Chapter Sixty

Straight Panic

Part 2 of 3

 

Abihiko's bad mood subsided during the week, but not by much. He was still sulking and didn't go back to his usual playful teasing of Nekohiko's... everything.

The most unbelievable thing about it, though -- Nekohiko missed it.

He missed Abihiko's cute bullying of him when Kazuragi and Yakabe took them out to eat in fancy places, when they took them to exorcise Spirits in the Peaceful's vicinity, even when they trained.

And in their training, Abihiko's downer attitude sucked most. They could steal each other's Binding and could do some minor tricks with shifting the balance and combat moves to each other. But they couldn't progress beyond that no matter how Yakabe explained each of the more advanced techniques of mutual Binding.

It was as if they'd hit a wall. Their physical skill or prowess had nothing to do with their inability to push through it.

Yakabe said it was merely the lack of trust.

"But I trust him completely," Nekohiko objected one of the weary noons when he and Abihiko had already exhausted their stamina to keep fighting fruitlessly.

Nekohiko was sweating buckets and constantly swiping away his bangs that clung to his forehead. His hair was now raised up in a ponytail every day of the week because of the sparring matches, yet it still didn't help with the rest of it.

He and Abihiko had to wash their uniforms every single evening, too, because of how terribly drenched they always were.

"We've been in life-and-death situations," Nekohiko went on, panting. "I would trust him with my life."

Abihiko didn't speak up, standing on the other side of Yakabe and watching the horizon with his recent permanently miserable expression. Yet rather than ask Abihiko if he had trust issues and was therefore botching up all of their attempts, Yakabe gave Nekohiko a narrow glance instead.

"With your life, yes. With your deepest secrets --?" Yakabe said very quietly.

It was like a spear of cold up Nekohiko's spine. The realization.

He did not actually trust Abihiko completely. Not enough to tell him the truth about his gender...

It was such an insignificant thing, though!

"What about him?" Nekohiko nodded to Abihiko. "Maybe it's him who doesn't trust me."

Sullen, Abihiko kicked the tufts of grass, then turned his head to him lazily. "Yeah, whatever."

Nekohiko had never been so frustrated with him before. "Yeah, whatever," he echoed him, to which Abihiko had nothing better to do than to grimace brattily.

Kazuragi had been lounging on the porch after the lesson, diligently ignoring the boys as usual. But he couldn't help his groan now.

"Gods, I hate teenagers," he said into his book.

Even Yakabe looked disenchanted with Abihiko's and Nekohiko's attitude. But he tried to be nice about it. "Our own children will one day be teenagers," he told Kazuragi.

"Yeah," Kazuragi replied, eyes rolling. "Can't wait to witness that whole mess."

The two left them shortly after because they couldn't bear two sulky boys who refused to engage with one another. Kazuragi and Yakabe always went drinking tea in their room for prolonged times. Wistfully, Nekohiko dreamed about a cup of jasmine tea... or maybe green powdered tea... or the bitter black tea...

He was thirsty and envied both Lords mightily.

He dropped his hands, having exhausted himself on attacking the training dummy, and went to the inn's owner to beg for some tea because whenever he tried to ask Yakabe to share theirs, Kazuragi threw a tantrum, and Nekohiko wanted none of that today.

He threw his outer sweaty training shirt to the porch and flung his daytime robes over his back before he went. But only a few steps out of the garden, and he recalled he forgot his coin pouch. So he returned for it.

And found Abihiko leaning into his crumpled shirt to... smell it?

!!!

"What the hell are you doing!?" Nekohiko rushed forward, disgusted to no end. "Gross!"

Abihiko's nonchalance always astounded him. The boy threw the shirt back to the ground, giving Nekohiko a suspicious once-over. "Just caught a sniff from you while we fought, that's all. Your scent is... weird."

Wide-eyed, Nekohiko grabbed his shirt and pressed it to his chest.

"I mean -- weird compared to the other girls we fought in training sessions," Abihiko went on, his eyes still scanning Nekohiko's figure in some sort of A reluctant trance.

Oh.

Could it be... He could smell the "boy" in Nekohiko's sweat?!

What the hell, Abihiko! Are you a scent-hound?!

Or was Abihiko so in tune with chasing after boys all the time, he had a natural affinity for seeking them out?

Nekohiko shook his head. "So?!" he cried. "Still disgusting, you freak!"

"Why are you like this?" Abihiko asked. "Why are you so different from the other girls?"

...

"Why are you hanging out with me all the time? And doing all the boyish things? And not wanting friends among the other girls? And not even being interested in boys like most girls your age are?" Abihiko frowned, visibly frustrated with something he couldn't quite communicate. "Why? You're so confusing..."

Nekohiko had a sudden guess.

"You are attracted to me?" he said, backing away in trepidation. 

Please no. We're friends. Best friends!

Don't... do this to me.

Don't you dare!

"What?" Abihiko's color drained from his cheeks. "No!? I don't like girls."

"Yes, but you just said that... I am confusing you..."

"Tsk, not in that way, dummy!"

In which way, then?

"What am I even talking to you about this? You are a girl, after all. And like all girls, you can't talk normally without pushing all conversations into talking about attraction and forbidden desires and all that romance crap," Abihiko blustered, then left to go beat his training dummy into mulch. "Ugh!"

Nekohiko could only agree. Ugh.

He would hate it if their friendship couldn't survive whatever this small confusion was. Abihiko was his only friend in the whole world. He had no idea what he would do if Abihiko left him.

 

---

***

 

Thus, to prove just how girly and non-confusing he was, he asked Yakabe to take him to the most luxurious Young Lady salon in Peaceful before the Doll Parade.

After his frustrating episode with Abihiko, Nekohiko couldn't stop thinking about his own reluctance to be seen as girlier than he was. Girls had daintier gestures. They moved differently now that he paid attention to them on the streets. And while some of them forewent all the traditional norms of maidenhood, the majority dressed very prettily and wore elaborate hairstyles... and of course they had... breasts.

Nekohiko had rejected even the idea of padding his chest before. But perhaps now he should?

Misery hung low and suffocating over him as he headed into the Salon the morning of the Parade. He didn't want to be a girl. He didn't want Abihiko to see him as one either.

But he didn't want to tell him the truth if Abihiko would have a crush on him and would ruin their friendship because of that...

His heart ached as he helped the young dressmaker wrap him in layers of the most luminous and soft golden dress he'd ever seen. It was Bound from marigold petals and was imbued with the glamor shine of the sunlight reflected off the water surface at sunset, and was overall so beautiful he wanted to cry just from looking at it. What could be a better outfit to prove his true girlishness?

In the end, he wore no chest padding because he knew he would botch it and it would ruin the way his dress looked. But the side-bun hairstyle and the accessories and the makeup...

Yes, to all of these. The more maidenly, the better.

When he looked at himself for the first time after the cosmetician lady's work on him, his melancholy only deepened. It was pretty, he guessed -- this unfamiliar doll-like face looking at him from the polished bronze mirror. But it was also not himself -- but an utter stranger he resented. Artificial.

Disheartening.

He exited the Salon, hurrying to Yakabe who waited for him in the small eatery nearby. When Nekohiko rushed up to his small table, Kazuragi was there already, disturbingly feeding Yakabe blueberries with chopsticks.

"And where is Abihiko?" Nekohiko asked them, lost. Suminoe had been adamant about each boy being constantly guarded by the Lords to avoid another tragic encounter with the Usurper's assassins.

But Kazuragi only flapped a hand at him. "Outside, exchanging drool with some square-jawed bloke. No way in hell would I stand by and watch that happen."

Yakabe turned to give Nekohiko a commiserating pursing of his lips -- but the expression quickly changed to a star-struck one when he saw Nekohiko's get-up. Even Kazuragi gave him a second glance.

"You're going to be the cutest doll in the Parade," Yakabe said, transfixed. "It's actually a bit... unsettling how pretty and perfect you look when dressed and made up like this."

"Nonono. You creep me out," Kazuragi echoed, dismayed. A sudden thought seized him and he stuck his finger at Nekohiko demandingly. "Wait, was it some dream I had once? That you weren't truly a girl but a boy instead."

...

Nekohiko blinked. Hadn't he told Kazuragi that already? Like, several times? "I am."

"So I knew I weren't crazy for thinking that!" Kazuragi grinned, then frowned in grim concern. "You have the weirdest dressing habits of any Emperor I've ever seen, then."

Well...

Little wonder.

Nekohiko didn't care to go out of the eatery and witness the slobbery performance of Abihiko kissing some random boy he'd just met -- so he spent the rest of the time before the start of the Parade with the Sky Lords, finally getting himself a hot, fragrant cup of jasmine tea from Yakabe.

But when the Parade came and he finally had to go out and join the throngs of brightly-dressed girls, both very little and those of his age, he had the honor of seeing Abihiko laughing and chatting and sometimes even snogging some rather unappealing young man -- with his own eyes.

The platform on which the Bound porcelain dolls sang and danced for the amusement of the spectators moved forward on hover mechanisms, the Parade of girls flanking it on each side. Nekohiko was among these sidelined girls, carrying a basket of flower petals and sprinkling them into the air as he followed the Parade's route.

A hollow, bitter feeling ate at him as he did all these insignificant actions, barely registering what he was doing or why.

...and why, indeed?

He had never liked social gatherings or festivals. He had never participated in any! The only reason he had agreed to this lame performance and the caked make-up and the dress was to show Abihiko how girly and sociable and "normal" he was!

The sole reason!

And Abihiko wasn't even watching him now!

His fingers snapped the flower basket's handle in half. Even without deciding to, he flung the entire basket straight at Abihiko amidst the many-faced, cheery crowd.

And without checking to see if his projectile landed or not, Nekohiko turned away and marched on with the procession, solemn and somewhat satisfied with his petty little revenge. Instead of looking into the crowd, he preferred to look at the fellow Parade girls beside him, doing his best to copy their motions and manners. Not for Abihiko. Just for himself.

Girls, after all, were wonderful people. To wear so much crap on their bodies and faces and to still manage to smile through all of it -- so admirable!

"Oh my!" Abihiko's aggravating voice called him from the side.

Without bother, Abihiko slunk out of the crowd and joined the Girl Parade even though he wasn't dressed festively and clearly wasn't a little girl himself. A few older women from the spectator lines groused at him and shook their fingers, beckoning him out of the Parade, but he ignored them all.

"You look like all the storybook girl pictures threw up on you," Abihiko told Nekohiko with a sly smirk. He sized Nekohiko's gilded outfit up and down, failing to stifle his budding laughter. "How could I have doubted your femininity earlier, oh sweet Lady Nekohiko! You are so girl! I am impressed."

"Who cares if you're impressed?"

Nekohiko kept his eyes on the girl next to him and the way her lithe, graceful body still managed to convey so much emotion and lightness in all her rigid robes.

But Abihiko of course took Nekohiko's interest in her for something else. The loudest, most obnoxious laughter erupted out of him as he hugged Nekohiko by the waist and leaned to his ear secretively. "Eyeballing some pretty maidens, are you? I see, I see. Finally, it all makes sense! You just like girls, Neko! Frankly, such a relief. I had always been a bit afraid that you--"

"That I -- what?" Nekohiko stiffened.

"...ah, you know. Girls and boys aren't the easiest friends to make, yet you and I are best friends for so long and without any issue. We even sleep together," Abihiko whispered so as not to shock anyone nearby with his improper sharing. "Personally, I know I don't feel anything to you and never would! Come on, it would just not make sense if I did. I am not into girls and right now, you just look so... ugh. Which only proves my point! But sometimes I was thinking that maybe... you had a crush on me, instead. And how worrisome that would be..."

Nekohiko waited for him to go on, but Abihiko only walked beside him, quietly thinking. Even in the middle of all the loud music and the chimes and the festival chants and dancing, Abihiko looked as though he was somewhere far away, in a lonely, silent place.

"You are my best friend," Abihiko finished after a long while. "I would hate it if our friendship ended because of something as stupid as one of us being attracted to the other..."

Exactly, Nekohiko wanted to tell him.

But didn't.

For some reason, Abihiko's mood shifting into a melancholy so abruptly -- made him forlorn as well. A specter of something unsaid and unrealized lingered over the two of them, but neither of them dared to ask the other about it.

Yet, as all things went with Abihiko, the sadness didn't last. The boy flashed Nekohiko a mischievous look, then poked him in the side with his elbow.

"Just you wait, dummy. I came up with a brilliant idea just now. I want to show you something so amazing, your jaw will drop!"

"Now?" Nekohiko waved his fan in distress. "We're in the middle of the procession--"

"Nah! I have to prepare it first and it might take me some time," Abihiko scoffed, both looking irritated and eager for something. "Evening. The plum orchard behind the Spiritway Shrine, by the lake. We'll meet there -- you and me, all right? Do not tell anyone else because I don't want them to see." He already slipped out of the Parade, so bubbly with excitement, he didn't respond to any of the girls and spectators who yelled at him to get the hell out of the way. "Be there, Neko! I promise you'll love it!"

So fast it happened that Nekohiko didn't have time to respond. The dancers and the Parading girls obstructed his sight of Abihiko's departing figure, and he could only lift on tiptoe to see the flicker of Abihiko's ponytail swishing past the corner of the street.

Distraught, Nekohiko turned back to the Parade and the blurry tide of the crowd cheering him and the other girls from the sides. He could wait. As long as Abihiko was happy and not sulking, he would agree to anything Abihiko did.

 

---

***

 

Of course he told Yakabe about his and Abihiko's meeting in the orchard because they were supposed to warn the Sky Lords about any of their activities in Peaceful. The world was a dangerous place, after all. Nobody knew when another attack on either boy would happen. Thus, after the Parade ended and the festival proper began, Kazuragi went off to search for Abihiko while Yakabe remained by Nekohiko's side as they strolled through the Doll Festival stalls and store games that most crowds were drawn to.

The two of them had bought some small souvenirs -- translucent glowing butterflies made of cherry blossoms and some tiny dolls in a ceramic dollhouse that went about their daily lives in the cup of Nekohiko's palm as he watched, absorbed, at their small chores and interactions. Yakabe shared with him his tea candy silently, and Nekohiko was suddenly overwhelmed with gratefulness because he liked silence so much. No questions, no bother. Just quiet.

Nekohiko had washed off his make-up, too. Not like he would want to wear such suffocating stuff on his face beyond the Parade! He still didn't look exactly like his usual self in the watery reflections in the dark pond, but he was no more doll-like either.

An improvement.

"We're here," Yakabe announced when they reached the main bridge over the lake. The mirrory water stretched amidst the luminous plum trees that paled gently in the descending twilight. In the distance, the wooden Shrine rose dramatically from beyond the trees, and its lanterns lent the orchard a mysterious, sacred feeling. "Let's feed the fish and the turtles, Nekohiko. If I Bind the candy into wriggly worms, they will enjoy it."

"Mn."

The two of them waited by the bridge as minutes dragged by.

Yet Abihiko still wasn't here. More nervous by the minute, Nekohiko threw glances around. It was dark soon. There would be the famed fireworks from the foreign lands and the starburst performance afterward, with music and a beautiful play in the skies. He didn't want to miss them.

He didn't want Abihiko to miss them, too.

And he didn't want Yakabe and Kazuragi to stay apart from one another when the fireworks began. Such pretty events were meant for people to enjoy together with their loved ones, not apart... Yet because Abihiko and Nekohiko were too far from each other, so had to be the Sky Lords who chaperoned them.

With deepening ache, Nekohiko realized he wanted to see the light performance alongside Abihiko. Just the two of them. No Yakabe. No Kazuragi.

Why?

...just so. No reason.

"Kazuragi sent me a Wind Whisper saying Abihiko is very, very annoying and has spent almost the entire afternoon on this elaborate... stunt to impress you with," Yakabe said with a sigh.

"Oh. I can imagine." Nekohiko shuddered but lightened up from the mention. "I hope Lord Kazuragi survived that."

"Mn. And I believe he did." Yakabe nodded to the side where the trees began. Amidst the many spectators lounging or sitting on the grass, lifting their heads to the skies in anticipation of the light show, there stood Lord Kazuragi, waving at Yakabe with all his might.

"We won't be far, so if something dangerous happens, we will come to you," Yakabe told Nekohiko as he passed him on the bridge toward his husband. "You two can be together just the two of you. Enjoy."

The way it sounded...

Yakabe didn't mean this was a date, did he?

A shade of embarrassment warmed Nekohiko's chest. "Or perhaps we can watch the fireworks all four of us together?"

"Ah." Yakabe leaned in with a knowing smile. "Not to be weird, but I really want to be with my love for this. I hope it's not too selfish for us to want privacy? And you two kids can surely behave while we're away?"

...

Wide-eyed, Nekohiko nodded aggressively. "Of course, of course."

Besides, perhaps, privacy was necessary for him and Abihiko as well. Because once Nekohiko laid his eyes on Abihiko who rushed toward him from beyond Kazuragi, he felt that privacy was exactly what they needed.

Not just from Yakabe or Kazuragi. From the entire world.

Nekohiko recoiled from the brightest, most screaming-red, actually-glowing-and-sparkling outfit that ever existed. Oh, one's eyes could go blind just from staring too long at this dress!

And the dress's cut... so flamboyantly girlish.

As his eyes grew used to the utter shock that was the outfit, he finally saw the hair... and the accessories... and the person who wore all this pile of girl paraphernalia.

"Hii! My name is Abihime, pleased to meet you!"

Abihiko hadn't bothered to paint his face, though, but with his features being so naturally exquisite, when he dressed up fully as a girl, some doubts now entered Nekohiko's mind regardless of him knowing Abihiko's actual gender.

Besides, his behavior really did not help.

"O-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO!" Hiding his face behind his round fan, Abihiko fluttered his eyelashes at Nekohiko teasingly. "Look, I am girl. Such girl. Very authentic. Although no make-up, sorry. But I see you're not wearing any either, so..."

Sensing an unwelcome headache setting in, Nekohiko gave Abihiko a hard look. "It's all right, Abihime, you don't need one to pass as a girl."

Abihiko blushed but didn't take the bait.

However, he did bit down his lower lip as though to conceal its obvious redness from sight.

Instead of dwelling on this small vulnerability, he swirled to show off his dress in full, and the vibrant monstrosity once again seared Nekohiko's eyes. Then Abihiko swung his hair majestically left and right and pouted while fanning himself as though mimicking some exaggerated girl behavior Nekohiko hadn't really seen any girls do.

Ever.

Actually, on behalf of all the girls and women in the world, Nekohiko felt somewhat offended.

"...but... why?" Nekohiko asked.

After Abihiko was done posing, he jabbed an elbow in Nekohiko's side. "Just because. Now, how does it feel, to be confused about your best friend, huuh? Wanted to show you what it feels like, dummy! You like it? Do you?"

First of all, how lame! Was it simply to prove to Nekohiko something?

And second of all, --

"...I am not confused. About what?"

"About my girl-ness. Since you're so into girls, doesn't my get-up confuse you now? Like your boyishness confuses me sometimes?"

"..."

Abihiko glanced up pensively because the festival's first firebirds had launched into the sky to see if the darkness was enough to show off the true beauty of the fireworks that would follow. A few of the people in the background made excited noises, but none of it translated to Nekohiko.

"Nothing," Abihiko finally uttered and stepped away from him. "Nevermind. It's all right now."

"So anyway..." Nekohiko cleared his throat. "Did you find the boy you like in this town like you wanted when we first came here? I saw you with him today. You seemed so happy. After the whole week of sulking, you were cheerful at last."

"Eh? Who?" Abihiko winced, then hummed in remembrance. "Oh, that. No, I don't think I even know his name."

How wonderful.

Nekohiko peered at the pond in which the reflections of the firebirds limned so gorgeously against the watery black. His fingers clutched his fan so hard, he felt the wooden frame splintering in his hold.

"I suppose your acquaintance with him was mostly confined to your mouths and tongues. Naturally."

Abihiko gave him an unreadable look. The first of the foreign fireworks blasted off in the air with a needy whistle, then a sparkly clash that resounded all across the orchard.

"I was only checking something," Abihiko said.

"In his mouth," Nekohiko repeated, grim.

"It's only a kiss. Doesn't mean anything, especially when it's done because you're curious or confused. It's just like a... science experiment."

"You are a very hard-working kiss scientist, I must say."

Suddenly, Abihiko leaned to him and a trace of some strange perfume clouded Nekohiko from this proximity. Abihiko's dress smelled like the Ladies' Salon, but underneath it, Nekohiko could still discern the distinct scent of Abihiko's own skin and his hair.

It was strange that he could find comfort in Abihiko's scent, but he did. This was the smell he associated with safety. Every night, he leaned into this scent and let it lull himself to sleep.

If there was any other scent in the world that screamed "home" at him, he didn't know it.

"Neko, may I kiss you?"

Nekohiko stilled.

Even his breath did. Even his heart -- for the briefest of seconds.

Yet Nekohiko found no shame or reluctance emerging inside him. He was perfectly calm and collected. And curious and confused, too -- exactly as Abihiko had just said.

But he wondered if, to Abihiko, his emotionless face looked as though he didn't care.

He did care. He cared a lot.

"Why?" he asked.

Abihiko's eyes flicked to the side. On their dark depths, the shimmer of the blue and purple firework blossom glinted so mesmerizingly, Nekohiko couldn't look away.

"To... check something." Abihiko brightened up and even forced a grin on his lips. "After all, you don't like boys and I don't like girls, so what's the harm in checking what it would feel like? Unless you're scared it might do something intense to you... The forbidden, secret desires it would evoke, ah!"

Nekohiko kept staring at how Abihiko laughed. Abihiko was a good actor and could hide his nervousness well.

But perhaps not tonight.

"You may," he whispered and leaned forward on his own.

Abihiko only managed to open his eyes wider before Nekohiko placed his mouth on his.

Their lips met.

A cool, dry touch. They both must have been breathing unevenly right before it, making their mouths drier than they usually were, so now it felt so unprepared and amateurish. Which, Nekohiko guessed, it was.

He had never kissed anyone in his life. But he didn't find it a hard thing to do. Abihiko had kissed him once already, a couple of years back, and it didn't mean a thing back then either.

Since they touched hands all the time, how was this any different?

Yet something was different.

Nekohiko's senses had gone overexcited from his nervousness. He ended up feeling much more than he usually did at touching Abihiko.

Something like... a charge...? Or maybe a slight burn. A ticklish, bizarre intensity he wasn't familiar with.

Abihiko's eyelashes dropped a little as he slowly traded a warm breath in between their slightly parted lips. He shifted a bit lower so that their noses stopped squishing against one another, and suddenly, their mouths felt as though fitting together like pieces of one puzzle.

Both their lips quivered and fumbled unsurely against each other, yet they fit in so well at the same time...

Abihiko wanted to lean forward as though to deepen this frustrating kiss.

And Nekohiko couldn't bear it any longer--

He couldn't even decide if it was pleasant or not. Too much stimulation! Too staggering!

He couldn't even think clearly!

Before Abihiko made his move to reach toward him, Nekohiko stumbled backward and broke their timid contact.

His breaths were disrupted and his heart pounded.

Yet he well knew his face showed none of that. Partly because he felt it -- the paralysis of cold shock that descended upon his body.

Abihiko held his trembling fingers to his mouth, staring over them at Nekohiko in surprised ache.

"Well?" Nekohiko asked, groggy. "You checked?"

Abihiko looked so lost and... panicked... as though slapped unjustly.

His skin reddened starting from his ears and spreading to his cheeks. He covered his face with his hands.

"Well...?" Nekohiko stepped toward him, bashful.

What did you check?

Are you still confused?

Can you tell me?

"Don't," Abihiko said when Nekohiko neared him. "I..."

He tried to speak, but the emotions caught him off-guard.

"I need to think. I can't... I'm sorry," he threw to him as he ran off the bridge and to the trees.

Too stunned to react, Nekohiko watched him go, his stupid paper fan completely destroyed in his fingers. He glared at the split handle from which splinters had dug into the flesh of his palms, then slowly dumped the bits of it into the pond's water upon which the gorgeous reflections of fireworks bloomed by turns.

Damn it.

Damn it all. How he hated all this!

Matter-of-fact, he was busy pulling the bloody splinters out of his hand when Kazuragi's resolute footsteps thundered by behind him in the direction of the plum grove in which Abihiko had just disappeared.

"That brat. Where the hell did he run off to?" Kazuragi swore under his breath. "Can't even allow me to enjoy the fire show with his stupid teenage drama! Hells, I hate teenagers."

Nekohiko kept mute even though, usually, he would apologize to Kazuragi for ruining his evening in this manner. Yet now he didn't give a damn.

In fact, he was very close to being angry. And he didn't even know at what. Or whom. Or why.

The subtle footsteps of Yakabe stopped a few spans away.

Patient. Waiting.

Nekohiko gulped down a knot in his throat. "I hate it," he said under his breath. "What changed? Why can't Abihiko be normal with me like before?"

"He will come around," Yakabe told him. "He's just confused, but it will go away sooner or later."

"Confused about what?!" Nekohiko snapped. Why did people keep repeating that?

"Ah, it's just this age. A lot of things are bewildering and incomprehensible. One has to get used to them first, and discover themselves in the process." Thoughtful, Yakabe stepped closer. "He's mainly just terrified of realizing he has a crush on a girl when he had never had one before. The problem is -- you are not a girl and you are intentionally giving him a hard time because he thinks there's something wrong with him now. When there isn't. I think it's appropriate that he is very confused in this situation, don't you?"

Nekohiko blinked a blur out of his eyes, watching the beautiful trails of Bound lights roar across the skies with thunderous music wafting on from the Shrine. The play had begun. It seemed he'd missed the best parts of the light show already.

And so did Yakabe, Kazuragi, and Abihiko.

What a lame night.

"I just didn't want him to stop being my friend if he realizes he has a crush on me as a boy. At least, if I'm a girl, he can doubt it and keep... being friends with me regardless. He might not be attracted to a girl at all."

"I think it's a bit too late for that," Yakabe said softly.

Nekohiko wanted to reply, but a sudden shift in the environment shut him up.

It wasn't Binding, either, because Binding auras would be too obvious for him to miss. No. It was something far more disturbing than that.

All the spectators on the banks of the Shrine pond had stopped watching the light show above and turned their faintly-pale faces toward Nekohiko and Yakabe.

And though it was too far to see them, Nekohiko could feel the utter lack of humanity or thought behind those eyes.

A shiver crossed him as he drew back only to bump into Yakabe. Yakabe's hand squeezed his shoulder as he pushed Nekohiko behind himself.

Wait... but... was this an assassination attempt? How so? Why?

It made no sense when the Lord of the Skies was right beside him, too! What were these non-Binders hoping for?

Very slowly, the spectating people -- dozens of them! -- dragged up to their feet. And seeing their rigid, crackling motions, Nekohiko understood something else.

Not just non-Binders.

Puppets.

All these people gathered around the pond who had laughed and cheered at the skies mere moments ago were puppets. That was why he or the others couldn't feel them before.

Puppets weren't made with Binding, and thus, were untraceable.

Instantly annoyed, Nekohiko wanted to pull the most obvious Nagare attacking technique. But Yakabe stopped him.

"Ghouls," he whispered, calm. "These are corpse puppets, Nekohiko. Attacking them is moot. And there are so many at once -- which means that at least a couple of Dark Sisters are somewhere close. Focus on them, not on their prey."

Dark Sisters...

If Nekohiko's rage could flare up any higher, it would only be at the mention of these horrible people. Their grim work he had personally encountered on several occasions.

Saho.

Hachiro.

Kusaki.

And Abihiko, last year.

Oh, he didn't feel that much scared of the Dark Sisters now. In fact, he rather felt a tinge of glee nudging deep inside him at the thought.