in front, hugging him tightly with both his arms, trying to warm him up with his body heat.

He did it for Abihiko's frozen hands, too. Though Iokirihime had said that her ice would make Abihiko's wounds entirely painfree, Nekohiko still ached at the idea of Abihiko's hands being as cold as icicles. He was also afraid to drop them in his hurry, so he had stashed them away inside the collars of his inner shirt. The touch of such cold, hardened lumps, pressed dearly against Nekohiko's skin on his chest, made him shiver. And not only from the cold. The discomfort at being touched by someone's fingers in such intimate places where nobody else had ever touched him was the biggest issue for him. But he persevered through it.

These were not anyone else's hands.

These were Abihiko's hands. And Abihiko's hands were allowed to. Why not? They were best friends. If a person should ever choose somebody to be touched by so deeply -- it should be one's best friend. Nobody else.

"We'll put them back on," he promised Abihiko as he hugged him hotter to himself.

Ashflake bounded up, lifting softly and beautifully into the overcast sky in an arc. Its footsteps were as fuzzy as a moth's as it bounced off the ground as it ran. A lulling, soothing ride across the grim world.

"I'll never leave you again," Nekohiko whispered into Abihiko's ear, only hoping that Abihiko would hear.

And would trust him on this.

 

---

***

 

It wasn't long before the rising winds crested over Nekohiko. Ashflake stopped, hulking over some pine forest like a small mountain peak.

From out the sky, along with the rare glimpse of late sunlight, two figures in wind-swept robes descended -- starkly-drawn against the pearly clouds.

One had the Black Nagare Bow in his hand.

Lord Kazuragi. Lord Yakabe. Both dressed in the dark-grey military uniforms of House Nagare.

Both looking so anxious, so alarmed...

When he saw them, Nekohiko let out a relieved sob. He was so frightened. Abihiko wasn't responsive. His hands were just as cold and lifeless against Nekohiko's chest.

Was Abihiko... ever going to be all right again?

Yakabe's warm arms crushed around him while Kazuragi softly pulled away Abihiko into his own embrace. And Nekohiko couldn't hold himself together anymore. He let Yakabe take him and broke down in tears, tired and empty.

"Shhh, we're here. Nothing bad will happen to you two now," Yakabe told him, whispery.

Nekohiko shook his head, squeezing Abihiko's fingers inside his collars. "He's hurt. He's so hurt. I'm afraid that he might--"

"He'll be fine," Kazuragi's rough voice cut in.

"I told him I don't ever want to see him again! I told him I wouldn't give a damn!" Nekohiko shuddered, weeping. "If he's not going to ever wake up, these would be... the last words I've told him!"

Yakabe didn't try to interrupt him or tell him not to worry. He only patted Nekohiko in his arms and listened to his ramblings.

Kazuragi held Abihiko in both his arms, peering at the boy's face with a frown. But he didn't look worried even when his gaze brushed past Abihiko's mutilated wrists.

Kazuragi gave Yakabe a curt glance. "There was an inn not far from here."

"Mn." Yakabe adjusted his position around Nekohiko's body and pulled him closer into his chest like a father would his own son.

Though Nekohiko disliked the thought of being dragged around by adults, he didn't mind. If anything, lying safe and cared for in Yakabe's arms... it wasn't so bad.

And after what he'd seen in the smugglers' den, he didn't have any strength to go anywhere by himself.

Yakabe chose a slow, breezy pace as he floated through the air with Nekohiko against him. Nekohiko buried his face in Yakabe's epaulet feathers, feeling his tears gradually dry up from his cheeks.

He lifted his eyes at Kazuragi some feet away, then at Yakabe.

How somber and focused Yakabe seemed. How competent.

As long as it was he and Kazuragi who would heal Abihiko -- then yes, Nekohiko didn't doubt one bit that Abihiko would be all right in the end. Only...

"Morokata and Iokirihime are fighting all alone in that den," Nekohiko muttered groggily.

"They had called for everyone's help as well," Yakabe replied. "Iokirihime's sister also heard them. And so did Lady Takarashi of House Hisome. She would not let her son be endangered, don't worry."

Her son? Morokata? Endangered?

Probably not.

With this last worry erased, Nekohiko felt so weary and drained, he didn't notice how he fell asleep in Lord Yakabe's arms.

When he woke up, the first thing he saw was...

Abihiko.

On the floorbed next to him. In some quiet, big wooden room. Lying so close, they were essentially sharing the bed, his eyes open and staring at Nekohiko. But in such an odd way, Nekohiko's insides twitched in apprehension.

Was Abihiko hurt?

Was he in pain?

The hands, Nekohiko realized. He didn't feel their cold touch in his robes anymore. Where were they?! Had he lost them?

As though noticing Nekohiko's reaction, Abihiko's eyes softened in the subtlest shade of a smile. His lips didn't smile, though, but his expression was no longer haggard or hollow.

Merely ill.

He rustled the blanket he was covered with and raised his hand. Stiffly, he put it alongside Nekohiko's face on the pillow so that Nekohiko could see.

The wrist, slightly reddened and puffy. The fingers, still thawing and covered with a fine layer of Towa frost, the rigid motions Abihiko did with it to show it worked.

Nekohiko swallowed a hard knot.

"...I was so worried about you..."

When he blinked, something hot and wet ran down his inner eye corner and to his nose. He blinked harder, pained.

"I thought I've lost you."

"You didn't. I'm here."

"Yes, but... those people. What they did to you!"

Nekohiko lost himself again. Why was he such a whiny crybaby all of a sudden? How embarrassing and unbefitting the future Emperor. He rolled away, covering his eyes with the inner side of his elbow.

Spirits, he was angry, not weepy! Angry at those... bastards, at Morokata, for some reason, and above all -- at Abihiko. Angry!

"You should be more careful! You should think before you do stupid things!" he cried out, seething. "You almost got killed--"

Abihiko watched the ceiling, expressionless. But he winced at Nekohiko's screaming.

"They drugged me. It wasn't the care I lacked. It was decisiveness. If I had attacked them the moment I knew something was wrong..." His fingers twitched, creaking with rigid ice. He huffed out a derisive breath. "Gods, this shit hurts. So cold... Trust me, next time, I will strike out as soon as I feel threatened. No hesitating."

Nekohiko only felt angrier at that. He sat up, reaching his hands to grab Abihiko's lapels and pull him up, too. "What does it have to do with anything?! It's all these... boys and men you hang out with so much! Do you know how reckless and thoughtless such behavior is?! No wonder everyone thinks they can take advantage of you! You are such a --"

...what?

Abihiko also met his eye, expectant.

Such a what?

Nekohiko didn't know. But he wanted him to feel it. To feel the lack of responsibility. The lack of caution. The lack of control!

But he couldn't say something so mean to somebody who was already in pain, so he lay back down. And instead, slowly took over Abihiko's icy fingers into his and lifted them to his mouth.

He exhaled at his fingers hotly, trying to do whatever little he could to ease the pain of thawing from the Towa spell.

"Please be careful," he said into Abihiko's hand.

Abihiko nodded, dropping his forehead to Nekohiko's shoulder. They lay like this for a while before, drowsily, Abihiko stirred once more.

"Neko. I thought about you, too, back there."

At least, sometimes, you still do.

"Me? Not about Young Master Shikamoto? Or Iwaki?" Nekohiko grumbled. "Or Juro? Or Keicho? Or Rikuto?"

"...who?"

Ugh. What a shameless person.

Abihiko raised his face at him, a thin hint of a smile tugging at his lips. He dropped his chin back onto Nekohiko's shoulder, then said as if half within a dream,

"Sometimes I wonder... if you were a boy, Neko, if I would have been madly in love with you and would never need anyone else at all."

Nekohiko's hot breath quickened and he could no longer warm Abihiko's hand with such hastened, short breaths.

...

Ah...

What?

No, please don't say things like this!

"Well, good thing I'm a girl," he said, stiffening. He extricated himself away from Abihiko's lazy embrace and turned away. "Sleep. It's almost dark, and it's probably night soon. So... good night."

"Mn, good night, Neko."

And Abihiko hugged him from the back again.

Which only made Nekohiko stiffer and tenser. Because he suddenly realized something very, very troubling.

He was thirteen.

He hadn't had any noticeable growth yet -- not in his facial hair or his height or his developing, angular jawline or his widening shoulders... But he'd already had some routine morning reactions only a boy's body exhibited. And his changing voice, too...

So, frankly, the more time passed, the less likely it was that...

His secret had a much longer time to live.

And this idea with what Abihiko had just said... it scared him.