Shousetsu Bang*Bang no. 47: On the Air

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"226: Love is in the Air," by Nijiiro Sumi
"The Folklorist," by kiyala and illustrated by pie派
"Bedtime Stories," by Yukiyama Hibana
"Riverfront Blues," by Aosora Hikaru
"No Safety Net Required," by deokman
"Like All Good Stories," by Shiawasena Ryokō-sha
"zero six four eight three are you listening," by shukyou and illustrated by beili
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"Dragon Prince on the Sea," by Midorin

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Published by http://shousetsubangbang.com, © 2005-2014.

226: Love is in the Air

The Folklorist

Bedtime Stories

Riverfront Blues

No Safety Net Required

Like All Good Stories

zero six four eight three are you listening

Members Only

Dragon Prince on the Sea

About Shousetsu Bang*Bang

226: Love is in the Air

by Nijiiro Sumi (虹色 墨)

PROLOGUE.

There are millions of signals passing through you right now.

They're invisible. They have no mass and no weight, and yet they're real, they have significance. They do not cause you any harm--probably. We've been using them as a form of communication for over a hundred years. I can decipher them with a very simple piece of equipment.

--you give loooove a bad naaaame--
--today's guest is Reza Aslan, author of--
--what, who cares if, we all know that--
--and I will wait, I will wait for you--

I'm talking, of course, about radio. But the world of AM/FM radio, which most--or all, since you're listening to me on the radio right now, unless of course you're listening to the podcast version--which most of you are familiar with, is only a very, very tiny part of the radio spectrum. A grain of sand on an infinite beach, if you will. For the rest, you will need a shortwave radio, or a scanner, or something of the like.

--at the 1400 block of 29th Ave, can I get a plate--
--need assist at 829 Hearst--
--Bravo. Niner. Zero. Zero. Bravo. Foxtrot. Golf--

And all of these signals are passing through us, all the time, every day. Some of them are passing through you right now. They're flying through your living room, passing through your chair, your floor, or pet, if you have one.

Which was why it seemed perfectly reasonable to Alex Ross that he monitor them. After all, they're in his space, his life, his home, his body. He feels a sort of ownership of them, or at least a feeling that they don't belong to anyone else. They're, well, they're free. So he listens to them. He started out with an AM transistor radio that his father gave him for his sixth birthday, then moved on to a scanner that he purchased with carefully saved allowance money. Now he has all kinds of doodads and gadgets: flea market walkie-talkies, shortwave radios, police scanners--anything that can pick up a frequency beyond the AM/FM spectrum, he's got it. Although he has a regular radio, too.

But that's not the story we're bringing you today. Or at least, it's not the whole story. This is a love story, actually, made possible through radio. And radio monitoring.

From KQED San Francisco and Public Radio International, I'm Irene Steele. Most weeks on our radio program, we choose a theme and bring you a variety of stories on that theme; this week, however, we're devoting our entire program to just one story: the unusual love story of Alex Ross, brought to him through the very waves that are bringing you this show now. This is Our Ordinary Stories, and our program today, Love is in the Air. Act One, Love Connection. Act Two, Over and Out. Note that this story does contain explicit sexual content, so if you're listening with children, well, you might want to reconsider that.

ACT ONE. LOVE CONNECTION.

Alex Ross doesn't really strike you as the kind of person who'd go in for espionage or radio monitoring or phreaking-with-a-ph or anything like that. He's a skinny white guy with a receding hairline, of average height, with brown hair and brown eyes. He's near-sighted and usually wears glasses. He works as a dentist at the Kaiser Permanente in Walnut Creek, California. He's a good dentist, the patients like him, his coworkers like him. He doesn't give people guilt about not flossing enough, which is a big one.

But when he goes home, that's when the fun starts. The first thing he does when he gets home, usually, is turn on the radio. Not for music; the shortwave radio.

ALEX: I keep one by my bed. Well, I keep one in every room in the apartment, actually, some kind of radio, and when I get home I'll turn on the one in the kitchen and keep it on while I cook dinner, eat, do the dishes, whatever, and if I go into the living room then I'll turn on the one in there. The only room where I don't have one is the bathroom. I used to, but then I felt like, well, I should draw some kind of boundary, right? [laughs]

And that's how Alex spends his evenings, usually. Instead of watching TV or reading a book or a magazine, he sits next to a scanner or a shortwave radio. He has a book of frequencies to choose from, if he feels like listening to something specific--emergency response, maybe, or pirate radio--and other times he'll just sit and turn the dial back and forth, trying to pick up something new. Channel surfing.

The day our story begins, one day in the year 2000, he decided to try something new. Or something old, rather: that scanner that he'd purchased with his allowance money all those years ago.

ALEX: And back then, you could actually use those scanners to listen to cordless phone conversations. Like, it was actually in the instruction manual and everything. And I did that, of course, when I was a kid, listened to the neighbors gossiping about their marriages or whatever. But it wasn't very exciting to me as a kid, and it's still not terribly exciting to me as an adult. It's not like the movies, you know, people mostly have really boring conversations, and that's not the point of, of monitoring for me. So I hadn't listened to anyone's phone conversation in, oh, years. Years and years. But that day, for whatever reason, I guess maybe I was feeling nostalgic or something, and I was like, yeah, let's do this, let's see if it still works. And to my surprise, I picked something up right away.

IRENE: And you knew it was a neighbor?

ALEX: It had to be, because the scanner would only pick up cordless phone signals from within, like, 300 feet or something like that. So it had to be someone in the same apartment building.

IRENE: And what was he saying?

ALEX: He was having phone sex.

IRENE: [laughs] No way!

I did warn you, by the way, that this would have explicit sexual content.

ALEX: Yes, way! And I knew I should change the channel, but I--well, it was just so shocking, and it was hot, okay. He had this really deep, sexy voice, and he was saying things like "Yeah, baby, fuck me harder, like that, unh, god you feel so good." Okay, it sounds totally stupid when I do it, but it was hot at the time, it was practically right in my ear. It was like having the guy in my own apartment.

IRENE: So you...?

ALEX: So I ended up listening to the whole thing, although there wasn't a lot of it left. He was pretty close to, to coming. I tried to imagine where he was, in bed maybe, sweating all over the sheets? Was he doing it in the dark, or did he have the lights on? What did he look like? And then he came, and that was, that was super hot, and then there was a little bit of sleepy goodnights, you know, goodbye, I miss you, that sort of thing that people do with their lovers on the phone, and I was so turned on I had to run to the bathroom and jack off.

IRENE: [laughing too hard to comment]

Alex wrote down the frequency in his little book, but as soon as he did, he was a little stumped. And to understand why, there's something you have to know about people who do radio monitoring as a hobby: they're not after power. They're not even after knowledge, necessarily. That's the main source of confusion for anyone who's not into radio monitoring; that was the main source of my confusion, for instance. I can't imagine knowing, for instance, that an emergency is happening somewhere close by, hearing it on the radio, and not wanting to be there. I can't imagine hearing a classified military transmission and not wanting to know what it says. But Alex hears this kind of stuff all the time and doesn't feel particularly moved to do anything about it. It's enough for him to just be able to keep track of all the signals flying around his space, through his body. It's enough for him to be able to hear it going on and feel like he's there, to just be part of this secret, invisible world of radio frequencies. Until now, that is.

ALEX: See, the thing was, I could hear both sides of their conversation, you know? And so I could hear that it was two men having phone sex, and I knew that meant there was another gay man in the building. Which, I mean, not like we're aliens or something, it's not like it's hard to find gay men in the Bay Area. [laughs] But this was Walnut Creek, not like, the Castro or something, and also, I am the worst gay man in the world, like, I don't have a lot in common with other gay men, I was never into clubbing, I like reading comic books and watching crime procedurals, I'm a dentist for Chrissake! So it was just kind of, I dunno, it meant something, that there was another gay man in this building.

Of course, he had little to no way of finding out who this mysterious neighbor was, so Alex more or less gave that up as a lost cause. But it was hard to resist the temptation. He'd get home, turn on his scanners and radios, and then he'd find himself twisting to that frequency that had allowed him to listen in on his neighbor's call. Nothing, of course; the chances that he'd be on the phone again were incredibly slim. But then it occurred to Alex that if this were some kind of long-distance relationship, then they might schedule their calls to be at the same time every week, or even every day. So Alex tried tuning in at around eight o' clock, which was when he'd caught the call last time.

But unlike last time, this time they were having an argument.

ALEX: It didn't sound like typical long-distance stuff. Not that I know what that's like, but this was more like, deep stuff, stuff that I think they would've argued about when they were in the same room. Things like, you've changed, we don't have the same conversations anymore. And my guy--I thought of him as "my guy," okay--would say things like, I'm still the same person, I just think about some things differently, and the other guy, his boyfriend I guess, would say something back like, I never really understood why you wanted to do this in the first place, I don't think I can deal.

IRENE: And it didn't feel voyeuristic at all, listening in on their argument like this?

ALEX: [brief pause] Well, you have to remember that I'd been listening to police scanners and emergency response for a while, so this wasn't any more or less voyeuristic than that. What made it different was knowing that one of these guys was in my apartment building. That made it--I don't know, that made it more real, I guess.

The next day was Saturday, and Alex went about his business. He went to the grocery store, cooked his next week's worth of meals, and did his radio thing. Because it was Saturday, he wasn't sure whether or not his neighbor would be having his usual phone call, and sure enough, he didn't. Alex shrugged it off, figured he'd catch up on Monday, and did his laundry. And ran into the guy in the laundry room.

ALEX: The funny thing was--or I guess it's an obvious thing now--is that I'd seen him around. Like, just around, like I'd pass him in the hallway or whatever, and I'd be like, oh, there's that guy, I think he's new to the complex, he's so dreamy. Just, tall dark and handsome, you know? The muscles, the shaved head--mmm!

IRENE: You found him very attractive.

ALEX: Who wouldn't? But it never occurred to me that that was the guy, until we met in the laundry room.

IRENE: How did you know it was him?

ALEX: The voice. We'd never spoken to each other before, just passed each other by the mailboxes or whatever, but that day I took my laundry downstairs and he was already there, sorting his whites from his darks or whatever, and I put my laundry down and he said, "Oh, you don't want to use that machine, it ate my quarters earlier," and I knew that voice. I knew that voice! I thought I was going to get a hard-on in the laundry room from that voice!

IRENE: [laughing] So what did you do?

ALEX: Nothing! Well, I mean, I think I thanked him or something, probably sounded like a stammering idiot while I did it, and I moved my clothes...and I think I probably took longer than I needed to about it, you know, just trying to spend more time in the laundry room with him. He started his laundry and he went upstairs, and it was so hard not to follow him up.

IRENE: To find out where he lived.

ALEX: Yeah, to like, stalk him to his apartment. I kind of argued with myself about it for a few minutes, and it's a good thing I did because he came down pretty quickly, with a piece of paper that said OUT OF ORDER on it, like just a piece of printer paper written in pen. He put that on the broken washer and went upstairs. And I didn't follow him.

IRENE: But you were tempted.

ALEX: Oh, I was so tempted.

But as you can imagine, Alex kept monitoring after that. It became part of his routine, almost, to come home, make dinner, monitor a few other channels maybe, but at eight o'clock he'd get out the old scanner and tune into his neighbor's phone conversation. Sometimes it was sexy, and Alex responded the way a red-blooded man might when listening to a sexy phone call. Other times, they were arguments.

IRENE: When do you think you fell in love with him?

ALEX: I don't know. There's no, like, one moment, one phrase or sentence that I can point to and say, "This is it, this is when I realized that I was in love with him." It was just, listening to him talk about how his internship was going, the things he was learning, the things he missed about Cambridge and the things he loved about the Bay Area. He always sounded really...genuine, I think was the big thing. Like, I remember once he talked about going to Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39, which I hate by the way. It's just so touristy and there's nothing really interesting there and it's all just souvenir shops selling sweaters and overpriced crap. But this guy, he was like, I went to Fisherman's Wharf and it was such a beautiful day except for the wind, it was kind of cold, but I had clam chowder in a bread bowl and that was so good, it kept me warm. And another time he talked about some racist comment that someone had made to him, which he would've had every right to be really angry about, but instead he was just like, I feel bad for that man who has to live with such anger in his heart. He seemed kind of unreal, really, too good to be true. And he said really sweet things to his boyfriend too, like, the usual things like I love you and I miss you, but also things like, I'm so grateful to have you in my life, I know things have been really difficult. Things like, thank you for supporting me, and I hope you know that I'll always support you too, or even just random compliments, like, you're really good at this thing, XYZ, da-da-da. Like, he didn't suffer from that usual guy problem of being really unable to talk about his feelings. And all these things I was getting to know about him, it was kind of like, I'd found a cheat code for getting to know someone. I didn't have to do any work, ask the right questions or anything. I just had to turn on my radio and listen.

Things might have gone on like his indefinitely, except that then the neighbor and his boyfriend broke up. The neighbor's name is Jamal, by the way--Alex had learned it by then--and the boyfriend's name was Gary. Not that Gary's name is very important.

ALEX: I didn't hear the breakup itself, actually. They must have broken up at a different time, or maybe it happened via email or I don't even know what. But the eight o'clock calls just, like, stopped all of a sudden. I thought it was me at first, like, maybe something was wrong with my scanner or the frequency had suddenly changed. I tried different channels for a while, and I almost gave up, but then one day--it was a little earlier than usual, I think--I tried it and Jamal was talking to his sister, explaining how yeah, they broke up, and then he said that things hadn't really been the same ever since he went back to school, blah blah blah. And then his sister asked, "So are you going to ask out that cute guy you've been talking about?" And I of course was like, what cute guy? And Jamal was like, no, I don't even know if he's gay, and the sister was like, you should just ask him out! Worst thing that happens is he says no or he's straight or whatever, and you don't have to wonder anymore.

IRENE: So what did you feel?

ALEX: Well, that was kind of when I realized that I was being pathetic. Like, I realized then that I'd been kind of secretly hoping that they would break up and I would swoop in and ask him out and we'd live happily ever after. But the reality was nothing like that. The reality was, he'd just ended a very long-term relationship--like, they'd been together for at least three years, because that was how long he'd been back in school--and we didn't actually know each other, and I'd been secretly listening to his phone conversations. I knew all these really intimate things about him, like what he and his boyfriend used to fight about, that his boyfriend's name was Gary, the noises that he made when he came, which coworkers at his internship he secretly disliked. That was a huge invasion of privacy, and it wasn't like I could keep that a secret from him forever, even if by some freak chance we did end up going out. So I didn't have a chance with him, really, and I shouldn't even listen to his conversations anymore. So I turned off the scanner right then and I just, like, lay there thinking about my life for a while. And then the next day I joined a gym and got a haircut.

IRENE: Really?

ALEX: Well, not the next day, because the next day I had to work. But, like, that weekend, I got a haircut and I joined the gym and I hired a personal trainer and everything. It wasn't like I'd never had the money for it. I mean, I'm a dentist, and I don't have any kids or dependents or anything. I was just suddenly tired of listening to someone else's life and not really being in charge of my own.

And to prove it, Alex made himself a profile on an online dating site. He got a few messages from people who obviously just wanted casual sex, which he deleted. He accepted a coworker's invitation to a birthday party that he would normally have blown off. The party was boring and nobody he knew was there. He even went out, one weekend, with a few college friends who still did the whole clubbing thing, and he even successfully picked someone up. But even that didn't go as planned, but I'll let Alex tell you in his own words, when we get back from our break. And it is explicit. Let me repeat that: explicit. So if you're listening with children, please bear that in mind. There will be genitals, and those genitals are going into orifices.

MUSIC: "I JUST CALLED TO SAY I LOVE YOU" - Stevie Wonder

Coming Up, Act Two of our radio show, Love is in the Air. Alex and Jamal finally meet in person...and what happens after that? That's in a minute. San Francisco Public Radio and Public Radio International, when our program continues.

ACT TWO. OVER AND OUT.

It's Our Ordinary Stories, and I'm Irene Steele. Today on our program we're devoting the entire episode to one radio-related love story, that of Alex Ross and his neighbor, Jamal. Alex likes to monitor radio waves for a hobby: not just the AM/FM radio waves that you and I know about, but everything from encoded military transmissions to emergency dispatchers. He has all kinds of gadgets and doodads to help him with this, including an old scanner that allows him to listen to his neighbors' telephone conversations. He's been listening to the phone conversations of his neighbor, Jamal, whom he's maybe fallen a little in love with. Jamal did just break up with his boyfriend, which you might think would be a prime time for Alex to swoop in and declare his feelings, but then there's the whole problem where he's been invading Jamal's privacy by secretly listening to his phone calls. You see how that might be an obstacle.

Instead, Alex started going to the gym, made an online dating profile, and even went clubbing with some old friends. The year is 2000, and this is how that night of clubbing turned out.

ALEX: Clubbing was never my scene, not even when I was a teenager, not even when I was a college student. But I was like, heeeyy, let's get back out there, stop being pathetic and listening to your neighbor having phone sex with his long distance boyfriend, you know, have some fun. So we were dancing, drinking, dancing some more, and there was this one guy who was probably, like, ten years younger than me, I don't even want to think about it. He's all blonde and twinky with these big plush lips made for sucking cock. We danced together for a while and then we went out back.

IRENE: To have sex.

ALEX: Yeah. There were a couple other guys out there already, mostly giving each other handjobs, but this guy just dropped to his knees and opened up my pants like he did this every night of the week, which maybe he did. That was pretty hot, and I was drunk and starting to get really into this, like yeah, I can go out and have a good time and get sucked off in an alleyway, I can get behind this. And he got my cock out and he was sucking on it, and it was so good, I'd forgotten what it was like to get a really good blowjob, with just the right amount of suction and wetness and what have you. Like, I'm sorry, you're a woman, you don't know what it's like. [laughs] Anyway, it was really, really good, a little bit rough, little bit of teeth, and he could take it down really deep, like all the way down, like a porn star. I felt like a porn star, like I'm living the gay man's lifestyle, Showtime-style. Then he reached up and like, dug a knuckle in right behind my balls, where it feels really good, and I went off like a rocket and fell on top of him.

IRENE: [laughing] You actually fell?

ALEX: Bam. Like, my knees just gave out. I apologized, of course, apologized a lot, and he didn't seem injured or anything, but it was clear he was pissed at me. I didn't even get a chance to touch him or get him off or anything, he just went back inside, probably to find someone who wouldn't come early and then break his ribs by falling on top of him.

IRENE: And then what did you do?

ALEX: I pulled up my pants and went home. I kind of wanted to go to sleep.

That was the last time Alex went clubbing with his friends. And this whole time he was on this self-improvement kick, Alex kept monitoring, too. That'd been his hobby Before Jamal--imagine that with a capital B and a capital J, if you will--and it was still his hobby. He still wanted to keep tabs on all those signals and waves flying around in his space, through his body. And for a while that was enough, to listen to his usual emergency channels and pirate radio channels and everything. But he knew that his old scanner was in the closet, the one that could listen in on his neighbor's phone conversations. He wondered how Jamal was doing, if he'd asked out that cute guy. Or if he'd gotten back together with Gary.

So then, one evening maybe a month or two after he'd turned over a new leaf, he dug the scanner out of the closet. He told himself he was finding someone else's phone conversations to listen in on, not Jamal's, but that was a lie. He twisted over to Jamal's frequency like it was a compulsion, like he couldn't help himself. But there was nothing. Jamal wasn't on the phone. Why would he be? He didn't have regular phone conversations with Gary anymore, and he was unlikely to have such regular phone calls with his sister.

ALEX: And after that, it felt safe, kinda, to start listening again, figuring I was gonna catch dead air every time. So I did, and yeah, I didn't really hear anything much. And I saw him in the building every now and then, usually from a distance. We ran into each other once again in the laundry room, no big, just a "hi" there and I took my stuff upstairs feeling pretty proud of myself. And then I turned on the scanner, so that I could find something to listen to while I was folding my laundry, and he was talking to his sister, telling her about how he'd just run into the "cute guy" in the laundry room again and he'd taken one of his shirts.

IRENE: Oh my God, the cute guy was you.

ALEX: It was totally me! [laughs] I never would have guessed, I mean, I don't think of myself as cute at all, you know? But thank God he goes for the skinny, nerdy types, I don't know. And there he is telling his sister that he knows which apartment I'm in now--because he'd followed me, when I took my clothes upstairs--and that he'd taken my Green Lantern t-shirt and was going to claim that it accidentally got mixed up in my laundry somehow as a pretext for knocking on my door. Even though we hadn't been sharing machines at all. It was a totally crazy idea.

IRENE: And this whole time you thought you were the only one with crazy ideas.

ALEX: Yeah! But a few minutes later, the radio was dead and someone was knocking! I knew it had to be him, so I ran around and turned off all my scanners and radios real quick, because I just had this really intense panic that he was going to hear my radio monitoring stuff and realize that I'd been listening to his phone conversations. And then I thought, oh no, what if he sees them and knows what they're for? So then I had to shove them all the closet. Really far-fetched, I know, but I wasn't exactly rational at the time. So when I answered the door I was probably kind of out of breath, and meanwhile he was standing there looking like a god or something. An Adonis. And he was like, "I have your shirt," and I was like, "I know," just blurted that out. He looked kind of startled, but he handed me my shirt and then I was more like, just blurting stuff out. "Do you want to go out sometime?" He said yes, thank God, and without even making fun of me.

And so began their dating life. But Alex, as you can imagine, still had to be very careful. He never invited Jamal into his home, for example, making up excuses that it was very messy, when really he didn't want Jamal to find his monitoring equipment--which, remember, was in every room. He was deathly afraid that Jamal would see it and somehow deduce what it was for, or ask awkward questions.

ALEX: But the really hard part was not saying anything that I wasn't supposed to know. Because I knew everything. I knew the name of his last ex-boyfriend and his sister and what he was doing at the internship, and on these dates I had to pretend like I didn't know, and I had to ask the right first-date questions. What do you like to do, where are you from, where did you go to school, what kind of music do you listen to, when in reality I wanted to ask him about his big thoughts. Like, what kind of difference do you want to make in the world? Why did you get with Gary in the first place, that guy sounds way not good enough for you. What's going on with your mom that your sister never really wants to talk about on the phone? But that's not first date stuff. What's not even third date stuff. That's like, been dating for four months stuff.

IRENE: So why did you keep going through with it? Why didn't you tell him right away, why did you keep up this farce? Or why go on the dates at all?

ALEX: Well, I couldn't just not go. I was the one who asked him out after all, and I...I really wanted to date him. He was smart, and funny, and kind, besides being really hot. He was the total package, and I just wanted some of that for myself. For a while. For as long as it lasted.

And Alex did mess up. Once, he called Jamal and asked if he wanted to get lunch at a Mexican restaurant that he knew Jamal liked, but Jamal hadn't told him about it yet. Another time, he made a reference that Harvard that he wasn't supposed to know about. And he knew that Jamal was allergic to eggplant.

ALEX: Each time I was able to make up some kind of reason, like oh, lucky guess, or saying that he'd forgotten that he told me, but it just. Kept. Happening. I was starting to wake up in the middle of the night, it stressing me out so much. I kept drifting off in the middle of the day. I couldn't even really enjoy our dates because I just kept thinking about how it was going to end.

IRENE: Did you ever think about ending it first? Just to get it over with?

ALEX: I did. A lot. The longer it went on, the more I started to fantasize about just having it out. It'd just be such a relief, to have him just...punch me and walk out.

IRENE: And how long did this go on?

ALEX: Two or three months? Three months, I think. Yeah. Three months. Maybe four.

Of course, their relationship had a tentative due date anyway, which was the end of Jamal's internship. Alex thought if he could just hang on until then, he could let that take care of things. Jamal would move back to Massachusetts, and things could go back to the way they were before. He'd just have to be more careful. But then Jamal got a job offer in Oakland, just a few miles away from Walnut Creek.

ALEX: And that was when I knew I'd have to do something. Say something. Because there was no reason for Jamal not to take that offer--he really liked California, his sister lived in Los Angeles, the position was very close to something he wanted, and it wasn't like he had Gary to hold him back anymore. He came to me with this excited news, and on the outside I was excited for him, but on the inside I... I wanted to cry, really. Because I saw the end, it was here.

IRENE: So how were you going to break it to him?

ALEX: It sounds dramatic now, but I decided I was gonna finally have him over and show him the monitoring stuff. If that didn't creep him out in itself--because some people do find it creepy--then I'd show him how I could listen in on neighbors' phone calls. And he'd put two and two together and realize that I'd been listening to his phone calls, and that was how I knew so much about him.

IRENE: Did it work?

ALEX: More or less, yeah. I showed him the radios, the scanners, the book of frequencies. We listened to some emergency dispatches, basic stuff. He seemed interested, but in that polite kind of way that people get when they really are interested, but not burning with curiosity. Then I was just about to go and get the scanner, to show him how I could listen to neighbors' phone calls, when he got to a certain page in the book and froze. I didn't notice at first, because I was talking and I'd been just about to get up, but then he was like, "This is my name."

IRENE: You'd written his name in the book.

ALEX: I'd forgotten about that, actually. And I was like, "Uh, yeah?" or something dumb like that, and he gave me this strange look and showed me the page, and he was like, "Why?" But he knew why, I could tell from how he got angrier and angrier, and he said, "You've been listening to me?" And at first I was like, "No!" which was just knee-jerk and--well, actually, I hadn't listened to his calls since we started dating, actually. That just seemed like... crossing a line, I guess. But that was obviously a lie, so I then I was like, "It was before we started dating." That hardly made things better, but I knew it wouldn't, and Jamal just... he gave me this really long look, didn't say anything, and then just stood up and walked out the door.

IRENE: And you didn't try to stop him.

ALEX: No. I mean, what would've been the point? There just would've been arguing, screaming maybe. I knew I deserved it, and this was what I'd wanted to happen when I invited him over to see my equipment. So I didn't stop him, and I didn't try to call him or anything either. And he didn't try to call me. And then he moved.

IRENE: Back to Massachusetts?

ALEX: I guess, or maybe to Oakland, to be closer to his new job. The rent's cheaper in Oakland anyway.

IRENE: And how did you feel, at this time?

ALEX: I was a mess, honestly. Not sleeping, not eating, crying a lot. I was pathetic. [chuckle] But it hurt, even though I knew it had to happen, that it had always been going to happen. Jamal was the best thing to ever happen to me, but I'd never had a chance with him because of the way we'd met.

IRENE: And by "met" you mean that you'd first encountered him through listening to his phone calls.

ALEX: Right.

IRENE: But it's sort of like...you didn't have any control over that. That was just a confluence of events; you happened to be in that place at that time and happened to catch his phone call. And maybe it was invasive to keep listening, but it seems kind of unfair that that first "meeting," as you called it, ruined any chance of a relationship with Jamal when you had no way of knowing that at the time. Or having any control over it, really.

ALEX: Yeah, but as you said, it was unethical of me to keep listening, right? Maybe if I'd never listened again after that first time, I could date Jamal with a clear conscience. Then again, if I'd turned it off after that first time, I would never have fallen in love with him, either. So who can say?

Time passed, and Jamal did move out. Alex was able to relax a little, get back into his usual routine. He didn't listen in to phone conversations anymore, just sticking to his usual scanning habits. And if Jamal did move to Oakland, well, the Bay Area was a very large place. They'd probably never run into each other. Alex even went on a few more online dates, figuring that as long as he was back on the boat, he might as well see what other fish were in the sea.

But of course, this story has a fairy-tale ending, otherwise we wouldn't have devoted an entire show to it.

ALEX: One day, a year later, I got this knock on my door. And I had no idea who it might be, it wasn't like I'd ordered a pizza or anything.

IRENE: But it was Jamal, of course.

ALEX: Yeah, I checked the peephole. And then I almost didn't open the door, I was so freaked out. I'd just started putting this behind me, moving on, getting back to normal, and then here he was on my doorstep. What, was he coming to yell at me some more? Or to reconcile? But did I really want to reconcile?

IRENE: Did you not want to reconcile?

ALEX: I don't know! I mean, at the time I was just so scared, I'd just started getting back to normal and then here he was. But I looked through the peephole again and it looked like he was getting ready to leave, so I opened the door. He looked at me, looking kinda surprised, and I looked back at him, and finally he said, "I have your shirt."

IRENE: Really?

ALEX: And he did! I guess it was a shirt I must have left at his place, I hadn't even missed it. But he was holding it in his hand, and then he said, "I wasn't sure you'd still live here." And I said something dumb in response, something like, "Yep, here I am," and we stared at each other some more and finally he gave me my shirt. And I blurted out, "Do you want to come in?" And he was like, "I'd love to, actually." So he came in, and we, well, it was awkward, actually. A lot of standing around all like, "You look good" and "How've you been?" and then finally "Well I'm sure you're busy, I'd better get going" but fortunately someone asked the other one out to dinner. And then after that...well, you know the rest of it.

And the rest of it is that Alex Ross and Jamal Warner are still together, almost 15 years later. They even got married, so their names are technically Alex and Jamal Ross-Warner. The story of how they met, how they got together, has become a story that they tell at parties, which is how I heard it. Alex still monitors radio waves. Jamal doesn't, though he indulges it as a quirky hobby of Alex's. Alex doesn't listen to phone conversations anymore, although he'd be hard pressed to, since many people don't even have a landline anymore.

IRENE: Is there a way to listen to cell phone conversations?

ALEX: If there is, I don't want to know about it! I got in enough trouble the first time. [laugh]

IRENE: [laugh] Okay, so, if there's one thing you learned--about love, about radio monitoring, anything--from this experience that you want to share with our listeners, what is it?

ALEX: [long pause] I dunno. I dunno. [pause] I mean, I want to say that I learned that love will always find a way, or that the ends justify the means, but the truth is, well, that's not the truth. I know that I was stupid lucky with this one. Jamal had every right to find me creepy and weird. Hell, he could probably have sued me or called the cops on me. It's like, some idiotic romantic comedy ending that I got here, and I don't advocate that for anyone in real life. So I don't know that I've learned anything I want to pass on other than, count your blessings. Be grateful for the people you have in your life.

MUSIC: "LOVE IS IN THE AIR" - John Paul Young

Our program was produced today by Whitney Bishop, with Leslie Ashmann, Reynard Whitledge, Teresa White, Jessica Chang, Shelly Snow, and Kazuo Yoshihashi. Our senior producer's Persephone Nia. Seth Reynolds is our director of operations. Emile Cox is our production manager. Production help from Ashlea Knight. Scouting help from Kelly Green. Music help from Abha Batra, Mandy Stowell, and Miguel Garcia.

Our Ordinary Stories is distributed by Public Radio International. You know, after that really long interview and putting this episode together, all I really wanted to do was:

ALEX: I pulled up my pants and went home. I kind of wanted to go to sleep.

I'm Irene Steele. Back next week with more of Our Ordinary Stories.

PRI. PUBLIC RADIO INTERNATIONAL.

The Folklorist

by kiyala (樹夜蘭)
illustrated by pie派

It's nearly half past eleven at night. Blake fumbles to turn the alarm on his phone off as he reaches for his radio, flicking it on just in time to catch the ending of the previous program. He smiles as he hears the opening notes of The Folklorist's theme music, abandoning his work at his desk to sit on his bed and listen.

The college radio channel is absolute shit, or it would be if not for this half-hour segment every night. Somebody had begged the radio coordinators to take half an hour off the new age music that usually plays late at night through to the early hours of the morning, and turned it into half an hour of storytelling instead.

Blake doesn't know anything about him, nobody does, just that he sits there for half an hour each night, his voice deep and calming and familiar, and turns folktales from around the world into little radio plays for his audience. It's the most popular segment on the college radio by far, and the Folklorist deserves his popularity. Each one feels like a performance, with relevant sound effects and fitting background music. As far as anybody can tell, he does it all on his own. Blake is in love. He's completely head over heels for the man on the other side of the radio and it's pathetic, he knows it, but he doesn't care.

He'll lie in bed hugging a pillow to his chest as he listens because sometimes, he'll smile at what the Folklorist has to say, or he'll shut his eyes and imagine someone else entirely and either way, he'll need to bury his face into the pillow for a while because he's that kind of ridiculous. At least he doesn't share his dorm room with anyone else. His best friend gives him enough shit as it is.

"Thanks for tuning in, guys. I'm the Folklorist. Welcome to half an hour of what I hope will be good storytelling."

It's what he says every time, and Blake smiles to himself as he listens to the Folklorist reply to the handful of emails he received today before clearing his throat.

"Right, so tonight I'm going to read you 'The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter'. It's a Japanese folk tale from the tenth century. I hope you find that as cool as I do."

Blake's already pressing his face against his pillow with a grin. This story is one he grew up with, his mother narrating it in Japanese and his father taking over, years later, in English. It's probably the very first story he heard about people from space and he knows it's the reason for his massive collection of sci-fi novels in his dorm and back home.

The background music the Folklorist has picked is something beautiful and light, unobtrusive as he begins narrating. Blake lies there listening to the Folklorist. This is what he looks forward to every single week night: learning new stories, or going over old ones. Sometimes people will write in with requests and the Folklorist will research them, to make sure that he does them justice.

By midnight the Folklorist is done, letting the new age music start up again. Blake lies where he is, even deeper in love than he was before, impossible as that might sound. It doesn't matter, though, because he knows that this time, it's completely unrequited, and that's a whole lot better than being in the limbo of uncertainty.

Sam wakes Blake the next morning, as Sam usually does. It's ten o'clock, which means Sam's finished his horrible morning shift at one of the campus cafés. He's brought coffee and bagels with him and there's a very good reason that he is Blake's favourite person in the entire world.

Ignoring Blake's ridiculous crush on Sam, that is. Which is something Blake tries to do as often as possible.

"So how was your radio boyfriend last night?" Sam asks with a grin.

"Shut up." Blake hates how easy it is to make him blush. Sam, on the other hand, seems to enjoy taking advantage of it regularly. Then he smiles to himself, looking down at his coffee cup. "He told one of my favourite stories last night. From when I was a kid."

"Yeah?" Sam grins, stealing Blake's desk chair and pulling it over to his bed. "Tell me about it."

Blake does, getting dressed as he tells Sam his own, less impressive version of The Bamboo Cutter. It's a testament to how comfortable they are with each other that Blake doesn't feel self-conscious as he changes. Sam isn't bothered either, listening intently with a small smile on his face.

"What are the chances that he'd read your favourite story ?" Sam asks, when they're walking to class.

"He probably would have gotten around to it eventually." Blake shrugs. "I mean, if he's telling folk tales from all around the world, he was bound to get to that one."

Sam hums. "Maybe."

"What, you don't agree?"

Sam shrugs this time. "It's the first Japanese folk tale he's told so far, right? Which just happened to be your favourite."

"It also happens to be the oldest recorded Japanese folk tale," Blake replies, trying to ignore the uncomfortable flutter in his stomach. "No one knows it's my favourite anyway. It's not exactly something that comes up."

With a small sigh, Sam nods. "I guess."

"You're being weird, Samir."

"Thought you'd be used to that by now." Sam grins at him, bumping their shoulders together. "Just thought it'd be nice if your crush on the radio guy wasn't one-sided, you know?"

Blake snorts quietly, shaking his head. The last crush Blake had, before the Folklorist, culminated in a drunk makeout session that was amazing, except for the tiny fact that the other guy had no memory of it. Blake would point this out, if not for the fact the other guy was Sam

"I just want to make you happy," Sam says quietly.

"You do, man." Blake wraps an arm around Sam's shoulder and squeezes. It's weird to be this close to Sam right after thinking about that night they kissed, but Blake's been pretty good at ignoring it so far and he's going to ignore it now.

They have most of their classes together and just as he always does, Sam spends a great deal of their Fiction lecture teasing Blake about the Folklorist.

"You should request a story," Sam tells him. "That's what people do, right? If he's already done your favourite, you should keep him on a roll."

"It's not that easy," Blake mutters, even though his mind has already latched on to the idea and probably won't let it go. "He needs to prepare. He can't just do a story at the drop of a hat. He's better, he does his research. Makes sure he gets the proper feel of the story across -- fuck, listen to me. I'm so gone over this guy."

Sam smiles at him. "I think you should request something anyway. It'll be worth the wait."

"Maybe," Blake replies, turning his attention back to their lecturer before she can catch them not paying attention.

That afternoon, he gets back to his room after class and sits down in front if his laptop. He feels like an idiot and it takes him five deleted drafts before he settles on an email to the Folklorist.

Hey,

I'm a big fan of the show and I was wondering if you could read the original Little Mermaid sometime. No rush.
Thanks. Love what you do.

- Blake W.

He hits send before he can agonise over it more. Once it's out of his hands, he turns his attention to his homework and all the readings he has to do.

He'd get Sam to listen to the show too if not for the fact that he has to wake up so early for his café job. Then Sam would know what he's talking about, and why everyone on campus likes the show so much.

One day, he thinks to himself as he starts on his first reading. When Sam doesn't need to wake up so early and they've got the time.

Of course that only leads to Blake thinking about both of them lying in his bed, and before his mind can wander any further down that path, he quickly pushes the thought from his mind and starts his work.

"Thanks for tuning in guys. I'm the Folklorist, and welcome to half an hour of what I hope will be good storytelling," the familiar says over the fading notes of the opening theme.

He pauses for a moment. "Actually, guys, I have a little announcement to make."

Blake sits up in bed, looking over at his radio. The Folklorist has never done announcements before, and Blake listens closely, wondering what he's going to say.

The Folklorist takes a deep breath. It's shaky enough that Blake can hear it over the radio, too. "I'm in love."

It's Blake's turn to take a deep, steadying breath. It shouldn't feel like his entire world is crumbling, but it does anyway.

"I'm in love and I've been in love with him for... years. I don't even know how long. I've never known how to tell him and I'm hoping that this will do, that this can at least be the start of a conversation I've been meaning to have for a long time."

It's strange to hear the Folklorist saying this in his deep, storytelling voice. It doesn't sound scripted, but Blake knows that if he were in that studio, saying those words, his voice would be trembling.

So his best friend doesn't remember making out with him and the Folklorist is in love with someone else. Sure. Great.

"And he requested this, which I think is wonderfully apt," the Folklorist says. "It's my favourite fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. It's a beautifully tragic story about unrequited love and while I hope that none of our love lives are quite as tragic as this, I hope you'll enjoy it all the same, no matter how many times you might have heard it before. Here's The Little Mermaid."

"What," Blake says, staring at his radio.

He listens, his heart pounding as he tries to get his head around this. He gets off the bed and goes back to his laptop. There's a new email in his inbox, a reply to the one he'd sent the Folklorist, and his hands are trembling as he clicks on it.

Blake,

Done. x

He wants to reply, but he doesn't know what to say and he's pretty sure that the Folklorist isn't going to check his mail during the show anyway. Blake wants to demand to know who he is, but he isn't sure that the Folklorist will reply to that at all and, most of all, he just wants to stop worrying about this and enjoy listening to the story.

He must have been preparing this for a while before Blake requested it, which isn't so surprising considering that it's his favourite Andersen fairy tale. He has sound effects for the sea, the ship and the storm, the mermaid's song, and it's all wonderfully put together.

Then he gets to the part of the story where the mermaid loses her voice, and he hesitates.

He continues speaking and his voice isn't as deep as before, it isn't quite as smooth, because Blake can hear a tremble in it and...

And Blake is an idiot.

It's Sam. Sam, who reads the rest of the story in his usual voice, who convinced Blake to request this story in the first place, who--

Who loves Blake.

Oh, Blake is such an idiot.

He paces his room while listening to the rest of the story because he can't stay still, can't keep the grin off his face, and the moment it's over and the Folklorist is bidding them all goodnight in his usual, deep voice, Blake grabs his phone and keys and walks out of his room, barely restraining himself from running all the way down the hall and out the door, so he can go to Sam's building and Sam's room.

He's beaten Sam here, from what he can tell, which means that he should be using his time to figure out what he's going to say, except he can't think, he can't do anything but wait and he isn't even sure whether it's a good or bad thing that he isn't waiting for long before Sam walks down the hall. He freezes when he sees Blake there.

Blake still doesn't know what to say and the first thing that comes out is, "You're a sneaky bastard, Samir."

Sam, who knows Blake well enough to know that this translates into a good thing, grins. "You know me."

"I thought I did. Never knew you were a master storyteller or a dirty fucking liar, you told me that you had to sleep early so you could wake up for that disgustingly early morning job."

"Well, I should," Sam replies. "I just don't. Good thing I spend the first three hours of every morning around a ready supply of coffee, huh?"

Blake laughs, shaking his head. "Get over here."

"I kind of have to. You're standing in front of my door." Sam walks closer, and Blake closes the distance between them and takes hold of his chin.

"For the record," Blake murmurs, "I'm in love with you too."

"Good," Sam breathes, his heavy sigh of relief ghosting over Blake's lips. "I'm really glad."

"I really want to kiss you," Blake tells him, cupping Sam's cheek and bringing him closer so their noses are brushing.

"You should." Sam leans into Blake's touch. "Kiss me, I mean. You should kiss me. I want you to--"

He's about to start rambling and Blake shuts him up with gentle kiss, waiting until Sam returns it before deepening it. They cling to each other in the hallway just outside Sam's dorm room, kissing hungrily, relearning everything from that one drunken night. Blake finds that one spot along Sam's jaw that makes him gasp breathlessly.

"Wait," Sam gasps, pulling away. "You knew -- fuck, you remember that night, don't you?"

"You too?" Blake asks, his eyes going wide. "I was waiting for you to say something the next day but you never did and I just assumed you were too drunk to remember it."

"I was waiting for you," Sam says, "and I came to the same conclusion about you."

"We're idiots," Blake declares and Sam hums in agreement before leaning in for another kiss.

They eventually make it into Sam's room and into his bed, mouths still joined. Sam pulls away, panting softly, with Blake lying beneath him. "I actually need to sleep."

Blake lets his head fall back against the mattress. "Shit, yeah, you do. I'll go--"

"I want you to stay right here," Sam tells him, settling on the bed beside Blake with their legs still tangled. "I want you to be here when I get back from work tomorrow morning, so we can pick up right where we left off."

"You're really twisting my arm there, Samir." Blake grins, pressing a kiss to Sam's forehead. "Good night."

"I love you," Sam murmurs, taking Blake's hand. "So much."

"Love you too."

Blake wakes up when Sam is getting out of bed early the next morning and grumbles softly, quieting when he feels a kiss on his forehead.

"Go back to sleep, I'll be back with coffee in three hours."

"You're my favourite," Blake mumbles, rolling onto his side now that he has the space, dropping back off to sleep.

When Blake wakes up again, Sam's clock tells him that it's nine o'clock. He sits up and stretches, wincing at his own morning breath. Sam isn't going to want to kiss him like this. Getting up, Blake goes over to Sam's desk, where he knows he'll find at least three packs of gum at any given time. He steals one, figuring that Sam won't mind, glad for the way it immediately makes his mouth taste a little better.

Sam returns at about a quarter to ten and he's carrying two cups of coffee as usual. Blake kisses Sam at the door, letting him in so he can put the coffee cups down before pulling him into a deeper kiss.

"Spent all three hours of my shift thinking about what I was going to do to you when I got back," Sam murmurs against Blake's lips. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to make coffee for people when all I could think of was how badly I wanted to be riding your dick?"

"Fuck," Blake growls, walking them both towards the bed.

"I know we should talk," Sam says as he straddles Blake, kissing down his neck. "I know that this is going to change everything, but you wouldn't have come here last night if you didn't want this. You wouldn't be here right now and I wouldn't be here, talking at you when I should be getting you naked."

Blake gets to work on that, tugging Sam's shirt off and letting it drop to the floor. "Talk later. Orgasms first."

"I really love you," Sam laughs, kissing Blake briefly before they pull apart and undress themselves.

Sam pushes Blake onto his back, reaching over to the nightstand for his lube and a condom. Blake rolls the condom on as he watches Sam finger himself with practiced ease. Deciding he's ready, Sam kneels over Blake, rubbing lube over his cock before sinking down onto it little by little.

"Fuck," Blake gasps, when they're only halfway there. He buries his face against Sam's neck and tries to remember how to breathe.

Sam keeps going, until Blake is entirely inside him and they're both trembling. Blake kisses all over Sam's face, arms wrapped around him and they move slowly, carefully, rocking against each other until they adjust, their movements getting more familiar, more desperate. Blake makes a fist around Sam's cock, jerking him off as they fuck, and Sam keens, his face flushed. They kiss sloppily, lips against whatever stretch of skin they can reach, and this is better than anything that Blake has ever allowed himself to fantasize. There's no way Blake could have anticipated the way Sam's fingers feel in his hair, tugging urgently, his voice low and husky, sounding like the Folklorist as he speaks into Blake's ear, babbling about how great he feels.

Blake comes first, moaning softly as he jerks Sam off harder, encouraging him with a breathless, "Come on, come on, come for me."

They lie in each other's arms afterwards, once Blake's thrown his condom out and they've wiped themselves down with a towel. They'll need to shower, but they'll worry about that later. For now, Blake has Sam in his arms and neither of them can stop grinning.

It's all Blake needs.

Bedtime Stories

by Yukiyama Hibana (雪山 火花)

Alan's phone buzzed on the end table beside him. Not the short little zap of a text, but an actual phone call at actual 10PM on an actual Wednesday. This was exactly what horror movies were like. Not because it could be someone somewhere telling him of some catastrophic event involving someone or something important to him, no. But because someone was calling his phone. It was the 21st goddamn century and he was trying to watch very important television.

He picked up the phone and saw the word DAVID on top of the picture he'd taken of him at last year's holiday party, two sheets to the wind and making a very grumpy face. He'd been touring the past few weeks, doing stand-up gigs mostly along the eastern part of the country. Alan had been subject to tweet and text alike here and there, when David got bored or found something dumb and funny to take a picture of. He hadn't called, though. He wasn't a caller.

"Hello?" Alan said, keeping his voice neutral. There was always the possibility this was somehow bad news, but he had an inkling it was going to be not bad news, not at all.

"Hellloooooo," David said, and Alan could nearly smell the whiskey through the phone. "Hi. Hello. How are you? I'm good."

Alan was free to smirk and smile all he wanted, but he kept a straight face. You could hear that sort of thing. "I'm doing just fine," he said.

"Good, good good good," David said. There was no sound of party or outdoors or any commotion coming through the phone's speaker. He was likely in his hotel, then. "Oh, is it late? Is it too late there? What... what time is it, hm."

Alan hit pause on the DVR. The unfolding drama of Storage Wars could wait. "It's a bit past ten," he said.

"Oh, ten," David said. "Right, it's one here. Well, a bit past one. That's how time zones work. It's the same but several hours later, not several hours and also some minutes."

Alan bit the inside of his lip. "Yes," he said. "That is indeed how time zones work."

"It is!" David said, and giggled a little. Alan closed his eyes and smiled at the sound. Funny, the things you didn't realize you'd been missing. "But is it? I mean, is it too late? Are you in bed?"

"No," he said, and let the vowel go as long as he could take it. "I am not in bed."

"Oh," David said, and there was a pause, one beat of breath. "I am!"

Alan decided to put his feet up on the ottoman, get nice and comfortable. "Are you, now."

"I am," David said. "I am in bed. In my hotel. I am in a hotel bed and it's very large."

"They're usually pretty big, those," Alan said. He let his eyes closed and pictured it, David spread out on some crisp sheets, reaching arms and legs to the corners.

"Very big," David said. "I mean, I could fit... like... four more people in here, probably."

"Four?" Alan said. No, he didn't feel like imagining anyone else there right now. "Seems like it might get crowded. Even if it's big."

"Oh, well, you know," David said, and sighed. "Clever arrangement. Stacking. Like Tetris."

"Like Tetris," Alan said. He just let the silence hang in the air afterwards and listened to hear David sigh, and to hear him shift on the mattress.

"It was a good show, a good show," he said. "Lots of very excitable young people, and a lot of very excitable young drinks."

"They sound like they must have been very excitable," Alan said.

"Oh, yes," David said, and he was laughing again, loose and open. "Very excitable and very friendly. Well, not too friendly. Just friendly enough. Kind enough to make sure I could still get to my room. The drinks, I mean. The young people, eh, who needs them." Alan just kept his eyes closed and let David go, let him work his way down this road as long as he'd take it. "But, yes, good show... good drinks, good room. Glad to just fall right into bed. Barely got my shoes off. Did get them off, though. Rude to have shoes on the bed."

"Uh-huh," Alan said. He knew very well what David wanted him to be saying, and sure, he'd get there eventually, but a man had to have his own brand of fun first. "Very rude." He might have been not doing so well at keeping the smirk out of his voice. Eh, so what.

He heard David let out two little huffs of breath. "I'll have to be careful," he said. "Comfortable bed, enthusiastic young drinks, I'm bound to just fall asleep just like this."

"Always possible," Alan said, and bit his lip as he grinned at the sound of David letting out another dissatisfied breath.

"I mean, still dressed. Still all suited up," he said. "And not even my sleeping suit!"

"Oh, yeah," Alan said, and laughed a little. "Love the pocket square on that one."

"Thank you for noticing," David said. He never slept in anything more than his skin when he was sleeping with Alan. A very fine suit, indeed. "Oh, it's just the problems of traveling alone, you know? No one to make you behave, no one to send you to bed properly, no one to tuck you in."

Alan laughed again. "David," he said, and he said it in a way that he heard David start to hold his breath. "Did you call me so I can tell you a bedtime story?"

He let that breath out with a shiver. Very nice. "That might be a reason I called you, yes."

"Well, you could have just asked," he said, and made himself comfortable, more for the sound of him settling in his seat than anything else. He was already very, very comfortable. "You know if you want something from me all you have to do is ask."

"Well, you know," David said, and his voice had gotten much breathier already. "Sometimes it's more fun if you have to figure it out."

"Sure," Alan said. He made sure every word that came out of his mouth was perfect, a guided missile. "But I think it's much more fun when you ask."

David laughed again, soft and giddy, and Alan heard him shifting on the bed. "Okay, okay," he said, and he had that gleeful little giggle in his voice Alan had gotten so familiar with over the years. "Tell me a story. Please."

"Of course," Alan said. "Anything for you." He took a slow breath and when he spoke he knew his voice sounded like butter and velvet and sex during Mardi Gras. "Once upon a time there were three little pigs and the time came for them to leave home and seek their fortunes..."

David let out a groan on his end of the line, a great frustrated growl that just made Alan toss his head back and laugh. "God, you are such a shithead," he said.

"Just doing what you asked, babe," Alan said, still chuckling.

"Are you not alone, is that what this is?" David said, and he sounded muffled, like he'd curled on his side or buried his face in a pillow. "Is Liz there? Is she laughing?"

"No, I'm alone," he said. Liz was upstairs reading, because that's how you made a marriage survive terrible taste in television shows. She would definitely be laughing, though. That was one of the stipulations of this arrangement where Alan got to do things like this with David, that she got to laugh. "I was just fulfilling a very unspecific request."

That groan of David's was definitely directed into a pillow. "I'm drunk, and I'm bored, and I don't know anyone here, and I'm lonely, and I'm horny, and I miss you, and you won't even have the goddamn decency to ask me what I'm wearing!"

"Oh, David, baby," Alan said, all honey-soaked exaggeration. "What are you wearing?"

"My whole damn suit!" David yelped into the phone. "Because I had the perfectly reasonable and healthy expectation that you would understand how this works and tell me to take it off!"

"Haven't even loosened your tie, huh?" Alan said.

"I am strangling," David said.

"You poor thing," Alan said. "Well, it's time for you to take it off, then."

David sighed and Alan could hear the rustle of fabric. "Thank god."

"Which one is it?" Alan asked.

"Gold with burgundy checks," David said.

"Oh, I haven't seen that one," Alan said, light and conversational for a moment.

"It's fairly new," David said.

"Sounds nice," Alan said, then let out a quiet laugh before letting his voice turn low again. "You just keep making yourself comfortable. No more jacket. Unbutton your vest and your shirt but leave them on."

Alan listened to David's breath get heavier as he heard him undress. "Already feeling much more comfortable," he said.

"Mmhm, I'm sure you are," Alan said. He gave his cock a little rub through his pants, just enough for a quick thrill. "But not enough. Undo your belt. Unzip." He heard the sounds of just that, and then he heard David groan, a sound of satisfied relief. Well, he couldn't blame David if he couldn't keep his hands off himself right now. Alan would be having the same problem if he were there.

"Now, nothing else," Alan said. "Just stay just like that." Alan took a moment to really picture it. He liked David in all the ways he could get him, but that way, half-unwrapped and breathless and waiting for him, that was always one of his favorites. "Feeling better?"

"Getting there," David said, his voice mostly breath but still taut.

"Good," Alan said. "You ready for your bedtime story?"

"I am very, very, very ready for that," David said, and then let out that horny little giggle he got that made Alan's dick jerk every time he heard it. "Maybe too ready. So, yes, ready."

Alan turned his mouth away from the receiver to draw in a slow breath. He was far past the point where he needed to expend effort to make his voice sound like a slow fuck. He couldn't have had a normal conversation right then if he tried. "How's the hotel room?" he said. "Does it have a window?"

"Yeah," David said. "Pretty big one."

"Yeah, I know the type," Alan said. "Nice view, right? Eyes on the whole city. And maybe if someone looked up at the right time, eyes on you." David's breath stuttered and he let out a little whimper. Alan had never met a professional performer who didn't have at least a small exhibitionist streak. "Okay, David. Time for your story."

"Yes, please," David said, and laughed breathlessly again. Alan bit his lip for a moment and gave his cock another little squeeze, because he was only human, god damn it. "So," he started. "So picture that I'm there. And you're right where you are, on that bed. And you're just like you are right now, all half-undressed and panting for it." David absolutely was, too, nothing but gasps and groans coming from his end of the line. "I didn't get you that way, though." Alan stopped and smirked, and let David hear it. "Well, the part about the panting, sure. But I had you do it all yourself, undo every button and knot, and I just stood there and watched you."

David's breath made the phone's speaker burst with static, but beyond that Alan could hear the sound of skin on skin. Goddamn right he'd better be jerking off already. "You're fucking incredible to watch, you know? And I know you're not even trying to be. Just something about you that makes everyone who looks at you wants to see you squirming and writhing and gasping." Alan paused for a moment, to take a breath, to flick his tongue out over his lips. "Every goddamn person who meets you wants to know what you look like when you come."

Alan chuckled softly into the phone. "Don't come yet, though," he said. "I'm still telling you a story."

David's laugh was strained. "I'll do my best," he said. "No promises."

"Try very hard," he said. His fingers were restlessly stroking along the arm of his sofa, just too damn eager to be touching anything. "So, here's what I want you to think about me doing. I'll get you up out of bed and take you over to that window. I'll draw back the curtains and you'll put your hands against the glass. Anyone in looking over from an apartment or an office will get to see you. If they're lucky enough to look."

David whimpered a bit and Alan found himself squirming a little. He profoundly wanted to be stroking something other than the upholstery, but he had a job to do and he had goddamn priorities. "They all get to look but I'm the one who gets to touch. I'll come up behind you and push you right up in to the window. I'll kiss your neck. I'll bite at your ear. Maybe I'll play with your nipples until your knees start to give, and when they do I'll keep you standing. You'll feel how incredibly fucking hard you make me." Alan's own laugh was rough and throaty. "Like I am right now."

David's breath was coming quick and desperate. He knew that sound. "David," Alan said, as authoritative as he could manage while digging his fingers into the arm of the couch. "Take your hand off your cock right now and wait. I'm not done talking."

"Okay," David said, after working through a strangled moan. "You're just very good at talking."

"I know," Alan said. David was still panting into the phone, but he knew he respected the honor system for things like this. It made it so much better. "I'll keep you pressed up against the glass and I'll stroke you off. I'll do it very slowly at first, with my fingers tight around your dick. I won't want you to come too quickly, because I've got things I want to do with you." He bit his own lip for a moment. "To you."

David made some incoherent noise that sounded like a mix of 'god damn it' and Alan's name. Right on track. "I know what you sound like when you're about to come. I know what you sound like when you're about to come. So the moment I hear that, I'll stop. I'll just let you lean up against that window and show the world what you look like when you're like that. That face everyone wants to see.

"And then I'll fuck you," Alan said, and then swallowed hard. He wanted to keep speaking slowly, measured, every word still perfectly calculated, but fuck it, he had other things he wanted much more. "Story's almost over, David. I'll be finished very soon."

"Oh, thank god," David said, and groaned as he clearly started jerking off again. For all they'd done and as long as they'd been doing it, Alan had never actually watched him do that. He couldn't ever keep his hands to himself for that long.

"I'll fuck you into that window and I'll stroke you off right against the glass," Alan said, his breath gone ragged. "I'll want to do it slow and tease you and make it last forever, but I won't be able to, because you drive me fucking insane. I'll fuck you and I'll touch you and I'll put my mouth right against your ear and I'll tell you that I'm just showing whoever wants to see it what I get to do to you. I get to make you come, as much as I want, whenever I want." He took in a slow breath and raked his teeth over his lower lip before saying, "Fuck, I'm on the other side of the country and I'm making you come right now. David, right now."

That worked. David shouted and whimpered, and Alan heard the bed rustle and squeak as he knew David was arching his hips from the bed, fucking into his own fist as he came onto his belly. Alan turned the phone away from his mouth again as he had to spend a while gasping. He could be getting himself off in fifteen seconds like a teenager right now if he wanted to. And, well, he did want to. But he was a fucking grown man with goddamn patience. No, he was.

David's voice had gotten distant; he must have dropped the phone on the bed at some point. When he picked it up again he greeted Alan with the longest, most satisfied sigh in the world. Or at least top five. "Hi," he said. "That was a very good story."

"It was a fucking amazing story," Alan said.

"It was," David said. He sounded half asleep, peaceful and floating. Alan hoped he fell asleep just how he was, half undressed with spunk drying on his chest. "I feel very good now. And how are you doing?"

"Well, either the A/C will kick on and the change in air pressure will make me come in my pants," he said, and David laughed, and Alan resolved to pick him up from the airport when he got back just so he could fuck him in the car. "Or I'm going to go upstairs, tell Liz about this, and she will laugh at you, and laugh at me, and then I will tell her a nice bedtime story too and probably have some very excellent sex."

"Oh, that sounds nice," David said.

"Doesn't it?" Alan said, and took a moment to enjoy the sound of David's calm breath. The way he was after was almost as good as the way he was during. "Oh, epilogue to my story."

"Bedtime stories don't usually have epilogues," David said.

"Well, this one does, so shh," Alan said. "I'll make you come, and then we won't clean off the window afterwards."

David laughed, sounding just so happy. "Gross," he said. "Rude."

"It'll be a landmark. They'll start charging double for the room."

"Inappropriate," David said, and then sighed again. "You're the best."

"I know I am," Alan said. "But it's a tie."

Riverfront Blues

by Aosora Hikaru (青空 ヒカル)

DEEJAY ONE: Good morning, Detroit! You're listening to WROX in the morning. I'm Johnny Danger--

DEEJAY TWO: I still think that's a stupid pornstar name if I ever heard one.

JOHNNY: And that would be Bobby Killjoy, the wet blanket.

DEEJAY TWO: Hey, call yourself whatever you want. Whatever gets you the chicks. I'm Nate Rodriguez, and this is Rock Your Morning on WROX. Coming up: what does your choice of beer say about you? Find out in the eight o'clock hour.

"Good show, man," Nate said, clapping his hand on his co-host's shoulder. The coffee had been better than usual this morning, and he smiled as he inhaled the deep aroma, then took a careful sip.

"You too. Hey, wanna grab some drinks later?" John smiled over his shoulder as he coiled up the wires from the headphones.

Nate turned back from John's chair and shook his head. "Sorry, can't."

John bit back a laugh. "What, do you have to wash your hair or something?"

"Yeah." Nate rolled his eyes and took another sip of his coffee. "That's it. Not even the fact that it's not even after three yet and you've just asked me to go to a bar."

"I said, 'later,' but whatever. I'll see you tomorrow, dude."

"See you."

It had been frigid that morning when John and Nate had shown up long before sunrise to prepare for their radio show, and the temperature hadn't risen much by the time Nate left the studio to go home. He pulled his coat collar up higher and shoved his hands into his pockets as he walked to his car. A light dusting of snow covered the ground, and his breath puffed out in front of him with his resigned sigh. He really did hate winter, but the WROX gig was good enough that he didn't feel any need to leave Michigan. It was so rare to find a decent job in radio anymore, and as much of a tool as John presented himself as on air, he was a great guy in person. A good radio co-host is hard to find, too.

After fumbling his keys out of his pocket and scooping them up out of a pile of snow with a frustrated curse, Nate climbed in to his sedan and turned the key. He'd have to invest in remote start if he would remain in Michigan for another winter, because sitting in a freezing car wasn't exactly the best way to spend one's time. The car roared to life and he sat there for a couple of minutes blowing into his hands while he gave the car time to warm up enough to drive.

His phone chimed, and he pulled it out to see a text message from John.

I'm not shitting you, dude. Drinks?

Nate snorted. His thumbs flew over the touchscreen. Fine, drinks tonight. Where?

I know a sports bar in Rochester Hills. See you there.

The next text had an address, ready to be plugged into a map app or GPS for directions, but Nate didn't need it. He'd been there before, on a few failed dates with girls and a few nights-out-with-guys he thought were dates but in actuality weren't.

The roads were just slushy enough to command most of his attention, though thankfully it was mostly snow blown over from the drifts which lined the streets. Traffic crawled along as everyone else focused on the task so the car's heater actually started blowing warm air before Nate got home, which was a rare occurrence. It was a rare treat to not arrive home with frozen fingertips.

He stopped outside his front door to kick the snow off his boots, and stepped inside only to be greeted immediately by a cat who seemed positive it was starving to death.

"Hey, Harvey. Yeah, I know I forgot to fill your bowl before work. You're not going to die."

The tabby gave an indignant meow and weaved himself through Nate's legs. In the kitchen Nate found only an empty patch in the center of the bowl, and sighed as he gave it a quick shake to redistribute the kibble. "You're spoiled, Harv. You know that?"

NATE: So I heard a rumor...

JOHN: Oh? What about?

NATE: You know the actress from Just Belong?

JOHN: Oh yeah, what's-her-face, uh, Jan Beltrig?

NATE: Yeah, something like that. Well, I heard she's engaged. Didn't you say she was cute?

JOHN: I say many people are cute. Doesn't mean anything. I think I even called you cute, once.

NATE: Johnny Danger, you are a terrible flirt. You and I both know that was actually an insult.

Nate hadn't changed clothes before driving out to Rochester Hills, but when John walked in, he wished he had. The ripped jeans and t-shirts John usually wore had been replaced by a vest and button-down collared shirt.

Whoa.

John furrowed his brow and slid into the booth across from Nate, leaning over the table somewhat to be heard over the loud patrons cheering for the Pistons game. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Oh fuck. "Nothing, sorry. I just didn't know you owned clothes that didn't look like you dug them out of a dumpst-- Ow!" Nate reached down to rub his shin. "Damn, dude."

Grinning, John picked up the beer menu. "Deserved it."

"It's not my damn fault you wear shitty clothes to work." Momentarily distracted by a particularly impressive three-point shot by the Pistons, Nate turned back to John. "So what's up? Why did you want to go out for drinks so badly?"

John didn't even look up from the menu as he spoke, and Nate had to fight not to stare at the shadows his long eyelashes cast across the tops of his cheeks. He hadn't noticed those before now. "Well, we've worked together now for... What, three months?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"And I know next to nothing about you. Like, how the fuck are we supposed to act like best friends on the radio show if we aren't even acquaintances in real life?"

The timely arrival of the waitress served only to give Nate more time to mull over this. He had already been toeing the dangerous line of a crush on John, even without them hanging out together. Now, with this unrestricted time to appreciate his looks and undisguised personality, he could already feel himself crossing the imaginary threshold. On top of that, the way John had show up tonight, dressed up like he wanted Nate to want him...

John even ordered the same thing Nate was about to order, which, as much as Nate was loath to admit, was a good sign for future outings together.

"Blue Moon, huh?" John grinned after the waitress walked away. "Are you copying me, Nathan?"

Nate shrugged. "Nah. Just, you know, my favorite beer. Yours, too?"

It hadn't taken long for the waitress to return, and John accepted the bottles of beer and thanked her, then slid Nate's across to him. "Well, this time of year it is. In the summer I prefer Oberon."

"Oberon's good stuff," Nate murmured. This whole thing felt like it was spiraling out of control, and he had to get it together because he really didn't want to fuck this up now. He finally had a co-host he liked, at a radio station he enjoyed working for, and he couldn't let something so ridiculous as a crush ruin it. John made such a production about women at work, and every way Nate had tried to be subtle about asking about men had been met with jokes of the "no homo" variety. All Nate having a crush on John was going to do was break his heart (again) and make work a living hell (again).

"How are the Pistons doing?"

Nate shook his head, then turned his attention back to John. He'd been staring at the TV without seeing anything. "Uh, they're doing okay."

"Dude, they're losing by like thirty points. The fuck are you thinking about?"

"Nothing, man. So what do you want to know, then, to start this new best friend thing you want going on?"

John took a long draw of his beer, narrowing his eyes and frowning in thought. "Where did you live before you moved here?"

"I was in Virginia." Oh God, please don't let him ask why I moved... Please don't make me have to explain the crush that made it too awkward to look him in the eyes anymore. Don't make me have to say why I had to leave.

"That's cool. I visited there once. Spring break in college." Grinning, John leaned forward onto the table, which brought his head more directly under the light over the table. Damn, but he was handsome, highlighted now by how the light and shadows threw the angles of his face into sharper relief.

Nate bit his lip as he brought up his own beer. The pain, he hoped, would snap him back to reality. He wouldn't be going out for drinks with John again. It was far too dangerous, contained too much material to encourage this unnecessary infatuation. "Really? And how was that?"

John laughed. "Fucking insane." The bar erupted in cheers again, and both Nate and John turned their attention to the televisions for a moment. After the excitement from the score died down, John continued, "I had a blast, though. Lots of alcohol."

"And all the girls you wanted, right?" The basketball game was an easy way to distract himself from the sick feeling settling into the pit of Nate's stomach, that familiar sensation of knowing with absolute certainty the person across from you does not nor will ever share your feelings for them.

John canted his head to the side slightly, his brow furrowed. "If I wanted them, I guess."

If Nate hadn't been so absorbed in his own thoughts, with his mind made up about John, he might have actually heard what John said. "Hey, uh, listen," Nate downed the last of his beer, then pulled out his wallet and threw a few bills on the table. "I should get going. Harvey seemed pretty lonely when I stopped home earlier and I don't want him to pee on my shit. Just let me know how the Pistons game goes."

Nate ignored John's protests as he slid out of the booth and walked out to his car as fast as he could. Saying yes to meeting John for drinks seemed to have been the stupidest idea ever. He couldn't handle even the notion of starting a friendship without getting a God damn job-killing crush on John. Now it would be fucking awkward at work, and he'd have to find yet another place to move. Harvey had barely handled the move from Virginia to Michigan. Maybe Nate could find another local station to take him on as a deejay, even if he couldn't get another morning show position again.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, and Nate ignored it as he climbed into his car and dropped his forehead against the steering wheel.

JOHN: Hey, Nate?

NATE: Yeah, Johnny?

JOHN: Did you hear the Pistons won last night?

NATE: Really? They were losing so badly I stopped watching.

(A beat of uncomfortable radio silence passes, too short to be noticed by anyone but John, Nate, and anyone in the studio with them)

JOHN: Yeah, they came back to win the game, but not by much.

NATE: That's cool, wish I'd watched the rest of the game.

JOHN: (hesitates) Me too.

It had been a long and mentally exhausting show with both of them trying to pretend nothing strange had happened the night before at the bar. If Nate thought his stomach was fucked up last night at the bar, it was nothing compared to how it had churned for the entire time they'd been on the air. After the show, Nate excused himself as quickly as possible. He started to compose his resignation letter in his head while walking to his car, fishing for his keys in his coat pocket, when a voice behind him drew him up short.

"Nate. The hell was that last night?"

Nate looked John in the eye, furrowing his brow and digging deep for the energy to lie. "I'm not sure what you're talking about, John." He found his keys in his pocket, and started toward his car again.

John scoffed as he turned to stand in front of Nate again. "You know damn well what I'm talking about. Last night. Why the fuck did you bail on me?"

"I just... I don't want to talk about it," Nate grimaced, gripping his keys tight in his hand, his eyes pleading. "Please." That sick feeling had come back now, worse than ever.

After a moment of staring Nate in the eyes, John stopped and took a breath. "Listen, please. I asked you out because I wanted to get to know you better. I wasn't lying--"

"Wait." Nate shook his head, the pain of his keys digging into his palm keeping him in the moment. "Asked me out? Like... A date?"

"Oh, God." John's eyes went wide, his mouth falling open in horror. "Shit. I... I didn't mean to..." He stepped back, bringing his hands up in front of him. "I'm so sorry. I didn't want to offend or... Or scare you."

"You wanted that to be a date?" Nate blinked a few times as he tried to parse what John had said. Was this some sort of sick joke? Had John seen through his act, and was this an attempt to make Nate pay for it?

A look of panic had taken up residence on John's face, and he backed away a few more steps. "Listen, Nate, I don't want to ruin this. Please don't take that the wrong way. I thought you... I'm so sorry."

Nate stepped closer to John to close the distance, praying his heart would slow down and that his stomach would stay calm enough to keep him from spewing all the coffee he'd downed over the course of their broadcast. "You thought what? That I was gay?"

John nodded, his eyes still wide with terror.

"Well, I'm not." When John's face fell, Nate held up a hand. "I'm bi. So you weren't entirely wrong. But..." He shoved his keys back into his pocket; he wouldn't be needing those quite yet. "I thought you were straight, though."

"Oh, God no." John shook his head with adamant denial. "I've known forever I was gay."

"So all the talk about the ladies...?"

"Just a show. All for show. It's easier to be popular on the radio if you act like a player than if you act like you're gay."

"That's interesting, then." Nate crossed his arms over his chest, shoving his hands under his arms to warm them. "So... Since we've established this... What are you doing Friday?"

NATE: So, since we're talking about that new Detroit-style pizza joint downtown, how do you feel about pizza?

JOHN: Pizza's great. Pizza is like manna from the gods, man. I could live off the stuff.

NATE: Yeah? I'm not sure I needed to know that.

JOHN: I would marry pizza if I could.

NATE: Yeah, really didn't need to know that.

JOHN: I would make sweet pizza babi--

NATE: Johnny. Stop.

Friday night Nate paced the living room floor in his apartment, ignoring Harvey's curious meows. John was due to arrive at any second and Nate's stomach had twisted itself in knots, his hands quivering with the slightest tremor. He pulled his phone out of his pocket for the thousandth time, expecting to find nothing again, but this time there was a text from John. Nate drew a careful breath, half expecting a cancellation, and opened the message.

Hey, I stopped at a party store near your house. Want anything?

It took a few tries to keep his thumbs still enough to tap out the reply. Nah. Whatever you want to grab is fine. Hope you don't mind Harvey, he's seeming a little attention-starved tonight.

Nate's phone chimed again, and he laughed at the response: As long as he doesn't eat my pizza we're cool.

With his fear of John abandoning the plans to hang out alleviated his stomach uncoiled itself, and Nate sank onto the sofa. The Pistons were playing again tonight and he turned on the TV, settling in on the sofa to watch the game while he waited for John to arrive. True to Nate's texted warning to John (and indeed, to his own feline personality), Harvey jumped up on the sofa and curled up on Nate's lap, purring in an adamant solicitation for petting.

When the knock sounded on the door, Nate scooped Harvey up and deposited him onto the sofa next to him. He ignored Harvey's affronted meow as he stood up and wiped the sweat off the palms of his hands onto his jeans. John's arrival, and all that meant, had put the knot back in his stomach and set his heart fluttering in his chest. All the possible ways this could go wrong rushed through his head like a train barrels down its tracks, and he had to take a deep breath before he could open the door.

John grinned, holding up a six-pack of Blue Moon. "Hey! Thought this would be perfect. Is the pizza here yet?"

"Not yet. Should be any minute, though." Nate held out his hand for the beer, then stepped aside to allow John to enter. "Don't mind Harvey. He's a little shy around strangers."

As if on cue, as soon as John stepped over the threshold, Harvey gave a distressed meow and jumped off the sofa to run into the bedroom as quickly as he could. John, to his credit, merely chuckled. "Cats. A dog would've knocked me over and tried to lick my face off by now."

Nate grinned, closed the door behind them, and went to put the beer into the fridge. "And that's the exact reason why I don't have one."

"Not a dog person?"

"Nah. I prefer Harvey. He's a little devil sometimes, but he's my devil." Nate pulled a couple of beers out before leaving the kitchen, and held one out for John. "I put the Pistons on. Hope you don't mind."

"Course not! Maybe they'll win again. Maybe it'll be less of a train wreck this time." John took the beer and sank onto the sofa, sticking close to one end.

Good. That meant Nate could sit there on the sofa too without making it more awkward than it had to be, or like he was presuming too much. An empty cushion between them left room for personal space and maybe Harvey, if the cat decided John was worth investigating. Right as Nate was about to sit, though, there was a knock at his door. He straightened again with a groan. "Must be the pizza."

"Want me to chip in for it?" John stood up again to pull his wallet out of his back pocket.

Nate shook his head as he crossed the living room to the door. "Nah, I've got it. Besides, you bought the beer."

The game was amusing enough while they ate their pizza. Turned out John was a bigger Pistons fan than Nate had thought, and he was very vocal about his support for -- and, alternatively, frustration with -- the team. Nate could easily have spent more time just watching John watch the game than he actually did paying attention to the basketball game itself. The way John tensed up on the sofa as the team ran the ball down the court, the way he held his breath every time someone tried to make a basket -- never interesting on anyone he'd met before, but somehow, in this context, John's passion fascinated him.

The best part was how John would let that all go with every score, his body relaxing as he let out the sharp exhale. Of all the things Nate had ever found attractive about anyone ever before -- man or woman -- this was definitely the strangest. Not that Nate was complaining; it was certainly the most unique thing he'd ever noticed about a person.

John turned to Nate, his eyes bright, a grin wide across his face. "Wasn't that a fantastic -- why are you staring at me?"

For a moment, Nate froze. He could lie, as he had been doing to John for months now, the entire length of their professional relationship, or he could tell the truth. After all, hadn't they had that talk? Hadn't John admitted he had attempted to ask Nate out as a date instead of just guys hanging out together? Hadn't they both confessed, in that weird roundabout not-really-saying-it way, that they were attracted to each other?

No, this wasn't the time for lies. This was the time for the truth.

"You truly enjoy this, and it shows. And I think that's beautiful. You're -- you're beautiful. When you get passionate about something, I mean."

John blinked slowly, then took a long draw from the bottle of beer as a thoughtful sort of look furrowed his brow. Nate held his breath, wondering if perhaps he had crossed a line, admitting such.

Before he had a chance to ask if he had, John leaned across the couch cushions and kissed him. It was a soft kiss, one that asked permission as much as granting it, one that seemed so unlike the rough exterior John tried to give off at work. Nate gave a pleased hum, responding to the kiss in kind, parting his lips to perhaps encourage John further--

"Fuck, I'm sorry," John murmured, pulling back the slightest bit, hesitant. "I shouldn't have--"

Nate grabbed a fistful of John's shirt, pulling him in again. "Don't be. I'm glad you did."

When their lips met again, it was tentative again, as though John were waiting for Nate to say he'd been mistaken.

Nate couldn't blame him, to be honest; he'd heard it himself from guys in college and even a few others years after that. He would say he was kidding, or just confused, or just wanted to see what it was like, and they never had good timing with that sort of revelation. He pushed the thoughts from his mind and kissed John with ever-growing intensity in an effort to bury those memories even deeper.

The longer they kissed there, the more John relaxed, his hands starting to come up to wander over Nate's arms. John broke the kiss again but only for a moment, so he could move closer to Nate on the couch, and when their lips met again it was as if a floodgate had opened, with John clinging to Nate and his kisses growing more desperate.

It was as though John had needed Nate as badly as Nate had needed him, and it was such a dramatic change from what Nate was used to in every other romantic situation. It was wonderful and it was sloppy and it was everything Nate needed after so much failure in his relationships.

Nate pulled John closer, sliding down the couch to pull John over him. It wasn't long before John had his hands up Nate's shirt, curious fingertips brushing over every secretly ticklish spot, idly rubbing and pulling at Nate's nipples. Nate gasped against John's lips, his back arching up into the touch, and John laughed. He sat up, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it aside, and when Nate let his eyes wander down to John's chest, he gasped again, for an entirely different reason.

John sat back, giving Nate the chance to sit up and reach out a tentative hand to brush his fingertips over one of the rings looped through each of John's nipples. "Holy shit. I would have never guessed. You just seemed so--"

"Yeah, it usually surprises. You gonna take yours off too?"

Nate grinned, then gave one of John's nipple rings a slight tug. "Maybe I'm just too busy enjoying the show."

John raised an eyebrow, then pushed himself up from the sofa. "I didn't realize I was being expected to put on a show."

"That's not what... No, John, don't--" Nate stopped, cut off by John's fingers against his lips. His eyes grew wide as John brought his other hand up, pressing his index finger against his own lips in a silent shh.

Nate took a deep breath, then nodded, sinking back onto the sofa as John straightened up again. A wide grin spread across John's face, brightening it in ways Nate hadn't imagined possible, as John moved his fingertips in a lazy slide down his stomach to his belt buckle.

When the first click of metal against metal sounded, followed by the slide of leather, John blew out a breath he hadn't known he had been holding. His own jeans felt uncomfortably tight, the denim stretched taut over his hard cock. He moved a hand down to reach for the button of his own jeans, but John let go of his belt to grasp Nate's wrists.

"Nuh-uh. You're gonna watch first. You talked before about enjoying the show, so that's what you're gonna do. No touching."

Nate let go of the button, and John let go of his wrists. As John straightened up again Nate let his hands fall to his sides, and he caught his lower lip in his mouth in anticipation. The way John gyrated his hips the slightest bit as he undid his jeans, sliding them down and kicking them aside, made Nate's breath catch, made him roll his own hips up as though there would be something there besides unyielding denim and unfeeling air to meet him.

John's eyes flicked down to Nate's hips, and the corner of his lips lifted in a lopsided grin as he worked his boxers down in a slow torturous tease. When his cock bobbed free, Nate let out another strangled groan. A generously sized ball sat at the very tip of John's cock, with another sitting just below the head on the bottom, and in that moment Nate could think of nothing more than how that would feel inside of him.

"Oh my God, John," Nate managed to choke out, his fingertips digging into the sofa cushions while his eyes were glued to John's hand's lazy strokes up and down the length of his cock. With each stroke over the head, John lingered at the piercing, as though he could read Nate's mind and knew that was what Nate was drawn to.

John stepped out of his boxers, stepping forward again even as his hand stroked along his cock. "Didn't expect that, either, did you?"

Nate only shook his head in response, dragging his fingernails up the sofa fabric before extending a hand, reaching out for John's cock. All he wanted was to feel it, warm and alive in his hands, maybe even taste that bitter tang of the jewelry against his tongue.

With an eyebrow raised, John stopped just short of Nate's reach. "Oh, no, you don't get to touch until you get all that clothing off, too." He crossed his arms over his chest and Nate had to stop himself from sighing at just how gorgeous he looked that way. John's cock still stood out in front of him, a single clear drop of pre-come clinging to that silver ball at the tip. Somehow the way his arms crossed in front of him framed those pierced nipples perfectly, and Nate had to control how quickly he stood up from the sofa to tear his own shirt over his head.

John chuckled when Nate nearly tripped over his jeans in his haste to remove them, but helped Nate regain his balance anyway. They stood there for a silent moment, naked, until Nate pulled John forward into another hard kiss. John pulled back and grinned, then murmured, "Been wanting this for a while, huh?"

"Too damn long to stand here staring at each other naked," Nate muttered, then took John's cock in his hand, sliding it along the shaft in smooth strokes. The ring took a few movements to adjust to, but it didn't take very long at all until John was breathing soft moans into Nate's ear.

It was remarkably rewarding to discover the areas which drew the best reactions from John. The ring itself seemed to be a great source of pleasure for him, and Nate loved the ways John would gasp or writhe, or how his cock would twitch from the stimulation each time Nate's fingers brushed one of those metallic spheres.

The movements of John's hips grew more demanding, pushing forward into Nate's hand faster and faster until he finally grasped Nate's hand and pulled it up away from his dick. A small smile playing across his lips, he advanced and urged Nate backward. He didn't stop until the backs of Nate's legs hit the sofa, and after a firm kiss, he pushed Nate back onto it.

"What was that for?" Nate started to push himself back up, but John crawled onto the couch over him. With a hand planted to the side of Nate's head, John reached down between them and lined his cock up against Nate's.

"This." With his hand wrapped around their cocks, John pushed his hips forward.

Nate hadn't considered before how frotting could have possibly gotten better than it had been any other time he'd engaged in rubbing his dick against someone else's, but the presence of John's piercing there, stroking against that sensitive spot right under the head of his dick, made it phenomenal. It seemed safe to assume John felt the same way, judging by the way his eyelids fluttered closed and a low groan slipped from between his lips with that first push.

Just like before, when watching the basketball game, that look of utter focus and enjoyment on John's face was unspeakably beautiful to Nate. Each time their cocks slid through John's fist, they both let out desperate moans. Nate started to bring his hips up to meet each thrust, to make the sensation more powerful, to press that piercing against his own sensitive dick.

John looked down at him while their bodies moved in unison, and something burned in his eyes so similar to that need Nate felt within himself. Without saying a word, Nate reached up to tangle a hand in John's hair and pulled him down into another hard kiss. Everything, it seemed, had been building to this moment between them. All that awkward conversation in the halls at the station, all the times their eyes had met during a broadcast, even that horrific disaster of a date -- all of it, leading to this between them.

With a soft groan, John pulled back just enough to speak. "Do you want to -- oh, God -- move somewhere or..."

"I swear, John, if you stop doing what you're doing I will never forgive you." Nate slid a hand down John's chest to pinch at one of his nipples, and the way John's body twitched pushed him against Nate a little harder. "Fuck, it feels good when you do that."

John didn't so much ask for clarification as he did grunt in a questioning tone, and in response Nate brought up his hips and rested his heels on the backs of John's thighs. The change of angle pressed John's dick against his more fully, and Nate moaned low in his chest before breathing, "That."

Grinning, John slid his hand along their cocks while he pushed, and Nate couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. The pleasure radiating from the superficial joining of their bodies flowed through him, threatening to drown him. He moved to meet John, his hands clawing at John's arms and shoulders to try to pull him closer, the orgasm he so desperately wanted lingering just out of reach.

"Do it," John panted, the arm supporting him quivering so strongly Nate could feel it in the couch cushions. "Let me see you come, Nate."

The tone of John's voice, that low growl that colored the words, turned out to be Nate's undoing. He let his head fall back as he dug his fingertips into John's shoulders, a cry tearing itself from his throat as he spurted through John's fingers. The metal ball on the bottom of John's dick, which had felt so wonderful while the orgasm was building, quickly became too much. It was a sublime torture, but only lasted a handful of seconds more until John's ragged breaths built into a strangled cry of his own and another hot splash of come landed on Nate's stomach.

John let go of them, bringing that hand up to cup to Nate's cheek and kissing him between desperate panting breaths. After a moment he drew back, gazing down into Nate's eyes with that sleepy, melty look Nate had often seen in other lovers.

And then, John frowned.

"... What is it?" Nate murmured, his eyebrows knitting together.

"I got..." John pulled his fingers back, holding them up for Nate. "Stuff on your face."

Nate brought his own hand up, wiping them across his cheek and peering at them. When he noticed his fingertips glistening with their shared spunk, he let out a soft laugh. "I see. How about we get in the shower and clean up? I might forgive you for such a trespass if you help me wash off."

Grinning, John carefully climbed up off of Nate, and held a hand out to help him up from the sofa. "I think that's fair."

JOHN: Hey, Dave, how did that Pistons game on Friday go?

NATE: Of course, Johnny calls our intern in, and he wasn't even ready -- whoa, Dave, be careful -- so now he has to get to a mic.

DAVE: Yeah, I'm here. The Friday Pistons game? Didn't you guys watch?

JOHN: Too much beer.

NATE: Yeah, it's all sort of a blur.

DAVE: (with a dubious sort of tone) They won.

JOHN: Awesome. Thanks, buddy.

DAVE: You guys seem to be in good spirits for spending the whole weekend drinking.

NATE: Johnny and I know an ancient hangover cure. Can't share it with the interns, sorry. You have to earn that sort of info.

DAVE: If you insist.

NATE: Thanks, Dave. I think they want you back now.

JOHN: Hey, move that box when you go past it. Don't just kick it.

NATE: You're too bossy.

While Nate packed up after the show that morning, John grinned at him from across the room. Quickly, Nate dropped his eyes, hoping not to give too much away -- sure, they'd had a great time that weekend, but it was way too early to let anything on at work and it would be too easy to scare John away.

It was hard not to grin in return, though, when John walked past, clapped a hand on Nate's shoulder, and murmured as he went by, "Wanna come over to my place tonight?"

Nate finished packing, and on his way out of the building, he bumped his shoulder against John's and replied under his breath, "I'll bring the condoms."

No Safety Net Required

by deokman

When it comes to eating pig's feet, there's no one who can compete with Ee Sung. He doesn't so much eat it as inhale it on sight, ordering seconds while Nam Gil still works through his first plate. "Ahjumma, another serving of pig's feet, please!" he yells across the tent.

The owner walks over with another plate and places it in front of Ee Sung. "Don't yell at me, young man, I'm not deaf!" she says, and mutters something about the misfortunes of stuffing pig's feet into "a handsome face like that" as she walks away. Nam Gil bows his head apologetically in Ee Sung's stead. Even if an upperclassman fails to set a good example, Nam Gil can't be seen following his lead.

"Are you okay there, is your neck gonna snap in half?" Ee Sung asks, taking a sip from his cup. Nam Gil does his best not to track the bob of his throat, scowling instead as he focuses on pouring himself another glass of rice wine.

"No, sunbae," he says, voice flat. He's long since learned that most of what he says to Ee Sung goes in one ear and out the other. It's what happens between roommates: you come to know an infuriating amount about the other person. In Nam Gil's case, it means that he's learned that Ee Sung likes rice wine, pig's feet, and staying out at all odd hours of the night. He supposes that if his education was being funded by his rich Assemblyman father, Nam Gil would also go out to party every night.

"Are you going to eat that?" Ee Sung asks, pointing to Nam Gil's plate.

Nam Gil curls a hand over his plate protectively. He works hard to spread his meager cash savings thin, he doesn't need to fight for his pig's feet too. "Yes," he says pointedly. "I'm going to eat it all so there's none for you, sunbae."

Ee Sung, for all his bluster, can take a hint, which he elects to ignore as he reaches over with his chopsticks. "Oho, your Seoul accent is getting better," he says. "Which is all thanks to me, so you should pay up, small fry."

Nam Gil tugs his plate further away from his reach. "Many thanks, sunbae-nim, but you should let me finish eating, then."

"What sort of man is so stingy with his food?" Ee Sung asks. He may be handsome, face all sharp angles and boyish charm, but he remains insufferable no matter how Nam Gil looks at it.

"What sort of man tries to steal other people's food!" he retorts, and they push and tug on Nam Gil's plate. He can practically feel the owner breathing down their necks, waiting for a reason to kick them out. She's walking over to their table when Ee Sung suddenly freezes, craning his neck as if to listen for something outside. Nam Gil opens his mouth to speak. "What are you--"

"Shhh," Ee Sung says, pushing a finger against Nam Gil's lips. He stands up and tosses some cash on the table, waving at the owner. "You can finish up here without me, Busan Gil."

Nam Gil stares down at the money, then back up at Ee Sung. "Sunbae, where are you going?" he asks.

"We'll talk later," Ee Sung promises, before running out of the tent and leaving Nam Gil to sit alone at the table. He looks down at the double serving of pig's feet in front of him and pushes it aside, wiping at his mouth with a napkin.

"I would have shared," he says, to no one in particular.

Even though it's been a good four months since Nam Gil's first day in Seoul, it's still difficult to navigate buses as efficiently as Ee Sung seems to. Without his help, Nam Gil feels a lot like a fish out of water, staring intently at his transit map and fretting about the stops. The sweltering July heat does nothing to help. Ee Sung is anything but gentle to him, but he's still the first person to invite Nam Gil out for drinks upon his arrival to Seoul, and he's the one who took him to register for his bus pass.

Their first meeting, however, wasn't such a pleasant affair.

"Are you Kang Nam Gil?" he'd asked as soon as Nam Gil walked through the door that first day. He was leafing through a book that looked suspiciously like a 3,000 won bodice ripper, and was making no move to hide the paperback either. Nam Gil nodded, unsure where to put his eyes. He put down his bags instead, slowly shedding his coat and scarf.

"Um, yes. Hello," he said carefully. "Are you..." he stared down at his room assignment. "Jung Ee Sung?"

Ee Sung stood up, tossing the book onto his desk. "Yeah, but you better not call me anything other than sunbae, freshman," he said. Then he looked Nam Gil up and down before smiling. "Well if you're all settled in, you should do me a favor and vacate the premises for a couple of hours, I need to entertain a guest."

"Uh, what?" Nam Gil said. "I just got here--"

Ee Sung started ushering him towards the door, pulling on his coat for him. "We can have a heart-to-heart later or something, kid, but for now you need to scram," he said, using his considerable height to push Nam Gil out the door.

Nam Gil held onto the doorjamb for dear life, in the middle of wrenching Ee Sung's hand off his arm, when a voice came from behind him. "Are you really trying to kick out your roommate on the first day, Sung-ah?"

Ee Sung and Nam Gil both froze, turning to look at the visitor. The stranger was tall and dark, leaning against the wall with a smile on his lips. Nam Gil saw Ee Sung's cheeks stain pink, whether from rage or embarrassment or something else completely, he wasn't sure.

"You're one to talk," Ee Sung finally spat. "Aren't you playing hooky from work?"

The stranger put a hand over his heart. "I would never," he said, before he winked at Nam Gil. "He takes such liberties with me."

Nam Gil felt heat rise to his own face, suddenly understanding what Ee Sung meant by "entertaining a guest." Swallowing, he straightened up and grabbed his backpack. "S-Sorry to be a bother, I'll just...you know, yeah," he stammered, and ran toward the nearest stairwell.

Since then, Ee Sung has been more courteous about choosing when to invite people over "for tea." In turn, it opens a gateway to all the other strange habits that he has, which Nam Gil learns about within a week of their cohabitation. The predilection towards ditching him on outings is just one of many, and it springs up every time they go out to eat or drink--not that he's disappointed. It's just inconvenient. Like it is now, when he tries to shove his way past Seoul commuters making their way home from work in the sweltering July heat.

"Um, excuse me, yeah, I--excuse me," he says timidly. Normally, Ee Sung would part the crowd on the bus with ease, allowing Nam Gil to follow behind him. In his rush to get off, Nam Gil ends up stepping on someone's shoe. The owner of said shoe curses loudly, and Nam Gil prays in thanks to his ancestors that they don't follow him off the bus as well. Security is tight in his dormitory, but he's seen his fair share of tempers in the big city. The thought makes him walk faster toward his dorm, swiping the access card and taking the elevator up to his room. He unlocks the door and sees Ee Sung standing there in the dark, a silhouette against the Seoul city lights. Nam Gil's heart nearly falls out of his chest and he gives a manly squawk.

"S-Sunbae, what the hell!" He reaches to switch on the lights, feeling his annoyance spike. "Why are you standing there in the dark! Also, why did you just run off in the middle of dinner?" he asks.

Ee Sung doesn't look at him. "I had some business to attend to," he says offhandedly. "Are you going to be so rude to your sunbae?"

"Sunbae this, sunbae that, you're sure obsessed with being old," Nam Gil retorts. Crossing his arms, he walks over and frowns at Ee Sung, who turns away deliberately this time. Nam Gil's eyes widen when he sees that he's sporting a black eye.

A moment passes, and Ee Sung casually presses an ice pack to his face. "What are you staring at, punk?" he says.

"Are you okay?" Nam Gil asks, past his initial shock. "Do you need first aid? Are you going to go to the university clinic?" There are a million other questions that he wants to ask.

"Oh, this," Ee Sung says, like he just noticed that his eye is swollen shut, purple and bruised. "I fell down the stairs. Must have had too much rice wine or something." He stretches and yawns loudly. "Wow what a day, I need to sleep it off. Night."

Before Nam Gil can say anything, he climbs into bed, pulling the covers over himself. Nam Gil stares at his back and sighs, getting into bed only when it becomes apparent that Ee Sung has no intention of talking about anything. It's always his way or the highway when it comes to Ee Sung. Pursing his lips, Nam Gil takes a seat at his desk and turns on the fan.

Pulling out his phone, he reads through his news feed: the crime rate in Gangnam has been on the rise; Sanrio has introduced a new character; an Assemblyman accused of bribery has been acquitted. The world goes on, even if Nam Gil has a hard time following it. He updates his followers on Twitter: back home and ready to fall asleep, and then he waits for the replies to come in. All in all, a normal evening.

There are no classes on Saturday, but the campus is still packed with students studying. Nam Gil sits sandwiched between a particularly muscled athlete and a frantic engineering student; the former watches YouTube videos on her laptop and the latter keeps elbowing Nam Gil as he solves algorithms like his life depends on it. Rolling his eyes, Nam Gil tries to lean away from them both. He's been running code for the past hour, but none of it has been giving him the output he needs for his assignment.

Sick of seeing the ERROR output, Nam Gil opens his Twitter and scrolls through the feed. Apparently a masked vigilante was sighted in the heart of Seoul last night, elbowed in the eye by a frightened pedestrian. Nam Gil saw another masked figure his first night in Seoul once, when he was looking for ways to kill time, lest he walk in on his new roommate in a compromising position. He was walking through the campus grounds when he saw a dark figure curled over in the dimly lit avenue behind the student center. Apparently vigilantes liked to skulk around in the dark corners of Seoul. Apparently vigilantes actually existed in Seoul.

The strange figure jumped up onto the rooftop, then, and Nam Gil realized that he had on a mask and a catsuit. Reaching into his pocket for his phone, Nam Gil prepared to snap a photo. It wasn't every day that he saw a sight like this, and Nam Gil was eager to update his friends in Busan with what was happening to him up north. Pointing his phone at the man, he took the picture with no fuss. He remembers thinking that his mom was right: the people of Seoul were definitely weirder than they're worth.

Maybe the person who's all over his Twitter feed is the same person that he saw that night. Nam Gil clicks on the link, and comes face to face with his own Tweet. Right there in his mentions feed are countless notifications. Swallowing, he frantically scrolls down, but there seems to be no end in sight. "Shit," he mutters under his breath.

This definitely isn't what he anticipated happening to his picture. He used his Twitter to keep in touch with friends at home, not publish viral Internet content. Imagine what would happen if the masked man found him. Nam Gil has heard about how irresponsible social media use ends: he doesn't have the money to pay his way through his education, much less through a lawsuit. Panicked, he opens his original Tweet and deletes it.

"No one saw this," he whispers, before he snaps his laptop shut and strides out of the library and up to his dorm. By the time he punches in the door code, his fingers are sticky with sweat, and he reminds himself to restock his supply of hand sanitizer. "No one saw anything and I'm not going to get in trouble," he repeats to himself as he strides into the room and takes a Choco Pie from his emergency stash in the drawer.

"Saw what?" Ee Sung asks, holding up a new bodice ripper novel. The latest in his collection features two men clutching at each other's robes in a frantic display. "Did you commit a felony or something?" He seems uncannily delighted at the prospect.

Eyes wide, Nam Gil shakes his head. "Of course not, sunbae," he says through a mouthful of chocolate. Then he laughs nervously, voice unnaturally high. "Why do you ask?"

"You've been muttering to yourself ever since you walked through the door," Ee Sung says, brow furrowed. His eye is still bruised, but the swelling has gone down.

"No I sure haven't, hahaha," he replies, before he stuffs the rest of the Choco Pie into his mouth. "Sunbae, you're so funny."

Ee Sung raises an eyebrow at him, clearly unconvinced; he knows that it's not good for Nam Gil when his Busan dialect slips in. "Are midterms stressing you out, Busan Gil?"

Nam Gil shakes his head quickly. "I'm just tired," he lies.

"Tired?" Ee Sung asks, sitting up from where he's perched on his bed. He has that look in his eye, the one he gets whenever he wants to tell Nam Gil a story about the military. "You know, Busan Gil, when I was in the marines, we would train daily and nightly."

Nam Gil sighs, sitting down on his bed. About three times a day, Ee Sung stops Nam Gil in the middle of what they're doing to tell him a long, detailed story about "the hardships that I faced in the military, young Busan Gil." When Ee Sung was a sophomore in university, he had an argument with his father, who saw it fit to send him off to the marines in hopes of an attitude adjustment. So far, Nam Gil thinks, it only seems like he came back with an insufferable desire to lord his marines service over everyone else. Most of it goes over Nam Gil's head, much like it does now.

"Not a single man could sleep until every one of his comrades completed their training and thus our brotherly bond deepened," Ee Sung says. "Such love couldn't be found anywhere else, Busan Gil, nowhere else."

Nam Gil grimaces, trying to focus on the flavor of chocolate in his mouth instead of Ee Sung's long winded tale. "Sunbae," he asks, "aren't you going to study?"

Ee Sung freezes in the middle of his story, blinking at him like he's grown a third head. "What for?" he asks, bewildered.

"For school! We're at school!" Nam Gil yells. "Aren't you a student at this university, too?"

Tilting his head, Ee Sung gives him a pitying look, before he grabs his book again. "Studying is for nerds," he says. "Life is short, so eat chocolate while you're young."

"What?"

"What?" Ee Sung challenges. "Don't question your sunbae-nim's wisdom."

Nam Gil frowns at him, disconcerted at the sudden attempts at sagely advice. If it were up to Ee Sung, he would be a Buddha for how tranquil he always manages to be. At least he doesn't decide to start reading aloud from his newly acquired novel. The last time he did that, Nam Gil couldn't look at him without blushing for at least a week.

"Nam Gil," he suddenly says, and Nam Gil jumps, surprised by any indication that Ee Sung actually knows his name.

"Y-yes, sunbae?"

Ee Sung stares at him intently, and for a moment Nam Gil wonders if he's going to ask about his strange behavior earlier. "Nothing," he finally says, laughing weakly. "Tourettes."

If Ee Sung sunbae says so, then who's Nam Gil to argue?

Nam Gil rereads the article open in his browser for the fifth time, hoping that this is an elaborate joke. A sixth time, then. Blame it on the summer heat, but Nam Gil knows that he can't be too sure. No matter how many times he refreshes the browser, however, he comes back to the picture that he tweeted so many months ago of some masked figure who's going around calling himself 'Shin Gun.'

The picture above is the first documented sighting of the hero of Seoul, Shin Gun, who has been sighted more and more often as of late. There have been several reports of his cooperation with the police and other civilians, who have sought out his help in difficult times. The identity of the masked man remains a mystery, but netizens are hot on his trail. Many are eager to seek out who the masked do-gooder of Seoul could be.

"You have got to be kidding me," Nam Gil mutters through a mouthful of chocolate. He clicks through to another page, relishing in the soft wind of the fan blowing in his face. "Who does he think he is, Batman?"

The Internet is ablaze with news about Shin Gun: every news corner and thread forum is discussing his deeds, and more importantly, who he is under the mask. Nam Gil sees two particularly dedicated forum members comparing earlobes and promptly closes out of the page. If Ee Sung were here, he would come over to shut his laptop and make him go to bed. "Early to rise makes a man, Busan Gil," he likes to say. He also likes to conveniently forget that he's out until all odd hours of the night, eschewing Nam Gil's attempts to remind him of the fact. Every time Nam Gil asks where he goes that he isn't home until two in the morning, Ee Sung gives a different answer. Sometimes it's marines meet ups, other times it's a university social event, and when he goes strangely silent--well, Nam Gil is sure that he's meeting the tall and dark stranger then.

Sighing, Nam Gil lays his head down on the desk, blissfully cool against his forehead. Ee Sung sunbae's random words of advice wouldn't bother him so much if he didn't do everything in his power to go against them himself. What sort of upperclassman is so irresponsible anyway? He's dozing off to the thought when he hears a loud crash coming from his window. Immediately he looks up and sees a masked man standing in his room, holding the remains of the window screen. Nam Gil leaps up out of his seat with a yelp.

"Wh-what are you?" he asks, backing away. He grabs onto a textbook, along with his phone. "If you come near me, I'm going to call the cops!" In preparation, he dials 1-1-9, thumb hovering over the call button.

"Hey now," the man says, stepping towards him. There's a large gash on his forehead, and the sleeve of his uniform looks like it's seen better days. Nam Gil's eyes widen with recognition. This is Shin Gun, the masked weirdo of Seoul's own nightlife. "Don't do anything stupid, Kang Nam Gil."

Holy shit, Nam Gil thinks. Shin Gun is a stalker, or worse, a cosplayer who thinks that he's the next Superman. "I'm serious! These are university grounds and you're breaking penal code 103.4, which states that breaking and entering is a felony punishable by federal law," he says, voice gone high. "I bet you don't know this, but I'm the...the son of a really rich Assemblyman and he has the power to deport you to Siberia!"

"Nam Gil," the man says again, the eyelets in his mask going wide. "Let's put down the phone and--"

Nam Gil presses down on the call button, praying that someone picks up--like right now. Before he realizes it, the masked man lunges for him, swatting the phone out of his hand. He grabs Nam Gil's elbow, grip tight, and rips his mask off. "Will you calm the fuck down?" the man asks.

It's Ee Sung. He stares, mouth opening and closing helplessly, trying not to scream at the blood trailing down Ee Sung's arm. "S-sunbae?" Nam Gil asks.

"No, your pet penguin," Ee Sung snaps, before he groans and falls over. He clutches his arm, breath coming out in raspy exhales. Nam Gil goes cold watching Ee Sung try to staunch the blood from his own wound. He hears him cursing low under his breath before he points to the towel rack. "Get me that."

Nam Gil does as he's told, wasting no time. He watches helplessly as Ee Sung lies down, hissing in pain. "I need to elevate my arm," he says, voice strained.

"With what?" Nam Gil wails.

"I don't know, a statue of Buddha? Just get me something!" Ee Sung bites out.

Shit shit shit. Nam Gil looks down at Ee Sung sunbae, whose hair is drenched with sweat. The blood from his wound drips down onto the tiling of their floor, and it pushes Nam Gil to grab the nearest stack of books on his desk to use as an armrest. "Sunbae, sunbae-nim, stay with me," he says, pushing his books under his arm.

"I'm not dying, you punk," Ee Sung says weakly, with none of his usual ocean calm. "Just--press the towel against the wound."

Cringing, Nam Gil presses down on the wound. If he closes his eyes and runs through the phonemes of the English language, he almost doesn't feel the blood seeping through the towel. Just how Nam Gil wanted to spend his Friday night: saving irresponsible vigilantes crashing through his window, who actually turn out to be his roommate. Ee Sung instructs him through the rest with remarkable patience, voice steady even as Nam Gil does a clumsy job of tying the towel around his arm.

"Is it--is this okay?" he asks. There's blood all over the floor, and he's probably got blood all over his hands and knees. Is it possible to get blood out of floorboards? What if he's treating Ee Sung incorrectly? The thought occurs to him and he squawks again.

Ee Sung groans. "What now?"

"Sunbae, you won't have to get your arm amputated, right?" Nam Gil asks, imagining what wrath could fall upon him for allowing Assemblyman Jung's precious and youngest son to lose his arm in a university dorm. "Oh my god, do I need to call 1-1-9?"

"Do you ever shut up?" Ee Sung asks, closing his eyes. "It's going to stop bleeding soon, so don't call anyone."

Nam Gil chokes. "Are you okay? Sunbae, let's go to a hospital now--"

Ee Sung puts a hand over his, squeezing it once, and Nam Gil falls silent. "Nam Gil," he says quietly. "Can you just stay here until the bleeding stops?" There's a pleading expression on his face to replace the scowl, and Nam Gil thinks that this is the most exhausted he's ever seen him. If he does this, it'll be okay. He knows because Ee Sung sunbae said so.

"Fine," he agrees, and sits back down next to Ee Sung. "If it looks bad, I'm calling 1-1-9."

"Yeah yeah," Ee Sung murmurs, already drifting off to sleep. Nam Gil sees his brow relax in the dim glow of his mobile screen. He does a web search for symptoms of shock as he listens to Ee Sung's snores, and calculates how many hours it'll be until the sun comes up again.

It takes Nam Gil a good hour of scrubbing to get the blood out of his clothes, and another half hour besides to get it out of the floorboards. He's sweating in the midmorning heat as he affixes the torn mosquito net back onto the frame to the best of his abilities. Nam Gil's in the middle of hanging his bloodstained textbooks up to dry when Ee Sung falls out of bed.

"Fuck," he groans, voice muffled by the floorboards. Nam Gil rushes over, ready to call 119 immediately. He's seen enough 9 o'clock news reports to know what happens to people who complacently deny that they need help from the paramedics. The last thing that he needs is to have black tape drawn over his eyes as he tearfully answers reporters' questions about his late sunbae and roommate.

"Sunbae! Sunbae, are you okay?" Nam Gil asks, reaching to check his pulse. Ee Sung snaps up, narrowing his eyes at him.

"I'm injured, not fucking deaf," he says, and sits up. He's flexing his wrist, making a face like he just woke up with the worst hangover known to mankind.

Nam Gil sighs, relieved that he didn't expire in the dead of the night. "Are you feeling better?"

"Obviously," Ee Sung says irritably. He looks down at his arm, then at Nam Gil, then back down at his arm, like he's coming to some unwelcome revelations. "I need to shower," he announces suddenly.

Nam Gil isn't going to agree with him, lest he end up with a matching bruise on his own arm for his impertinence, so he nods shakily. "Okay," he says, and watches as Ee Sung drags himself to the bathroom.

When he reemerges, he looks considerably cleaner, and much less agitated--though if Nam Gil were in his shoes, he supposes that he'd be angry, too. Ee Sung stares at him, unmoving, before he wordlessly comes back to sit on his bed. He jogs his leg, looking around the room as if searching for a conversation piece. His gaze lingers over the window screen that Nam Gil repaired, and he points to it. "Uh, I can pay for the window," he says. "And your books."

"Oh, uhh," Nam Gil says, unsure whether he's supposed to accept his offer. After a moment's thought, he settles on: "Okay." It seems to be the right answer; the tension in Ee Sung's shoulders ease a little and he visibly relaxes. Nam Gil's pleased for all but ten seconds before the silence settles in, and he isn't sure if he should say something about last night's events. Crashing through a window calls for an apology at the very least, but crashing through a window dressed in spandex most definitely warrants an explanation.

"Are you okay?" Ee Sung finally asks.

"More or less," he says. Nam Gil really thinks that he's as well as anyone else who recently found out that their roommate is moonlighting as a part time vigilante. "Um, so what exactly happened last night?"

Ee Sung grimaces, and it looks more like his usual scowl than any expression he's made all morning. "I was chased by some enthusiastic high schoolers," he explains. "They nearly caught up to me, so I took a shortcut up to our room."

Unease creeps into Nam Gil's bones, shooting dread straight through him. "What did they want?"

"Hell if I know," Ee Sung says, waving his good arm. "They had baseball bats and cameras, so I wasn't going to stick around to find out."

Nam Gil shudders at the very thought. "Does that always happen?" he asks.

A thoughtful look crosses Ee Sung's face. "No, people have been unusually handsy lately," he says. "Not sure what it is, but there are people working on it."

Nam Gil swallows thickly, heart lodged in his throat. "Y-Yeah, no kidding?" he says, and tries not to think about the picture of Shin Gun that he took all those months ago. i want to get a picture too!!

Ee Sung pats his stomach and stands up to stretch. "Well, Busan Gil, I'm starving. How about you let your sunbae-nim treat you to some bossam," he says.

He's about to refuse, but he sees where the swelling around the gash on Ee Sung sunbae's forehead has started to go down. It prompts him to say, "Fine, but only if we go to the really famous restaurant in Hongdae."

They don't end up going to Hongdae, but Nam Gil doesn't complain.

Nam Gil's been in the Shin Gun tag all morning, scouring through several entertainment articles, all speculating on the identity of the Knight of Seoul. People's best guesses are pop idols and actors, which makes no sense at all. It gives Nam Gil some reassurance that Ee Sung's identity will remain a secret. He shoves a Choco Pie into his mouth as he reads a poorly written editorial on why Shin Gun is a blight on God's good earth. Regret makes the chocolate in his mouth turn sour as he reaches the comments at the bottom of the editorial.

"It seems to be that someone in a powerful position is abusing his powers to proselytize the work of the devil."

"lol looks like someone with a grudge against the government"

"r u sure its not someone IN the govt"

Setting the Choco Pie down, he starts typing in a response. "no way like the government would allow for their budget to be used for this. in america, the government hunts down vigilantes and--"

He's interrupted when there's a knock on the door. Grumbling, he goes to answer it. All the blood drains from his face when he sees that it's Tall and Dark standing on the other side of the door, with a briefcase in tow, no less. As if sensing Nam Gil's hesitation to answer, he knocks again. Swallowing, Nam Gil opens the door enough to peek outside. "Hello, err, Ee Sung sunbae's...?" Ee Sung never had clarified just what their relationship was, but Nam Gil is observant enough to make an educated guess.

Tall and Dark raises an eyebrow, a tacit refusal to fill in the blanks. Instead he holds out a hand and greets him: "Hello, I'm Jo Sang Yeop." Nam Gil looks down at his hand, then at his own chocolate-stained fingers. Sang Yeop seems to notice them as well, because he pockets his hand at once and smiles at Nam Gil pleasantly. "May I come inside?" he asks.

"Uh, Ee Sung sunbae isn't here right now," he says truthfully, conveniently leaving out the part where Ee Sung had instructed him to tell Sang Yeop to get lost if he came knocking on the door. "Maybe another time?"

Sang Yeop tilts his head and studies Nam Gil, before he pushes on the door and invites himself in. "Well how fortunate, then, as I came here to see you," he says cheerfully, ignoring Nam Gil's protests. "We won't even have to worry about wayward delinquents interrupting our conversation, will we?"

Nam Gil looks on helplessly, watching as Sang Yeop makes himself at home at Ee Sung's desk. He's forcibly reminded of old royalty from the Joseon Dynasty. "Come sit down, Nam Gil. I don't mean to impose upon you."

If he really didn't want to impose upon him, then why couldn't he take care of his business in the hallway? Or better yet, just send him a friendly email? As he goes to sit down across from Sang Yeop, Nam Gil thinks darkly that for once, he should have heeded Ee Sung sunbae's advice.

"We want to thank you for taking care of our Sung-yi the other day," he says. It takes Nam Gil a moment to realize he's referring to Ee Sung sunbae. Sang Yeop seems intent on not only sending Nam Gil's blood pressure skyrocketing but also testing his ability to resist gagging in disgust with a nickname like that. He forces himself to think about allomorphs as he smiles.

"Of...course," he manages, wondering if he should alert Ee Sung sunbae.

"I would caution you against notifying Sung-yi," Sang Yeop says, smiling with his teeth. "I'll cut to the chase, Nam Gil, and give you this." He pulls a card out of his briefcase and hands it to Nam Gil. 'Jo Sang Yeop, CEO. Bradley Enterprises, Korea Branch,' it reads in black enamel lettering. Of course Ee Sung sunbae would be dubiously involved with the CEO of an overseas enterprise.

"What is this?" Nam Gil asks, immediately suspicious.

"Call it an introduction," Sang Yeop says, clearly unconcerned about Nam Gil's complete confusion. "As you may have noticed, Ee Sung has a part-time position with us at Bradley Enterprises."

Nam Gil stares. "What, as the company's mascot?"

Chuckling, Sang Yeop waves a hand dismissively. "Nothing like that," he says. "You see, Bradley Enterprises was founded by the family of James Bradley, a wealthy American entrepreneur, who expanded his business overseas.

"Do you want to take a guess at what sort of business that is?"

"Crime...fighting?" he says, hardly believing the words coming out of his own mouth. If at the end of all this, Ee Sung sunbae doesn't pay up with at least twenty boxes of Choco Pie, Nam Gil will publish a public statement demanding reparations.

"Exactly. Which is why we want to offer you a job." Sang Yeop pulls out another stack of papers, which are promptly put into Nam Gil's hands.

Nam Gil leafs through the packet, eyeing the text suspiciously. On the cover of the packet, however, is the letterhead for Bradley Enterprises, the watermark and all. He looks up at Sang Yeop then back down at the papers. "You're offering me a job?" he asks.

"Yes. We've had our eye on you since your arrival to the city and we think you'd make a valuable addition to our company," Sang Yeop says. Nam Gil stares down at the application.

He's so lost in his thoughts that he doesn't hear the door open, and when he looks up, Ee Sung is standing in the threshold with a bag of carp bread. The grin on his face disappears as he realizes that Nam Gil has done the exact opposite of what he had instructed. He looks at Nam Gil with narrowed eyes, then at Sang Yeop, who suddenly seems very interested in rearranging the insides of his briefcase.

"What would my job entail?" Nam Gil asks, ignoring Ee Sung's withering gaze. He's become too accustomed to his glimmering temperament for that to work.

"Nothing," Ee Sung answers. He closes the door behind him and comes to sit on his desk. "Because Sang Yeop's going to leave right now."

"Immediately," Sang Yeop says, as though he hadn't heard Ee Sung's protests.

Nam Gil feels the need to give a disclaimer: "But I can't jump from the 63 Building or perform superhuman feats." Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Ee Sung's jaw clenching.

"Yeah, and I'd feel better if I never had to see you wearing spandex either," Ee Sung adds.

Nam Gil balks at that, at which point Sang Yeop steps in. "You know that isn't the sort of position we want him for."

"You'd remember that I told you to butt out, then," Ee Sung retorts, grabbing Sang Yeop's briefcase. He walks towards the door, ready to show him the way out. "We need to talk."

Sang Yeop feigns a woeful expression, standing up anyway as he walks towards the door himself. He looks back at Nam Gil and smiles. "Please send in the application if you're interested," he says, before the door slams shut, leaving Nam Gil to sit there in their wake. Apparently Ee Sung sunbae couldn't wait to drag Sang Yeop out of the room to entertain his company--or go get tea. He swallows past the tight feeling in his chest as he thinks about Ee Sung's blatant unwillingness to work with him.

"It was his weird friend who bothered me and he's the one who gets mad," he mutters, low under his breath. It isn't like Nam Gil's the one who invited himself to work at a company sponsoring a group of vigilantes. He looks down at the papers in his hands.

"Technology Operator wanted, full-time, required to be flexible and a quick thinker," the paper reads. It promises solutions much more effective than sifting through Internet forums.

Nam Gil supposes he'll think about it.

Ee Sung finds him in the library later that day, wedged between two bookcases and holding a stick of Peppero between his lips. He's panting like he ran a marathon all the way from Yeouido. Never in all his time at school has Nam Gil seen him using the library. Did Ee Sung even know that their school had a library? There's a rising feeling in his chest at the thought that he's here to see him.

"Sunbae?"

"Burn it," he says. "Don't trust that good-for-nothing swindler."

"What?"

"He's here to steal your youth and all your sleep, so don't fall for that sophisticated CEO shit," he says. Then he sits down next to Nam Gil, pressing their knees together. "The pay isn't worth it, if that's what you're thinking."

Nam Gil frowns, realizing exactly why Ee Sung came to find him. "If you're worried about personal boundaries, you don't have to be." He's staring hard down at his book, trying not to think about how warm Ee Sung's leg is against his.

"What are you talking about?" Ee Sung says. "This isn't funny, Busan Gil, I'm seriously telling you to butt out for your own good."

Nam Gil takes out the hand sanitizer in his backpack, pouring it into his hands. He offers some to Ee Sung, who's frowning deeply. "Why are you trying to stick your nose into this?"

Nam Gil thinks about the photos circulating online--his photo--and the tightness in his chest is back. If there were ever a time to come clean, now would be it. Nam Gil can tell him about the picture, they can figure out a way to take care of it, and the two of them can go back to how it was before. He looks at the burgeoning scab on Ee Sung's forehead and clutches tighter onto his phone.

"Um, no reason," he says. He can tell Ee Sung is staring, but can't make himself meet his eyes. Ee Sung says nothing for a moment, before he reaches over to steal a stick of Peppero. He chews with more spite than seems warranted, before he bites out, "Fine, do whatever you want."

The tension between them eases into a comfortable silence, then, and Nam Gil sighs in relief that he doesn't press the subject further. It's fine even if he couldn't tell Ee Sung today. Once he fixes what he ruined, it'll be a thing of the past.

"Sandpiper, this is Falconer, do you read me?" Sang Yeop says from the other end of the line. "I need you to fact-check something for me."

"U-um, yes," Nam Gil stammers, switching through his windows in search of the right one. It takes him a full minute to find it. "What--what is it, Falconer?"

"Do you know whether there's a university event tonight near Gwanak?"

He flips through the database that he was shown, navigating it without much success. "It...doesn't look like it," he says. There's silence on the other end of the line, and he wonders if Sang Yeop is reconsidering his employment.

The moment passes, though, and he sounds perfectly pleasant as he says, "Roger that, Sandpiper, I'll drop in again soon." The line goes dead, and Nam Gil hangs up before he leans back in his seat to take a breath.

When Ee Sung told him that he would be coming in for orientation today, the idea was more than a little thrilling. After all, it wasn't every day that Nam Gil got access to a top-secret facility like the Aviary. Even now, he can't stop staring at the chrome finish on the mainframe monitor. It was an endless source of annoyance to Ee Sung sunbae earlier that evening when he first brought Nam Gil to the Aviary.

"Stop gaping, your jaw's going to fall out," he said, bouncing a ball against the wall.

"Is not," Nam Gil shot back, before he turned back to stare some more. He inched closer to run his hand along the surface when the gate opened and in walked a man who must have been another employee.

"You're late," Ee Sung said, calling out to the man.

"Sorry, sorry, I was in the middle of something." He waved apologetically at Ee Sung, stopping once he saw the scowl on his face. Nam Gil had a hard time imagining him taking a punch, much less launching himself off of buildings and gliding through the air. The employee walked over to where Nam Gil stood with Ee Sung sunbae and grinned. "You must be Nam Gil."

"Uh, yeah, hello," Nam Gil said, bowing his head awkwardly. "I look forward to working with you."

"No need to be so formal," he replied. "I'm Kim Dong Joon, but you can call me 'hyung.' Just think of me as an older brother." He was positively radiant, beaming at Nam Gil like he'd just announced a giveaway for a lifetime supply of rice cakes. Nam Gil could have sworn that Ee Sung's scowl deepened. He must not have been the only one who noticed, because Dong Joon cleared his throat and sat in the chair. "Well, since we're here, let's take a quick look at the mainframe."

Dong Joon woke up the monitor and signed into the mainframe, typing with quick, efficient keystrokes. "We usually don't need to use all the units for a regular night of patrol, but our boss likes to have them on standby in case of another complete meltdown somewhere in the multiverse," he said.

Nam Gil blinked.

Dong Joon seemed unconcerned by his confusion, as he started to list out his duties on any given night. He was in the middle of explaining a task when another employee swooped in and looped an arm around Dong Joon's shoulders.

"Sweet Princess Joon-yi, what are you doing?" he asked. "Why is it that there is inappropriate fraternization in my palace?" This employee didn't bother to greet Nam Gil, seeming rather more interested in perpetrating said inappropriate fraternization.

Dong Joon, to his credit, elbowed him in the nose, face gone completely red. "This is the Aviary, not your freaking palace, Won," he snapped. "Also, stop calling me that."

"Rumor has it, Joon-yi-ah, that you're actually quite amenable to it when you cling to m--"

This time, it was Ee Sung who silenced him, slapping a hand over his mouth. "Stop terrifying the new kid," he said.

Won looked up at Ee Sung, then at Nam Gil. "I'm sorry about that," he apologized, before he held out his hand. "I'm Won. I'm open to other titles: hyung, your greatness, fair leader."

Unsure how to respond, Nam Gil just smiled and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you."

There weren't any interruptions after that, and Dong Joon finished explaining how to troubleshoot if there were any emergencies when he stood up. "Well, the seat's all yours now," he said.

Nam Gil stared. His jaw really was going to fall out. "What?"

Dong Joon looked away, a little guiltily. "Well, they needed another person out in the field tonight, and you know what they say about experience being the best teacher."

Nam Gil saw then: he was already dressed in his skin suit, ready to leave from the start. More people were starting to pour in, ready to go on patrol, and there wasn't anything he could do about it. He shot a look at Ee Sung sunbae, who shrugged and made a rude gesture in Dong Joon's direction.

Some help he was, Nam Gil thinks darkly. It's been three hours since then, and in those three hours, Ee Sung sunbae has called him on five different occasions to ask him for useless requests, one of which was to see if the black bean noodle shop in Insadong delivered twenty-four hours a day.

As if summoned, Ee Sung sunbae calls him then, and Nam Gil picks up, disgruntled. "Sandpiper to Shin Gun," he says.

"Bus--Sandpiper, I need to talk to Black Heron and Kingfisher, stat."

"Roger that." Nam Gil scrolls through the windows again, and finds the conversation between Won and Dong Joon. He patches Ee Sung in, turning off the mute.

"--act like a princess, but you're actually pretty dirty." It's Won's voice, low and husky over the speakers. Nam Gil freezes, realizing exactly what sort of conversation he's just walked into.

"Shut up, you're so insufferable." There's a stifled moan from Dong Joon's end of the line, and Nam Gil feels his face heating up immediately.

He's about to close out of the window altogether when Ee Sung makes a disgusted noise. "The fuck?" he says. Nam Gil doesn't have to see his face to know what sort of expression he's making, corners of his lips turned down. "Can't you leave that shit in the bedroom?"

"Do you hear that, princess? The torch-bearer wants us to preserve his chastity," Won crows.

There's a beat of silence, and he can't tell if Ee Sung sunbae is going to say something biting back or curse loudly and hang up. He seems to choose neither, saying nothing even as the seconds drag on.

"Hey, Shin Gun, are you mad?" Won asks, after a while. His voice is thick with apprehension, but there's no response.

Then, out of nowhere, Nam Gil hears a loud scream over the speakers, and the line goes dead. Try as he might to call Won and Ee Sung, neither of them pick up. He runs troubleshooting programs, praying that it was just that both their commlinks malfunctioned at the same exact time in a dazzling feat of true camaraderie. The troubleshooter reports that everything is working fine, that there's nothing that it needs to do.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me," he mutters, low under his breath.

But of course, life doesn't kid, and certainly not with Nam Gil of all people.

At breakfast the next day, Nam Gil has to try very hard not to stare at the scab on Ee Sung's lower lip. The task proves itself difficult, especially because Ee Sung starts wincing every time he so much as opens his mouth to take a bite of food. Nam Gil looks on, unimpressed, wondering if he should say something. He opens his mouth to speak, only for Ee Sung to narrow his eyes. "Don't. Even," he says.

Nam Gil raises his hands. "Yes, yes, I'm sorry," he says. How dare a lowly underclassman show concern for his injured roommate. He watches as Ee Sung sunbae takes bite-sized portions of rice onto his spoon. Won's words play over and over again in his head: "The torch-bearer wants us to preserve his chastity." There are so many questions he wants to ask, right there on the tip of his tongue.

"I'm sure Won was just embarrassed, too," he says. "So why did you attack him for that?"

Ee Sung starts choking, and Nam Gil has to pour a glass of water for him. When he finally recovers, Ee Sung clears his throat. "He was asking for it," he says. "That bastard's just annoying. Look at that face, it screams 'up to no good.'"

Nam Gil wisely chooses not to comment on how they seem to have that in common. "What happened to 'camaraderie'?"

Ee Sung points his chopsticks at him threateningly. "That traitor is no comrade of mine." He glowers. "I'm never going to look at his face again." He shovels more rice into his mouth with a vindictive fury. Nam Gil shakes his head in exasperation.

"So, how was it?" Ee Sung asks. "The job, I mean."

Pursing his lips, Nam Gil thinks about last night. It had been stressful at first, trying to coordinate between so many different tasks, but as the night went on, he found his rhythm. He looks forward to going back tonight. The low point was two grown men fighting in an alleyway, dressed in spandex and kevlar. Sang Yeop had been less than impressed himself, threatening to kick them out of the field if this happened again. Just thinking about his icy glare makes him shudder.

"It was better than I expected," he says truthfully. Then he remembers what Dong Joon told him before leaving the Aviary for the night. "Do you really get a pay cut if you cause trouble at work?"

"Why don't you find out for yourself?" Ee Sung says. "There are plenty of opportunities for that when you're on tech."

His face heats up at once when he sees the grin on Ee Sung's face, all sly and no good at all. "W-what? I'm not that sort of person!" he protests. "Lose money on your own time!"

"Isn't someone imaginative," Ee Sung says, barking out a laugh. Then he grabs Nam Gil's hand in what he no doubt thinks is a manly clasp of convivial brotherhood. "Young Busan Gil, never ever try to take a selfie with the statue of Buddha in the Bulguksa Temple or even your comrades' efforts to shield your pay check from the wrath of the Man will not be enough."

"You did what?" Nam Gil squawks.

"This soup is great, did you make it?" Ee Sung lets go of his hand and continues eating. Nam Gil glares at the top of his head for a long moment before he joins him, too.

The high-rises in Apgujeong-dong give Nam Gil serious acrophobia. Even looking at them from the safety of the ground makes his palms start to sweat. When Dong Joon explained that he needed to go do surveillance on rooftops throughout the city, Nam Gil felt himself grow faint. Now that he's on the roof of the Galleria Department Store, however, he finds himself thinking that he wouldn't mind coming up here every now and then.

"Search for anything out of the ordinary and updates on construction," he repeats to himself, looking out on Apgujeon-dong's bustling city life. This would have been more effective if he knew what he was actually supposed to be looking for. Clearly no one had considered that Nam Gil didn't know how to tell one street of Seoul apart from the other, even after his six month stay. Dong Joon had just laughed when he told him, reciting the so-called Bradley Enterprises motto ("Sink or float or get off the boat") as he handed him a pair of binoculars and a regulation laptop.

Nam Gil still doesn't see how that could be a real motto, but walks over to the edge of the roof in an attempt at surveillance anyway. He's surprised when he comes face to face with a camera, stealthily placed on the wall of the building. It takes a photo of him, flash going off with a snap.

"Shit," he groans, rubbing his eyes. Maybe Ee Sung sunbae was right and Nam Gil should bow out for his own good. He spends a few minutes blinking the rainbows out of his vision before he turns back to the camera, moving slowly.

There are motion sensors attached to various points around the periphery, all linking to the camera, which protrudes from the wall. It's poised to take a full frontal shot, and Nam Gil knows that there's only person this camera could be for. Whoever made this trap really must have done their homework. Or watched too much Spider-man. Either way, it leaves Nam Gil to reach for the camera and rip it out of the wall. He leans over the railing and tugs on the camera, which seems determined to stay rooted to the building.

"Why didn't anyone include a jackhammer in this surveillance kit," he mutters, as he pulls on it. The camera starts to come loose, and he gives it a final tug--only to feel himself going into free fall over the edge of the building. His stomach swoops and he grips the camera in hopes it will hold.

Strong hands grab him around the waist, saving him from the fall. Nam Gil's breath freezes in his lungs as he's pulled back over the railing.

It's Ee Sung sunbae. "The hell are you doing? Do you want to die?" he yells, expression stormy.

The adrenaline in his veins starts to wear off, leaving only his heart pumping loudly in his chest. His knees wobble, and Nam Gil clutches at Ee Sung. He holds him steady, helping Nam Gil sit down, and he finds himself thinking that it feels safe in Ee Sung's arms.

"Sunbae," he manages to say after a moment.

"No shit, you dumbass," Ee Sung snaps. Then, more softly, "Are you okay?"

Nam Gil swallows thickly, trying not to stare. "Obviously. I'm not made of glass." He sits up properly, pulling away from Ee Sung sunbae, who doesn't look convinced.

"What were you doing? What the hell is that?" He points at the camera in Nam Gil's hand.

"Oh, this," Nam Gil says, remembering what he was doing in the first place. "It's surveillance." He wraps the wires around the camera and stuffs it into his bag, eager to take it back to the lab for further examination. Then he pauses, turning to Ee Sung. "Why are you here? I thought you were busy, sunbae."

"I heard you were doing surveillance so I came to do some myself," Ee Sung says smoothly. "Good thing I did, too."

As loath as he is to admit it, Ee Sung did save him, so Nam Gil bites back his retort. "I guess I didn't really know what to do for surveillance," he admits.

"That punk didn't teach you anything, did he?" Ee Sung asks. Nam Gil shakes his head, embarrassed to cause such a fuss.

Ee Sung seems to think nothing of it, because he stands up and takes Nam Gil's binoculars. "Come on, Busan Gil, this sunbae-nim will teach you." He sits on the edge of the rooftop, waiting for Nam Gil to follow.

"Are you going to demand I call you 'teacher,' too?" Nam Gil asks testily, coming over to sit next to him.

"Only if you feel like it," Ee Sung answers. He looks through the binoculars, then, and starts explaining what Nam Gil is supposed to look out for during surveillance. Pointing at the cluster of buildings behind the alley, he hands Nam Gil the binoculars. "Also look around and see if there are places like that, because people are probably doing shady shit in there." Nam Gil nods, listening carefully to everything that he says.

"You're surprisingly knowledgeable," Nam Gil says, when Ee Sung finishes. Packing up, he smiles at Ee Sung, who grins back.

"And you're unsurprisingly a punk."

Unfazed, he stows away the binoculars, taking out his phone to check the time. The sun is high in the sky, beating down against his back in the late August afternoon.

Satisfied with his progress, Nam Gil turns to Ee Sung and thanks him. "You're a better teacher than I thought you would be," he says, then runs off before Ee Sung can retaliate.

"Your eyes are going to fall out if you keep staring at that screen."

Nam Gil minimizes the window, turning away from the computer. "You know that's not true, Kang Guk," he says. He's still hard-pressed to believe that the Aviary has its own butler, but there he is, foisting tea onto Nam Gil and snapping at Dong Joon about manners when he waves at him.

"Sorry, Kang Guk," he apologizes, laughingly. Kang Guk waves him off, and he comes to sit down next to Nam Gil. "So, I looked into the camera you found."

"What was in it?"

"Well, it looks like our friend did snatch a few photos of Ee Sung hyung," Dong Joon says, showing Nam Gil the developed photos. "Your suspicions are confirmed."

This isn't what Nam Gil wanted to hear, but he does his best to smile. "Thanks, hyung," he says. After seeing the trending tag on Twitter, Nam Gil had told Dong Joon, who seemed to share his alarm. It was a good thing, too, because Ee Sung didn't seem to share any of the same concern.

"So?" he said, when Nam Gil told him the news.

Nam Gil slapped his own forehead, frustrated at his pigheadedness. "Haven't you ever watched Iron Man? One minute he's flying around in the iron suit, and the next moment the government is putting him on trial!"

Of course, Ee Sung didn't take him seriously, and now there are photos of him in Nam Gil's hands. He looks through them, guilt curling around his stomach; it holds on tight, making it hard to breathe. His mind races with ways that he can try to push back against the city's fascination with Ee Sung sunbae. It's unfortunate that he realizes that there's no way he can actually make information disappear, especially not at this point.

"Hyung," he says. "Is there a way you can delete things from the Internet permanently?"

Dong Joon purses his lips, and he seems to be considering it seriously. "There might be," he says, after a few minutes. "But it's not really something the boss would approve of." Then he smiles a little at Nam Gil. "Besides, it doesn't really get rid of the public's knowledge that Shin Gun exists."

More people walk into the Aviary, then, interrupting their conversation.

"Hello, Kim and Kim Replacement." It's Yul, Sang Yeop's son and fellow employee. Nam Gil tries not to think too hard about it, lest he start asking impertinent questions and find himself unemployed.

Dong Joon doesn't even bat an eye. "Hi, Yul," he answers, turning back to the files he pulled out for Nam Gil.

As if on cue, Ee Sung comes up behind Yul and smacks him up the head. "Don't be fucking rude. I thought you said you like Nam Gil."

Yul scowls. "I did not! I just said that the new recruit was refreshingly not Kim-like!" He rubs his head, nursing his skull delicately. "How dare you strike me. The blood of Queen Min runs through these veins." Rolling his eyes, Ee Sung pulls him into a headlock, completely ignoring Yul's protests.

"It looks like this was a one-time purchase," Dong Joon says, and Nam Gil turns back to him. "These cameras cost a fortune, so I don't think anyone would have wanted to invest that much into a harebrained scheme for fame."

Nam Gil nods. "So there probably won't be any more of these cameras around the city."

"And if there are, we can take them out ourselves," Dong Joon says. He puts a hand on Nam Gil's shoulder and squeezes it. "It should be fine, Nam Gil. Even if we seem clumsy, the boss trained us to be the best, including Ee Sung hyung."

Over in the corner, he sees Ee Sung, who's goading Yul into a spar. He blocks Yul's punches easily, grinning as his temper starts to get the better of him. Nam Gil wants to tell him that no, it isn't fine, that he took a picture of him once, too, and it was easy as could be. That's why they're in this mess at all.

"Okay," he says, and pushes the worries to the back of his mind.

Nam Gil cringes when he sees the press release sitting on the table. It's the latest issue of the Chosun Daily, and on the front cover is a photograph of Ee Sung sunbae, vaulting off the Namdaemun with a smile on his face. "The Vigilante We've Been Waiting For?" the headline reads, and the article goes on to talk about the state of affairs surrounding Shin Gun's intervention in the crime scene of urban Seoul.

Everyone in the room is tense, sitting at the round sofa in silence while Ee Sung munches on an apple. He grabs the newspaper and appraises it, raising an eyebrow. "This is a really good picture," he says.

"That isn't the problem here," Yul snaps. He grabs the newspaper out of Ee Sung's hand and starts reading. "'There have been an increasing number of attempts by civilians to capture a photo or video of the vigilante, resulting in a few casualties and other accidents. As the toll of injuries rises, the public demands to know the identity of the masked crusader at once.'" He slaps the paper back down on the desk and looks at Ee Sung. "Does that sound anything less than serious to you?"

Sang Yeop puts a hand on his shoulder. "Why don't we take a moment to breathe and figure out a solution to all this," he says. No one objects when he takes the paper and folds it away. "This isn't anything that we haven't dealt with before."

Dong Joon strokes his chin. "Maybe it's best if Ee Sung hyung lies low for some time, and we can send Sang Yeop to the West side instead."

"Objection," Ee Sung cuts in, putting down his apple. "What am I supposed to do while I 'lie low'?"

"You can help the Kim Replacement with his knitting," Yul says.

Won holds his hand out to exchange high fives. "I was going to say that he could start a new tradition of giving back massages to the patrol team, but I wouldn't mind a new sweater, either."

"Yul," Sang Yeop says reproachfully as Nam Gil slaps his forehead.

Dong Joon leans forward. "How about we deliver some hush money to the media outlets?"

"Are you stupid?" Ee Sung barks. "You know that money's just going to be funneled into more blacklisting and censorship."

"Perhaps you shouldn't have been so reckless as to have a photograph of you taken," Yul says.

The bickering starts in full force, then, and Nam Gil stares up at the ceiling. The telltale sweating starts in his palms, but if he wipes his mind blank, he's less likely feel the urge to run out of the room. There's a hand, warm on his elbow, and he looks up to see that it's Ee Sung sunbae, who squeezes reassuringly.

"Sunbae," he says.

"Don't worry your head off, Busan Gil, nothing's going to happen," Ee Sung says, letting go of Nam Gil. It's time to suit up, and Ee Sung stands up to go to the changing room.

"Where do you think you're going?" Sang Yeop stands in front of the door, crossing his arms.

"Patrol. Where else?" Ee Sung says, trying to push past Sang Yeop. "Can I help you?"

Sang Yeop frowns. "You saw that editorial, Ee Sung; what makes you think it's a good idea to go outside today?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Nam Gil can see Won, Dong Joon, and Yul lurking past, avoiding Ee Sung's gaze. His eyes narrow dangerously. "So, what, you're going to ground me?"

"Not unless you refuse to stay in the Aviary."

"You can't make me."

"At least a couple of weeks, Ee Sung."

Three whole minutes pass, where Ee Sung seems bent on challenging Sang Yeop for the title of champion of the Republic's longest staring contest. Then he turns around, snarling as he walks back over to the round sofa. Nam Gil comes out of the exchange amazed that no one lost an eye or a limb.

"Please keep an eye on him," Sang Yeop says to Kang Guk, who nods and turns to Ee Sung to bark out something about throwing tantrums.

"You're not my dad," Ee Sung snaps.

"Is this what I get for feeding you and treating you like my own son?"

"Screw you, old man!"

Sighing, Sang Yeop rubs his temples as he sits down in the nearby chair. He looks up at Nam Gil and smiles. "Please make sure that he doesn't break out."

"I don't think that he's the kind of person to listen to anyone," Nam Gil says, looking over at where Kang Guk hits Ee Sung with a tea tray.

"Neither do I," Sang Yeop agrees. "But you seem to have the most success amongst us. Keep up the good work." He pats Nam Gil's arm once before he, too, walks into the changing room to leave for the night.

"Sure," Nam Gil says weakly. He thinks better of trying to comfort Ee Sung sunbae, who's inconsolable at this point. Instead he walks over to the main chair, preparing himself for the night to run its course.

Ee Sung spends most of the following week in their dorm, making a complete mess out of his half of the room. Intermittently, Nam Gil has to go through his things and clear out the trash. He draws the line, however, at doing his laundry.

"Aren't you going to go outside?" he asks, shaking his hamper for emphasis.

Ee Sung grunts. He's lying on his side, bundled up in blankets despite the late August heat, reading another one of his interesting novels.

Nam Gil goes for the offensive. "Sunbae, your clothes reek," he says, voice flat. "If you keep acting like this, Sang Yeop isn't going to invite you back to the Aviary."

At the mention of Sang Yeop, Ee Sung whips the blankets off, glaring at him. "Don't. Talk about. Him," he says through his teeth. "Who cares if he never invites me back? I don't want to see his ugly face again." Then he looks at the hamper that Nam Gil's holding and snatches it out of his hands.

Nam Gil drags his hands over his face. Assemblyman Jung has done a terrible job of raising his youngest son, and Nam Gil makes it his personal goal to tell him so one day. Ee Sung shuffles around in search for his slippers, before he grabs his keys and detergent. "Stop bossing your sunbae around, small fry," he says, pushing the door open. "And I don't smell!"

With that, the door slams shut behind him, and Nam Gil is left to his own devices, relieved that Ee Sung finally left the room this week. He opens the window and closes the curtains, ready to catch up on lost sleep. With Ee Sung sunbae crashing around at erratic hours, he hasn't had the chance for a proper night's rest since the editorial was published at the Chosun Daily. Nam Gil's about to drift off to sleep when the door opens and closes, softly this time.

Ee Sung pads in quietly, putting his hamper down on his side of the room. He stands there for a moment, before he walks over to where Nam Gil is. "Hey," he says.

Nam Gil sits up in bed, brow furrowing in concern. "What is it?"

There's an unfamiliar expression on Ee Sung's face, and he opens his mouth to speak. "Um, sorry. About this week, I mean."

Nam Gil stares. "What?"

"Are you deaf? I'm trying to--" He cuts himself off and groans, running a hand through his hair, before he sits down on the bed. "I know that it's not exactly a cakewalk with me, so I'm sorry."

"Oh, um, it's--it's okay," Nam Gil stammers, unsure whether he should agree or not. The warm feeling rises again in his chest when he looks at Ee Sung.

"You do a good job taking care of me," Ee Sung says. Then he curses, low under his breath. "No, I mean--you take good care of me. And you're good at your job. So, before, when I tried to kick that bastard out of our room, I wasn't trying to say that I don't want to work with you."

Nam Gil swallows. "Okay," he says slowly, praying that his voice doesn't shake. "Then what?"

"I just know it wasn't great for you when I busted in through the window, so I didn't think it was okay for Sang Yeop to try to con you into this work without telling you details first." He jogs his leg, all nervous energy as he speaks. "But clearly you were a good candidate for the job, so... sorry about that, too."

How long had Ee Sung been thinking about this? Did he rehearse it in his head? Practice what he was going to say to Nam Gil, so that he could tell him now? Wordlessly, Nam Gil reaches over and puts a hand over Ee Sung's. It's as warm as he remembers, but only this time, his palm is clammy against his own fingers. "Don't apologize," Nam Gil says, smiling. "You were just trying to be a good upperclassman."

Ee Sung looks up, meeting his eyes for the first time since he walked in. Even in the dim lighting, he's impossibly handsome.

"I want to kiss you," Nam Gil blurts out. Before he can qualify himself or make excuses, Ee Sung leans in and kisses him. It's short, just a press of Ee Sung's lips against his, but Nam Gil's head spins all the same.

"I've been wanting to do that," Ee Sung confesses when they pull apart.

"Oh," Nam Gil says, a dazzling feat of romance. "Then what about Sang Yeop?"

The expression on Ee Sung's face goes flat. "The hell does he have to do with this?"

"I thought you were..." Nam Gil fishes for an appropriate word. "Friends with benefits."

For a moment, Nam Gil thinks that Ee Sung will finally learn to cap his temper, but then he proves him wrong. He's definitely frowning now as he looks at Nam Gil. "God, Nam Gil, you're so fucking stupid!" he says. "I don't understand how you can write pages and pages of code then turn around and say shit like that!"

Offended, Nam Gil protests. "What's stupid about asking a pertinent question?" he snaps.

"Why did you think that the old man stopped visiting our room? It wasn't because I had the sudden urge to take a vow of celibacy." Ee Sung's face turns a strange shade of red--puce, maybe. Somehow, it doesn't deter Nam Gil from wanting to kiss him again.

"Oh. Okay," he says, throat gone tight with realization. Then he pulls Ee Sung in for another kiss, sighing when he kisses Nam Gil back, licking into his mouth as Nam Gil opens up for him. When they come apart this time, they look at each other and laugh.

Nam Gil's heart feels light when Ee Sung wraps an arm around him. It's too good to be true, he thinks as he looks down at Ee Sung, who dozes off next to him. The thought that he might not be able to have this if he told Ee Sung the truth hits him, coiling tight around his stomach as guilt. He has to tell him--about the crowds of people, about the camera, and about that night in March.

"Sunbae," he says, quietly, shaking Ee Sung awake.

Ee Sung rustles, opening his eyes. "What is it, Nam Gil?"

Nam Gil shakes his head, throat closing up. "Nothing, I just have to go soon," he lies, brushing Ee Sung's hair out of his eyes. It's okay to want to have these moments before he tells him.

"I can't believe I didn't tell him earlier," Nam Gil mutters to himself, pacing back and forth. He takes a deep breath, forcing himself not to jump to conclusions before he even says anything. Only, he's at least ninety-eight percent sure that Ee Sung sunbae's going to completely lose his temper. "Really good job, Kang Nam Gil."

"Didn't tell who what?" Won asks. He's leaning against the doorjamb in the meeting room, where Nam Gil has been pacing a hole into the floor. "If you mean Ee Sung hyung, I hope you tell him soon, because it's kind of scary when he smiles so much."

Nam Gil feels himself pale, and Won's expression turns to one of disbelief. "Wait, really?" he says. "You have to tell me first, Nam Gil."

Shaking his head, Nam Gil says, "That's probably not a good idea."

"Yeah, stop sticking your big nose into other people's business," Ee Sung says, pushing Won aside. He closes the door behind him, turning to Nam Gil. "You said you had to tell me something, right?"

Nam Gil nods. "Uh, maybe you should sit down for this."

"What?" Ee Sung says, sitting down anyway.

Pacing back and forth again, Nam Gil breathes in deeply before he stops in front of Ee Sung. He doesn't trust his voice not to crack as he speaks. "You know the editorial in the Chosun Daily--well, um. That was my fault."

Ee Sung frowns. "Nam Gil, what--"

"No, I mean--back in March, when I first moved into the dorm, I saw you outside the building and I took a picture." Nam Gil's heart pounds loud in his chest, and his fingers have gone cold. "I took a picture of you, and I posted it on Twitter. Then in July, before you started getting crowded by people during patrol, the picture I took went viral. I deleted it from my account afterwards."

"What are you trying to say?" Ee Sung asks, brow furrowing.

"I joined when Sang Yeop offered me the position because I thought I would be able to--to do something about the picture and the people. It seemed better than doing nothing." Nam Gil's voice sounds too high, even to his own ears. "I'm sorry."

Ee Sung says nothing, but he can see his jaw clenching. "You knew before you joined," he says, voice even. "You knew but you couldn't stop to tell me."

"I was going to tell you--I was, but then I couldn't."

His expression clouds over, eyes wide with anger. "What was preventing you? Did your jaw break? Did you suddenly lose your voice?"

"No, it wasn't like that, I just didn't want to see you get angry," Nam Gil says quickly. His throat constricts and he feels tears prickle at his eyes. "I'm sorry. I know that if I told you sooner, maybe there was something else that we could have done, or--"

Ee Sung stands up then, and grips Nam Gil's arm tight. If Nam Gil thought he was angry before, it was nothing compared to this. "Are you serious? Is that what you think this is about?" he asks.

"I..." Nam Gil looks up at him, unsure how he's supposed to respond. "I don't understand."

"I'm not mad that you took that fucking picture, Nam Gil," he says, voice wavering. "It was a mistake, and there are more than enough people to fix it here. The real question is why you lied to me. Aren't you supposed to tell the truth when you--" His expression shutters, and he swallows. "We kissed. And I thought you were serious, but you were hiding things. Why couldn't you just tell me?"

Nam Gil finds that he has no good answer. He looks away, unable to meet Ee Sung sunbae's eyes.

"You're seriously too much," Ee Sung says. He lets go of Nam Gil's arm and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Nam Gil sinks into the nearest chair and tells himself not to cry even as tears start to fall.

He doesn't get up for a long, long time.

bullshit like sm would bring them back, Nam Gil types. who does yunho think he's fooling, he's way too old for this.

Weeks have passed, and the public is wrapped up in its next hot topic. Nam Gil is sitting in the one corner of the study room with reliable wireless connection, doing nothing even remotely approaching homework. His professors have taken to commenting on his sudden incline in grades, which he's brushed off with a laugh, because he somehow doesn't think saying "I'm taking a break from my part time job as a vigilante" would make a funny joke.

After hearing the news, Dong Joon had offered to take back his old position for a while. "At least until Ee Sung hyung's temper blows over," he'd said. Nam Gil had accepted the offer, along with the proffered bunch of tissues. As a result, he's been sleeping regularly, doing homework, and using the room all by himself. Ee Sung is back to his old habits, coming in late at night, long after he thinks Nam Gil is asleep. They haven't exchanged more than a few words since their last conversation, which seems to suit Ee Sung just fine.

His phone rings, and Love in the Ice suddenly blares in the room. Nam Gil bows his head in apology at everyone who stares. Packing up his bag, he runs outside to pick up the call. "Hello?" he says.

"Hey, Nam Gil, it's Dong Joon." Dong Joon sounds as cheerful as ever. "I just wanted to check in. How are things going?"

Nam Gil looks down at his watch, wondering if he can catch dorm food for dinner. "It's going okay," he says. "I've been sleeping and stuff. How about you? I'm sorry to leave you with so much work in my stead."

"Oh, that, don't even worry," Dong Joon says easily. "But on that note, I was wondering, are you going to come down to the Aviary tonight?"

"What for?"

The line goes silent, and Nam Gil wonders if the call's been dropped. Then Dong Joon speaks, "Ah, my bad. I thought you might have heard that Ee Sung hyung was coming back starting today."

Nam Gil's breath freezes in his lungs. "Oh, yeah?" he says offhandedly. "That's good." His appetite suddenly fails him, and he gets on the elevator to go back to his room.

"I'm sorry," Dong Joon says again, and sounds like he means it. "I just thought that it would have blown over by now."

"Guess not." Nam Gil punches in the door code and walks inside, only to see Ee Sung sunbae standing there, rummaging through his closet. "Hyung, I'll call you back later," he says absently.

"Wait, Nam Gil--"

He hangs up before Dong Joon finishes his sentence, closing the door behind him. Ee Sung doesn't make a show of greeting him, even when he turns around and makes eye contact. Nam Gil stands there awkwardly.

"I heard you're off probation again tonight," he says.

Ee Sung stills for a moment. "Yeah, I am."

"Well, good luck. I'm sure you'll be fine." Nam Gil tries to smile, but it falls flat. Ee Sung seems to notice, because he stares, like he wants to say something.

Then he opens his mouth and says, "Thanks." Only it's all wrong. All of the tension has stayed, leaving Nam Gil to wordlessly wave as Ee Sung picks up his bags and leaves. Sighing, he slumps over onto his bed and finds himself wondering whether Ee Sung sunbae has been eating properly these past few weeks. He stays like that even as the sun sets, dozing off when it gets dark in his room.

When he wakes up again, it's to another call. Love in the Ice blasts in his ear, and Nam Gil curses Changmin's good name as he ignores the call. It rings a second time, and Nam Gil thinks better of ignoring it, answering the call.

"Hello?" he says sleepily.

"Nam Gil," Dong Joon says, voice tight with worry. "It's about Ee Sung hyung."

"We can't find him on the Westside," Dong Joon says. "Isn't there a signal on his uniform?"

"It can be easily jammed if he's far enough underground," Sang Yeop answers.

"Okay, how the fresh hell are a handful of people supposed to sweep all of Seoul?" Won asks irritably. "We need back up."

"Sandpiper, patch in Lynx and Snowfox," Sang Yeop orders. "We need more people here in the Westside."

"Roger that, Falconer," Nam Gil says, connecting both Lynx and Snowfox to Sang Yeop's private line. He puts their conversation on mute to answer the incoming call.

"Sandpiper, the Southend is unusually quiet tonight," Yul reports. "I will go assist the others in the Central districts."

"I'll let them know, Magpie. Talk to you soon." Nam Gil calls the other team to let them know that Yul will be joining them in Yongsan-gu soon. When he hangs up, he rips open a new box of Choco Pie. Lotte doesn't make them as well as Orion does, but this is all the fridge in the Aviary has, and Nam Gil isn't going to be picky.

At approximately 7:38 that evening, Dong Joon hyung had told him about Ee Sung sunbae.

"We think--well, we know that he's been kidnapped," he said, pulling no punches.

Nam Gil's stomach dropped and a sick feeling overcame him. "W-What?"

"I'll brief you on the specifics if you can get down to the Aviary now. We need all the help we can get on this."

Of course, Nam Gil took off without second thought, catching a taxi in his rush to get to the Aviary.

Won's voice comes over the commlink again. "It'll be okay, Sandpiper. Lynx and Snowfox could probably sniff out dust in a rainstorm if you needed them to."

He tries to take the words to heart as he scans the area for any signs of Ee Sung. He keeps a window open on the streaming channel run by the kidnappers. On their Twitter account, they promise an exciting reveal of Shin Gun's masked identity at midnight, and have spent their time building up a massive viewership online. No doubt every Kim, Lee, and Park in Seoul has their eyes on the channel right this moment.

The clock reads 9:23 now, but they're no closer to finding Ee Sung sunbae than they were two hours ago. Sitting in the facility alone, Nam Gil feels helpless but to stare at his Twitter feed. There has to be something that he can do, too, even if he can't be out on the streets helping the rest of the team. "Think, think, think," he mutters to himself. "If I were an attention-seeking user of the Internet, where would I hide my recently kidnapped vigilante?"

"I don't know, but you need to stop throwing your trash on the ground," Kang Guk says, picking up the Choco Pie wrappers strewn around Nam Gil's chair.

"Oh, sorry," Nam Gil apologizes, bending over to help him. "Sorry, ahjusshi, it's a bad habit."

"You young people seem to have a million of those," Kang Guk chides. It doesn't stop him from setting the burdock tea on the counter in front of Nam Gil. Kang Guk talks like a sailor, but he's more comforting than he leads people to believe. "So what's that thing up here?" he asks, pointing to the streaming channel.

"Err...Ee Sung sunbae's kidnappers want to broadcast his identity at midnight tonight," Nam Gil explains. "So I'm keeping an eye on the channel."

Frowning, Nam Gil sips his tea. There are only so many places in Seoul that he could be, and if no one from the Aviary has had success finding Ee Sung so far, it's unlikely that they will before midnight. The thought makes his throat go tight. He saw Ee Sung sunbae only a few hours ago, so why didn't he stop him from going out tonight?

"People are going to watch that? How many?"

"Maybe a few million. However many the server can support," he says.

"They're going to wait up until midnight to watch someone unmask an ugly kid?" Kang Guk asks, shaking his head as he walks away. "I'd rather watch that shitty new series Inheritors or something."

Nam Gil chokes on his tea, and it spills over the front of his shirt. Kang Guk clicks his tongue and hands him a napkin, but his scolding falls on dead ears. Nam Gil is already digging through his pockets for his phone, ready to ask Kang Guk for a favor. There's still time left, and even if it's taken Nam Gil this long to realize what he needs to do, it's not too late.

"Hold this for me," he says, ignoring the increasing volume of Kang Guk's rebukes. "Please, it'll take like five minutes."

"How many times do I have to say that I'm not a common serf?" Kang Guk mutters, rotating Nam Gil's phone around. Nam Gil politely doesn't mention that he is the household butler.

"I'm sorry, ahjusshi, you can go back to Inheritors soon," Nam Gil promises, as he smiles for the camera.

All across Seoul, people are waiting for the show promised at midnight. People sit on their phones, laptops, and tablets in hopes of catching a glimpse of the Knight of Seoul, Shin Gun. His identity has been nothing but elusive for weeks on end, but finally, the people will get what they want.

At 9:47pm, several screens in various blocks throughout Apgujeong-dong flicker out, leaving the denizens confused about the sudden malfunction of their technology. At 9:52, the screens power on once more, and people see Shin Gun waving at them smilingly. He's dressed for the occasion, hair slicked back even as he dons his usual uniform.

"Hello, citizens of Seoul. This video is probably shocking to you, as you've been promised a video of me at midnight tonight. So before I go on, I'd like to clarify a few things with you.

"First: I've been lying to all of you and doing a great disservice while I was at it. Second: To the man who has been taken hostage in my stead, I'm sorry. I never intended for the situation to get so out of hand. It's my hope that you'll be released soon. Third: I am the one and true Shin Gun of Seoul, whom you've all been talking about for months on end.

"This brings me back to my first point. By refusing to unmask myself, I've been dishonoring what it means to protect this city. But tonight, I'd like to change that."

Shin Gun takes a deep breath then, laughing nervously as he reaches to take off his mask. "I've never done this before," he says, peeling the mask off, impossibly slow. When it's all the way off, a young man smiles at the camera and waves.

"Hello, citizens of Seoul, my name is Kang Nam Gil, and I am Shin Gun."

In a shocking and unforeseen move, Bradley Enterprises has announced its intention go public with the identities of the masked vigilantes who have been showing up around Seoul as of early last March. The most notable of the group is Shin Gun, who has been the subject of much controversy and interest in the Twittersphere as well as the Internet at large. Jung Ee Sung, the youngest son of an Assemblyman, has been identified as the true Shin Gun, despite multiple attempts at unmasking the Knight of Seoul. The CEO of the crime fighting branch in Bradley Enterprises has also revealed that he operates under the mantle of 'Falconer.' More updates to come.

Given how conservative the Chosun Daily can be, Nam Gil is surprised that they didn't release an editorial disparaging the travesty at hand. Instead there's a large picture on the front page, where Ee Sung and Sang Yeop stand, waving to the press. Nam Gil stares at the photo, tracing over it with his finger. He's beginning to realize that no matter what light he sees Ee Sung sunbae's face in, it will always be this handsome.

"If you keep sighing like that, I'll be compelled to forcibly remove you from the premises," Yul says from across the round sofa. He's also holding up a copy of the Chosun, scowling at Nam Gil over it.

"Don't you have homework to do?" Nam Gil asks.

"Ha, school!" Won says, walking past them, Dong Joon by his side. "Glad I dodged that bullet."

"Yeah, you only got hit by an actual bullet instead," Dong Joon says, clearly unimpressed. They begin to squabble, effectively redirecting Yul's attentions.

After his stunt in Apgujeong-dong, the kidnappers shut their channel down, setting Ee Sung free. He had been trapped in the basement of an abandoned building not far from where Nam Gil was, where a group of high schoolers were guarding him from escaping. They were, according to him, "armed to the teeth." If that were so, then Nam Gil is just glad that he emerged relatively unscatched, save for maybe his ego. It didn't stop Nam Gil from crying when he saw Ee Sung walking through the Aviary gate.

He had to be escorted away by Dong Joon, who let him beta test his latest Linux kernel. By the time he came back to the meeting room, Sang Yeop had already done him the favor of debriefing Ee Sung on the situation and sending him away.

Maybe the greatest surprise of all was that Nam Gil didn't get fired for all the trouble he caused. Whenever he asks, Sang Yeop just laughs loudly and says something about "young people" being "so comical these days." Dong Joon assures him that it means he's still their technical operator, despite Yul's constant threats to find a new recruit. "Kim Replacement #2 has such a nice ring to it," he likes to say.

Just because Nam Gil kept the job doesn't mean that everything is back to the way it used to be. He spends a lot of his time avoiding calls from journalists, who are all extremely curious about his video. In light of Bradley Enterprises' publicity stunt, the volume of calls has only increased.

There was one call in particular that Nam Gil would have liked to avoid. As soon as he got out of the shower this morning, he saw a call from the university and picked up.

"Hello?" he said.

An old woman's voice rasped through the earpiece. "Hello, is this Kang Nam Gil's number?"

"Um, yes, how can I help?"

"The Dean requests a meeting with you tomorrow morning at 10 sharp. Please be there," she said. And without another word, hung up, leaving Nam Gil to stare at his phone in dismay.

Dong Joon tries to reassure him when Nam Gil tells him about the dean's meeting. "It'll be okay," he says. "Ee Sung hyung has met the dean like ten times and he's still going to school." Then he falls silent, as though realizing what he just said.

"He would, wouldn't he?" Nam Gil says, smiling. Between the press conferences and newspaper interviews, Ee Sung hasn't spent much time in the Aviary. Nam Gil's visited earlier and earlier each day, anxious to see him at last. As time drags on, however, he begins to wonder if he'll ever see him again outside of photos.

The meeting with the dean is an excruciating affair. Most of it is spent discussing the "propriety of a student attending our university." The dean has an unfortunate habit of spitting on anyone within a two meter radius, much to the displeasure of the faculty. Nam Gil can say he sympathizes with their plight, now that he's lived through an hour and a half of sitting with him in his office.

Making a disgusted noise, he walks into his room, ready to fall back asleep. Then he sees Ee Sung sunbae sitting on his bed. He stands up as soon as he sees Nam Gil.

"Bu-Busan Gil," he greets.

"Sunbae," Nam Gil says weakly. "What brings you here?"

Ee Sung looks around. "Um, I live here."

"Right, yeah." Nam Gil wonders if the ground will open up and swallow him whole now. He busies himself with putting his things on the table. "Did you need something?" he asks.

"No, I just got back from a press conference, and Dong Joon mentioned that you were in a meeting with the dean or something," Ee Sung says without meeting his eyes. The skin under his eyes is dark, and he looks tired. Nam Gil wonders if he's been sleeping at all.

"Yeah, something about proper conduct and propriety befitting a student at this university," Nam Gil says. He stares down at his feet, suddenly apprehensive. He's thought about what he would say to Ee Sung sunbae once he saw him again. He spent so much time rehearsing what he was going to say, in the shower, while he did homework, but he finds that he can't remember any of it. "Sorry," he blurts out. "I'm sorry for the picture and for lying, and then that night--I didn't...I didn't apologize properly." Nam Gil bites his lip, waiting for Ee Sung to say something.

"Don't apologize for that stuff anymore," Ee Sung says quietly. Nam Gil tracks the bob of his throat as he swallows. "I should say sorry, too, for my temper."

Nam Gil shakes his head. "No, it was warranted." He thinks about what Ee Sung said, and looks up at him. "Sunbae, I was--I was serious when I kissed you," he says. His head swims, full of feelings that he can't put into words. "I'm sorry--I don't want it to be ruined."

He's surprised when Ee Sung walks up to him, moving to cradle his face in his hands. "What did I just say about not apologizing?" he chides. His hands are warm against Nam Gil's skin, sending shivers running through him. "I want to kiss you," he says, echoing Nam Gil's words from before.

This time, Nam Gil leans up to kiss him, presses their lips together softly and opens up for Ee Sung's tongue licking the seam of his mouth. Ee Sung sunbae kisses like he does everything else: hard and quick and none too gentle, but then he brushes his fingers along Nam Gil's nape, and his touch is soft against his skin. It makes Nam Gil sigh into his mouth, wrapping his arms around Ee Sung's neck to pull him in closer. Ee Sung does him one better, slowly walking them back into Nam Gil's bed and pushing Nam Gil down against the mattress.

"Is this--is this okay?" he asks. His lips are red and his face is flushed, and Nam Gil doesn't know how anyone could tell him no.

Nam Gil nods and says to him, "Sunbae, I want to have sex." He reaches up to touch Ee Sung's face, push his hand under his shirt and feel his skin.

"Yeah, yeah me too," Ee Sung murmurs, licking the shell of his ear. He starts kissing his neck, sucking on the skin there.

"Sunbae," he gasps, arching up against Ee Sung. He's lost in the white hot prickle of pain as it fades to pleasure. "Sunbae, touch me, touch me, please."

Ee Sung does, pushing Nam Gil's shirt up and kissing down his stomach. He doesn't stop when he reaches his waistband, pulling down on that as well. Nam Gil whimpers, his cock standing stiff as Ee Sung stares. "I want to go down on you," he breathes. "I've thought about tasting your cock for so long."

Nam Gil moans. "You can. Please please." He doesn't have to say another word, because Ee Sung starts mouthing at his cock, licking a stripe up from the base to tip. It isn't long before he starts sucking, swallowing Nam Gil's cock. Heat shoots through Nam Gil. "Sunbae--fuck fuck fuck."

He pushes up into Ee Sung's mouth, hot and wet around him, and whimpers when he feels Ee Sung's hand on his hip pushing him back down. Nothing about this is a tease, especially not the way Ee Sung swallows him down with ease, head bobbing up and down in practiced rhythm.

"God, your mouth is so good. I bet your ass feels even better," Nam Gil says. Ee Sung moans around his cock, and Nam Gil can feel it all the way down to his toes. He twists a hand in Ee Sung's hair, ready to warn him. "I--I'm getting close," he says, but instead of pulling off as expected, Ee Sung keeps going. He presses a thumb against his perineum, and Nam Gil comes in a rush, screaming out his name.

When he comes down from his orgasm, it takes him a moment to realize what just happened, but then he sees cum trailing down Ee Sung's chin and realizes that's him.

"Did you just swallow it?"

Ee Sung rolls his eyes. "Obviously, Busan Gil, it's not like it went through some cyber vortex of sodomy." Then he licks the rest of the cum off his lips, and Nam Gil swears that he can feel himself getting hard again. He wants to see Ee Sung sprawled across his bed, naked and hard.

"Sunbae, take your clothes off," he says, voice low.

Ee Sung looks at him, and without a word of protest, he does, kicking off his pants and pulling off his shirt. His cock curves up against his stomach, the tip already leaking. "I want you to fuck me," he moans. "I want to be fucked."

"Shhh," Nam Gil says, kissing his forehead and all over his face. "I will later," he promises. "So for now, let me make you feel good."

"Yeah, yeah, 'course," Ee Sung agrees, pupils blown. Nam Gil leans in to kiss him and wraps his fingers around his prick, hot and hard in his hand. The angle is awkward, and his movements are jerky with inexperience, but Ee Sung doesn't seem to mind. He just grabs Nam Gil, pulls him closer and moans into his neck. His skin is feverish to the touch, burning hot against Nam Gil's. "Yeah, like that," he says encouragingly, fucking up into his fist.

He's helpless but to do as Ee Sung asks and watch as his head tosses against the pillows. "That's it," he says, twisting his wrist to match Ee Sung's rhythm. He looks good like this, spread out and open under him. Nam Gil wants to see it again, in their room, on the chair in the Aviary, and wherever else Ee Sung will let him. "I want to fuck you," he breathes. "I want to do this with you again."

Ee Sung whimpers--whimpers--at that. "You can," he says, repeats it as he looks up at Nam Gil. "You can do whatever you want," he admits. Then he comes, back arching up off the bed. Nam Gil stares, awed at how he says his name over and over.

When they finally catch their breaths, Ee Sung wraps an arm around Nam Gil, pulling him closer so that he can press a kiss to his crown.

"You secretly have a dirty mouth on you," Ee Sung says, smiling down at Nam Gil, who squawks.

"I do not." The argument is weak, even to his own ears, so he adds in, "Well, you weren't complaining."

"Of course I wouldn't," Ee Sung says, tweaking Nam Gil's nose. "You insult me."

Rolling his eyes, Nam Gil curls up to Ee Sung, ready to fall asleep right on the spot. He feels Ee Sung's fingers brushing through his hair, and before he drifts off into his dreams, he hears him whisper: "Thanks."

A double serving of pig's feet doesn't stand a chance against Ee Sung, who demolishes it with ease. As usual, the owner of the restaurant clicks her tongue as she walks away. No matter how long he watches Ee Sung eat, though, Nam Gil has to admit that it's amazing to see a face like his eating pig's feet so casually.

"Didn't anyone teach you staring is rude?" Ee Sung asks, wrapping more meat into his lettuce. Then he leans forward to grin at Nam Gil. "Are you eating that?"

Nam Gil scowls, curling around his plate protectively. "Yeah, I am!" he says loudly. "I'm going to eat it all so there's none for you, sunbae."

"Hey now, remember that your beloved bought you this plate from the kindness and generosity in his heart." Ee Sung already has his chopsticks on Nam Gil's plate, pulling it closer towards him.

"Stop. Stealing. Food," he snaps, accentuating each word with a slap against Ee Sung's hand. He can feel the owner's eyes scanning the tent, just waiting for a reason to kick them out. She's walking over to their table when Ee Sung's phone rings, loud and clear in the tent.

"Hello," he says. "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Nonyun-dong. Got it."

"What is it?" Nam Gil asks once he's hung up.

"Field trip time, Busan Gil." Ee Sung throws some cash onto the table, waving at the owner. "Care to go with?"

Nam Gil smiles in spite of himself. "I don't have much of a choice, do I?" he says, and holds his hand out to summon a taxi.

"There's a faster way than that," Ee Sung says, pulling one of his many line launchers out from thin air. "Want a ride?"

Nam Gil does, so he follows Ee Sung to the top of a remote building and grabs onto him as instructed. "You better not drop me, sunbae," he threatens, despite having taken this trip multiple times.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Ee Sung says, grinning at him.

And then they jump.

Like All Good Stories

by Shiawasena Ryokō-sha

...Like all good stories, tonight we've started and ended in a warm, dark place. That was another tale from the Deep Library, and this is your host, Cal Kassab, telling you it's about time to go to bed.

Triumphantly, Cal switches the output over to the queued ending track. He waits for a moment, listening to the familiar music drifting from his headphones-- "Chords from the Depths of SPACE," or some similar new-age-y BS, but he liked it anyway, and, well, it fit his attempts at recreating the Twilight Zone in a college radio station -- then leans back, satisfied. His too-small desk chair squeals a little in protest, unhappy with the shift of weight. From their hanger on the front of the control panel, the headphones still emit a tinny version of the music playing. Cal lets his head hang back: too tired to switch it off, too tired to admit that having a radio slot that ends at half past twelve in the morning was a bad idea, and definitely too tired to bother going home and taking the advice he'd just given his listeners.

All is still and quiet. The tinny 'sounds of space' switch over to a tinny Beyoncé song. Resigned to the fact he's going to have to walk the cold, dark half-mile back to his dorm, Cal stands up and grabs his coat from its hook.

The phone rings.

Now, this isn't exactly an unfamiliar occurrence. People call in all the time, with story requests, or stories of their own, or gossip and rumors (his friend Cindy is a particular culprit there -- when she rings him up during the show, it's a surefire sign he's about to become the moderator of a sleepover discussion,) or occasionally because they're so high they've forgotten the number for the local pizza joint (430-PAPA-JONES -- how hard is that to remember?) But that's during the show.

Nobody's ever called him after the show.

He picks up the phone with one broad, square hand.

"Hello?"

There's an intake of breath on the other end of the line. "Hi! Um, I'm Joe, from the lit magazine? We were wondering if you'd like to do an interview about your show. Tomorrow, at noon, at the café by the Pratt?" The speaker is a tenor, with the sort of surety in his voice that usually comes from public speaking -- and also not a voice Cal is familiar with.

Rubbing at his eye with the heel of his hand, Cal lets the cord pull him a little closer to the wall. "Yeah, sure. Can do." The voice on the other end continues talking as Cal hangs up the phone, but he's already buttoning up his coat, too preoccupied to care. He's careful to lock the door to the sound booth as he leaves -- left it open one measly time, and Rick had never let him hear the end of it -- and then it's through the halls and into the miserable, pitch-black chill.

As usual, by the time he makes it into the relative warmth of his dorm, he's drowsy with fatigue and numb around the edges from the oppressive cold. He fumbles his way into his single, key-card almost falling from still-unfeeling fingers, before he thinks to leave himself a note about the interview. "Pratt food place, 12. Lunch w/ phone dude," he hastily punches into his phone as he starts to strip. The coat gets draped over the end of the bed, the clothes go in the hamper -- usually he'd just rewear them, but that seems a little too questionable for meeting someone for the first time -- and he pulls on a ratty old t-shirt, careful not to look in the mirror at his regrettable lack of abs. He fails, and irritatedly stalks over to turn the mirror around. In the grand scheme of things, not so bad, but considering how he looked before the concussion-- He scowls and cuts off that train of thought. Two weeks before he gets to hear back from the doc about whether he can go back to aerobics, and then he'll be home free.

On that note, he drags himself into bed and lets his thoughts wander off into the night sky.

The morning is, to put it bluntly, a fucking disaster.

For some reason, his phone battery goes dead in the middle of the night, and that he wakes up at all is a minor miracle. Compounding the anxiety of a very short and (as the dorm water heater is acting up again) very cold shower is the knowledge that no, he's not going to get breakfast before class today, not even if he sprints. His residual drowsiness and general misery silences his habitual humming -- whenever he's alone and comfortable, there's a hint of some half-remembered song lurking for him to sing quietly to himself. But not today.

Cal slips into class five minutes late and literally freezing -- his still-damp hair developed icicles and frost in the frigid morning air. For once, he's happy to have a lecture class; the professor doesn't even blink when he walks in, just keeps going on about whatever math they're supposed to be learning. He can see Cindy up at front, talking to some girl he doesn't know. Reluctantly, he snags one of the desks in back, alone.

The class passes in a blur. Notes that Cal doesn't remember making fill a page and then some of his journal; only about half of them have anything to do with linear optimization. A few of them appear to be plans for future episodes of Deep Library, the rest clumsy doodles of the guy sitting two rows forward. It's not Cal's fault that he's got nice arms and sits still for long periods of time.

He tries to catch Cindy before she leaves class, but she's too engrossed in conversation with -- Sue? -- about sports strategy or whatever that she totally fails to notice his frantic arm-waving. He goes back to stuffing books back into his pack, then clamps on his battered black headphones, resigned to lunch alone.

The sunlight is actually at a pleasant angle today. Branches dapple the brilliant-lit sidewalk with patches of indigo, and the sky is full of wispy white clouds. It hasn't been as clear as this for easily a month. Cal straightens his broad shoulders a little for once, trying desperately to soak up as much solar energy as he can to offset the chill in the air. He shuffles through a few more mellow tracks before settling on a Beach Boys song he doesn't even remember downloading. For a few, precious moments, everything is perfect.

Then his music clicks off and a mechanical voice squawks, "PRAT FOOD PLACE. TWELVE. LUNCH W-" The rest of the message is lost in static as the phone's feeble text-to-voice software encounters unfamiliar punctuation, stumbles, and dies.

Cal stops mechanically and stares forward with dawning horror. Too quietly to hear, he mumbles: "Right. Right. Interview. At the Pratt. Now. FUCK." With that, he sputters back into action -- suddenly spins around, then takes off at a sprint for the other end of campus, cursing with what little is left of his breath.

The Pratt is widely regarded by students as one of the loveliest pieces of architecture on campus, and also is so far from everything else that it's not even on campus at all. The only real saving grace of the place is that the café across the street a) takes student meal cards, b) sells real espresso, and c) is open when the University snack stands are closed, a fact Cal has occasionally been grateful for when he realizes he's otherwise going to fall asleep across the studio sound board fifteen minutes into the show.

In his attempts to reach this distant outpost of academia before his interviewer up and leaves, Cal runs blindly, other pedestrians frantically dodging him. He arrives gasping slightly, and leans back against the rough brick of the wall for a minute before he dares to step in front of the window.

The café hums with the expected sounds of the lunch crowd -- some subtle background music, a dozen quiet conversations, the elderly coffee grinder whirring mechanically -- and, after the stark white blaze outside, honey-colored streaks of light pouring over every surface. Cal absentmindedly places an order with the bored barista, scanning the crowd. There's no sign of a reporter-type, really -- all the hipsters in their clean-cut flannel are clustered around a friend playing guitar; no dorky square glasses in immediate sight --

An intensely white, expectant smile is being directed at him from the table closest to the register. Oh no.

He actually recognizes the guy -- one of the jocks he's seen hanging out with Cindy occasionally, and, from the body language alone, the sort of person who'd like nothing so much as to stuff him in a locker. Right -- Joe. His name's Joe. Cal hesitantly sits in the seat across from him. From this angle, Cal has to look up to see the guy's face. Not ideal. Also not ideal: the rather stylish (probably purchased on a whim then neglected until he had to interview a nerd) movie tie-in shirt he's wearing. It's really thin, and the bright red in the emblem draws attention like a magnet. Not only can Cal see every well-defined chisel in those impressive pecs, he can also see-- With considerable effort, he draws his eyes up to meet the other man's. Being ok with his friends knowing he's into guys is one thing; letting some random dude who looks like he could easily dump Cal into a trash can find out is another. Joe's smile has faded a little, but the expectant look is still there. Cal clears his throat.

"Nice shirt."

Joe glances down, startled, then the smile comes back full force. "Thanks! Captain America's always been my favorite. Been told I look a little like him."

This isn't a description Cal's inclined to dispute.

"Anyway, uh -- why don't you tell me a little about why you decided to start your show?"

The interview passes with little event. Their drinks and sandwiches come and are gone almost as quickly; Joe runs through a list of questions clearly distilled from every interview ever conducted; the amber sunlight drips a little further along the floor. At some point, Joe asks if Cal has an afternoon class (He doesn't.) Their conversation drifts to classes, sports, friends. Cal is dully surprised when Joe already knows about his concussion -- Cindy must have clued him in.

"You're friends with Cindy, right? Did she put you up to this--" Cal gestures broadly at the table and himself "--to get Deep Library publicity or something?"

The subtle smile Joe's been sporting the entire time falls straight off his face. "No -- ah," he says, looking rather betrayed, "I actually talked the rest of the lit squad into letting me do it. I love your show. You've got an amazing voice." His cheeks are a violent pink now, the color of a rising sunburn.

Cal snorts. "My voice is pretty shit. Sounds like I'm eating gravel, worse if I'm dumb enough to think I can sing."

"More to voices than singing. It's the kind of voice you feel right here." Joe taps himself lightly on the chest, "like a heartbeat." He hesitates a little, then continues. "I wonder... what it would feel like if I..." His hand drifts towards Cal.

Trying not to roll his eyes, Cal grabs it and presses the pale palm against his chest. "If you were touching me while I was talking? Like this." He's suddenly aware of a dozen things -- the rough bass of his own voice, the way Joe's eyes seem to have grown incredibly wide, the way the other people lingering in the café are looking at them, the tingle spreading across his face -- and bats the hand away again. "Look, if you want to ask awkward questions, let's find somewhere where we're not the center of attention," he says, unable to chase the idea that he can hear his voice echoing through every secluded corner of the coffee shop.

Joe gives a little nod of understanding and follows him mutely out the door. Cal's feet start to trace the familiar path back to his dorm, but his pace stays slow and uncertain. They walk in silence for a little while, before Joe starts to talk again. "I'm sorry. I screwed up."

Cal shrugs.

"You just seem... like an old friend, after all those nights staying up late, listening to you talk -- but, y'know, obviously you don't have a single clue who I am."

Cal breaks his silence. "Nah, it's ok. I was doing you a favor, actually. Since." He breaks off, steeling himself. He can feel a rush of adrenaline building already, in sick anticipation. "You probably don't want people to see you feeling up a gay guy in public."

There's a little intake of breath, a subtle "Oh?" Cheeks burning, Joe says, "Well, that'd be a hell of a way for me to come out, at least."

Cal's mouth feels full of pins and needles, and his arms tremble slightly. "What?"

Joe looks at him out of the corner of his eye. "I've been putting it off a bit, I guess. Not that important, haven't really been interested in most of the guys on campus." Something else seems to tremble on the end of the sentence, unsaid.

For the first time he can remember, Cal manages to shake off the urge to stay silent. "If --if --that's a proposition," Joe turns to face him, and they stand there, looking at each other for a moment. "I'd be an idiot to turn you down."

The surge of adrenaline is back. The next span of time passes in a blur, events happening to quickly to recount, and then they're in Cal's single and coats are getting thrown in a heap and he makes doubly sure the door is locked and everything is coming back in a rush.

Without the jacket, every elegant, sleek angle of Joe's torso is thrown into sharp relief by the stream of light coming in through the window. The line of his jaw, the slight blond stubble, invisible until now, pale eyes that seem to glow with the slightest touch of sunlight -- perfect, perfect, perfect. Perfect.

Cal hesitates. In the stark sunlight, he's aware of how he looks: untameably curly hair, dark skin, darker eyes; stocky, not lean and athletic. Not anymore. A mangy, sickly housecat, next to a mountain lion.

Joe's looking at him as though he's never seen anyone more handsome in his entire life.

They kiss; or rather Joe kisses him, gently, and then Cal gets his act together and kisses back. Everything tastes vaguely of coffee and feels strangely soft. Comforting.

Cal's holding Joe's face in his hands now, trying to turn things so he can kiss a little deeper. Rough stubble feels good against his hands. Joe pushes him against the wall a little, still letting him guide their faces closer together. There's a thigh pressing against Cal's groin. There's a groin pressing against his thigh. There's a face, on his face. Also hands, under his shirt. What.

He pulls away from Joe, who already looks distinctly buzzed. "Whoa?"

The blond man squeezes gently at his waist. "Guess you haven't really done this before?"

Cal scrunches up his face and looks away. "Can't say I can really remember the last time. I do remember that it involved a considerable amount of Pabst, though..." Joe laughs, and suddenly the tension dissolves. In the tiny room, it's easy for Cal to flip Joe onto the bed and continue with the kissing. They rut against each other a little, hands going up shirts again -- this time, Cal's hands. Joe spares a second from trying to pull Cal closer to slick off his shirt , and then it's all hands running up and down his bare chest. Huskily, Cal says, "Like what you've done with yourself here."

Joe's eyes widen, and he sighs. "Holy fuck. Your voice. Is incredible. Say anything"

"...Anything?"

Suddenly Cal's the one on the bottom, and Joe's furiously kissing him down into the soft bed sheets, hard-on pressing down, begging to be touched. Cal fumbles for a belt buckle, but can't reach, and settles for grinding a little harder against him. Joe's strong, pale hands are threading through Cal's hair now, tongue sliding slickly over tender lips. He makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, then rolls his body, one sinuous wave that ends with their hips almost flush, their hardened cocks rubbing together. Cal moans.

Joe slides a little lower, pressing kisses to Cal's neck, hands rubbing circles against the bare skin of his sides. "Ok if I take my turn first?" he says, with another dazzling smile.

Cal runs his fingers through the short golden stubble of Joe's hair and kisses his forehead tenderly. Pulling together his smoothest, deepest radio broadcasting voice, he says, "Nothing in the whole world would make me happier." He's rewarded with a little shiver of pleasure.

Gently, Joe skims a hand over the dark trail of hair tracing upwards above the line of Cal's jeans, then presses his hand into the slight softness there, thumb stroking. The motion is so small, but the electric stream of pleasure it produces is so strong Cal barely notices Joe unzipping his jeans, pulling them and the boxers underneath off, tossing them to the side. He shifts his hands to petting gently at the tender insides of Cal's thighs, kissing his belly then lower, then lower still... Still passing broad fingers through the other man's hair, Cal asks teasingly whether he ever intends to get to the point.

This elicits a chuckle. "I must be doing it wrong If you want me to be done already... " And with that, he runs his tongue along Cal's cock. He starts too slow, infuriatingly gentle; gets a little rougher after an encouraging moan. Fingers caressing more sensitive tissue, tongue brushing against head, he makes his contact stronger second after passing second. By the time he puts his lips around Cal's cock, he's groaning happily under the accumulating pressure. Joe hums in answer against the slick length, hands rubbing the cock's base, and Cal's world fades into an incredible wash of sensation. An inaudible hum, gold light so bright he can't comprehend it, the whole world, right and good and that feels so fucking good, don't stop, and the light gets whiter and brighter and the hum gets louder and then the tension fountains out of him.

The world trickles back slowly -- his own breath, panting, Joe coughing a little, the vivid light-and-shadows the sun is leaving on his bed, on the handsome man who's underneath him now, pressed against him, looking at him with stars in his eyes. He wishes he could file the moment away to savor, but from the muzzy feeling he's got now he thinks it probably won't stay. He's not hard anymore, but Joe's still at full mast, eager, so he kisses him and takes his pants off halfway, so he can get a hand in where he wants it to go. Kissing the rough place just under the other man's ear, he whispers compliments, commentary, a description of how it felt, a narration of how it feels now, to be holding someone else's magnificent dick in hand, feeling it slick and wet and hard. Belatedly, he thinks that his hands are dry and he should have found lube, but Joe either doesn't notice or doesn't care. He shivers, at first intermittently and then more and more, until he's shuddering with want. Cal puts a hand against the small of his back, pulling him closer, then mumbles something inconsequential to his collarbone and Joe comes, with something between a cry of joy and a sob.

(After, they curl into each other's arms drowsily, content with the warmth in each other's skin while the golden rays of sunlight drift across their sleeping forms, then up the wall, then vanish entirely. Later, they'll think of the ending lines of Cal's show and laugh. Eventually, they'll have to decide what they're doing. But for now, it's enough to be somewhere warm and dark and good.)

zero six four eight three are you listening

by shukyou (主教)
illustrated by beili

seven two six five one five zero three five two zero two one four one

seven two six five one five zero three five two zero two one four one

seven two six five one five zero three five two zero two one four one

seven two six five one five zero three five two zero two one four one

seven two six five one five zero three five two zero you one four one

seven two six five one five zero three five two zero you are four one

seven two six five one five zero three five two zero you are not one

seven two six five one five zero three five two zero you are not imagining this

NOMER 42 NOMER 75 NOMER 59

OKNO OKNO NOMER 30 NOMER 20

OKNO OKNO OKNO DAYASAN DAYASAN here

KONEC OKNO OKNO KONEC listen for a minute

OKNO OKNO can't tell at first which radio it's coming from. That's understandable; you've got twenty-six, all arranged on various shelves around your apartment. Twenty-five before you picked up the latest one, a little box from the thrift store, runs on two double-A batteries, not as useful in a catastrophe as the ones that you crank to life, but, well, you can't be cranking every minute of the day. And anyway, it's not a catastrophe. Yet.

DAYASAN DAYASAN what your doctors tell you that you shouldn't be hearing. This is why you have twelve pill bottles lined up on the little ledge over your bathroom sink, all with your name on them in bright bold capital letters hot off the pharmacy counter printing presses. You walk over to them to make sure you've NOMER NOMER 34 OKNO NOMER 91 but you have, because if you hadn't there'd be more pills in the bottles, and there aren't, so you know you have. You pick up the tallest bottle, the one full of the trifluoperazine, such a mellifluous name for the little round pink discs that taste like NOMER 38 20 58

But you're hearing something. You're definitely hearing something. You go around picking up all the radios, tapping them all, twisting their knobs to find the

[static]

don't touch that dial NOMER 38 NOMER 22 don't want to lose it again.

You should tell your doctors about this. Don't tell your doctors about this. You heard what they said, whispering in the hallway when they thought you were sedated, last time you DAYASAN DAYASAN NOMER 39 NOMER 39 NOMER 39 and that's what will happen if you tell them now. They don't understand. They can't hear it. Most people can't hear it. But you can.

OKNO OKNO NOMER 30 NOMER 78 DAYASAN so don't touch that dial KONEC

PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER

PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER

PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA know something's different the second you hear the tones under this one. They're always the same every other time, but this time they're PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER

PAPA NOVEMBER scared but not surprised. Why else would you have been listening to all these radios all this time if you didn't know deep in your heart there was some signal buried beneath the PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER makes sense, if you think about it. You've been paranoid, but you've been planning too. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Probably spies, your doctors said when you asked, trying to sound patient when you could hear that all they really sounded was tired. Real spies. Unbreakable codes. Like one-time pads, like Enigma machines, like book ciphers, like Navajo code. Information hidden in plain sight, and there you could hear they started to sound impressed. Relics, though, they said. Some nuclear-powered broadcasting station in a forgotten Soviet bunker that would keep bellowing its PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER until the tape snapped or the transmitter fell over. Garbage. For all intents and purposes, random. Like hearing a message in a language you don't speak, where you don't know if you're hearing state secrets or a nursery rhyme, and it doesn't matter to you either way. Random.

You don't know what this means. You wonder if anyone else can understand it, or if all they hear is PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER couldn't be, though, because you're thinking about the first radio you got when you were six, a little metal box with a bright red bow under the Christmas tree. It was chrome and sturdy, and it had a tape deck too, but you didn't want the tape deck, you wanted the radio. You'd listen for hours, ear pressed to the speaker, and when the station went off the air for the night, you'd listen to the static. Static was more interesting than the station, because the station told you everything, while static PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER heard something in it too.

Tapes, running out their lives in abandoned broadcast stations. Little girls in front of microphones, reading a series of numbers in high, clipped tones. Patriotic folk songs on a music box. Nonsense words in any language. Constant PAPA NOVEMBER pumping out over the waves, lingering in the air. You take a deep breath and imagine breathing that signal in. You're not imagining. Not now.

PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER

PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER

PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER

PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA NOVEMBER PAPA

ocho ocho uno tres ocho dos dos dos cuatro ocho need to look out the back window right now

You get up and almost lose your balance. Listening to all these stations dos cuatro hours a day is hard on the inner ear, harder even than the scientists suspect now. Maybe they'll know more in another ocho ocho seis seis how this all affects the brain, the radiowaves, the constant oscillations. That's sound is, after all: oscillations. Vibrations. Combinations of the dos tres seis nueve light travels as waves and particles, you remember, but who said it? Einstein? Probably Einstein. All physics is Einstein.

That's why if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, it doesn't siete nueve tres tres tres tres tres ocho act of observation changes the observed object, and you know that wasn't Einstein. Hindenberg. Harrisburg. Hollywood. Hierophant. You cinco cinco ocho the man in your backyard.

Turn around. See the man. In your backyard.

Go on. Nothing can happen until you do.

He's not a tall man or a short man, not a fat man or a thin man, not a dark man or a light man, not an old man or a young man. He's the kind of man you expect to find a picture of in the dictionary next to the word 'man': archetypical, nondescript. If you'd gotten a committee together to design a man, this might be the man they came up with. He's wearing a black trenchcoat and wide-brimmed hat like they do in old silent movies, even though the night is warm and the sky is a clear blanket of stars. His face is turned toward the house next door, staring at it, observing it, changing it.

You close your eyes and you can't remember his face, but you remember it was Heisenberg who said that. But it was Schrödinger with the cat. You open your eyes and the man is still standing dos ocho tres looking at you.

and you don't run away tres ocho ocho ocho ocho

один два три четыре пять шесть семь восемь девять десять десять девять восемь семь шесть пять четыре три два один один два три четыÑ€Ðµ didn't tell your doctors today. That's good. You thought about it, as you sat in the stiff-backed plastic chair and told them what they wanted to hear, about your side effects, about the way the medications make you feel четыре пять шесть not this. You came home instead and made tea. The mug is sitting on the table between your cupped hands. It's gone cold.

You didn't tell them either that you haven't eaten since восемь семь шесть пять четыре три feel your ribs when you put your hands on either side of your chest, up under your shirt. You decide you should get lunch. Dinner. Breakfast? What time is it? How long have you been sitting here, listening? What are you waiting for?

The man hasn't shown up again. You put your hand against the glass of the window, letting little halos of condensation form everywhere your skin touches its cold, flat surface. You look through it, but all you see is night. Dinner, then, or maybe breakfast. The only thing you know for sure is that lunch never happens in the dark.

You open the refrigerator to find little more than the bulb staring back at you. You don't even have to look in the cabinets; they're similarly bare, except for your pill bottles. You're good at taking those even if you're bad at eating. Food is difficult and different every time, but pills are simple. Maybe if you take more you'll go back to hearing only noise on the radios. Maybe if четыре пять шесть семь восемь девять десять десять девять восемь семь шесть пять четыре три два один один два три четыре пять шесть семь восемь девять десять десять девять восемь семь шесть пять четыре три два один один два три четыре пять шесть семь восемь девять десять десять девять восемь семь шесть пять четыре три два один один два три четыре пять шесть семь восемь девять десять десять девять восемь семь шесть пять четыре три два один

один один два три четыре пять шесть семь восемь девять десять десять девять восемь семь шесть пять четыре три два один один два три четыре пять шесть семь восемь девять десять десять девять восемь семь шесть пять четыре три два один один один два три четыре пять шесть семь восемь девять десять десять девять восемь семь шесть пять четыре три два один один два три четыре пять better ideas, that's for sure. At least now you know.

But you don't need to be пять шесть right now, you just need девять восемь семь will be better when daylight три два один

ATTENCION!

zero nine two zero five

zero the nine eight five

zero five man five eight

six eight zero is seven

in five three six nine

five your four five five

six three yard six eight

nine one three again seven

TERMINAT TERMINAT TERMINAT

hell strahlen Sterne für uns im Wunderland bei Nacht und wie im Märchen ist late, though not that you're sleeping anymore anyway. The noise doesn't sleep, and neither does the signal. You make another cup of tea and sit at your kitchen table in your tattered plaid bathrobe, the one you should really just throw away, but you can't, because it smells right, and that's important, that's taken it a long time to get there.

Think back. Can you remember what it was like before all this started? Before you began noticing things other people unsere liebe dort erwacht try, but you can't -- you can imagine what such a thing might be like, maybe can even pretend that what you imagined once was true, but it seems like some alien thought exercise. Imagine what life would have been if you'd been a boy growing up in colonial times. Medieval times. Biblical times.

Now imagine what life will be like in the future.

reich mir die Hand dann führt dich unser Stern dem Glück entgegen und begleitet dich auf allen wegen ins Wunderland better enemies, of course, but that comes with everything else. Different battles. No more wars.

You remember wars. You've forgotten everything else, but you can't forget was wir erträumten und was wir heimlich uns erdacht soll sich erfüllen im Wunderland bei Nacht

You get up. Your tea's cold. Again. Always. On the way to the kitchen, though, you stop and look out the window at the backyard. Is he there? No, and you don't know why you feel disappointed. You should feel relieved, that's what you should feel, if you could reach inside yourself and set your emotional dial by hand. Most people would feel that way, if they saw upon their stair a little man who wasn't there, and he wasn't there again today, except he really wasn't this time. An appropriate nothingness. Light shines through the high summer leaves, and as they move in the wind, the carpet of the ill-mown lawn shifts like the sea on a fair, fine day. Maybe it is water. Maybe if you walked out there you'd drown. Sink all the way to the bottom of the ocean on your way to take out the garbage. It'd be the finest I-told-you-so in history.

You remember the sea too, though better than the way you looked you remember the way it sounded. Put on both ears and tell the captain what you heard. Popcorn poppers of shrimp. Creaky oak doors of whales. Leaky balloons of dolphins. Cracked knuckles of other submarines.

Someone told you that you can hear the ocean when you put a seashell up to your ear. But that's not true was wir erträumten und was wir heimlich uns erdacht is the roar of blood in your own ears, magnified back to you. If your body weren't selectively deaf, every other noise in the world would be drowned out by the cacophony of your own circulatory system. You have a sea inside yourself.

You walk out into the yard, poking the lawn first with the tip of your toe to make sure it'll hold your weight. It does, though your foot still half-disappears beneath the surface of the high green blades as easily as if you'd wandered into shallow water. You've got a radio in your pocket, a little transistor piece, keeping you company to the strains of soll sich erfüllen im Wunderland bei Nacht is too quiet otherwise. You figured out years ago that's why you can't sleep at night. That was when you bought your first radio. Then another. Then another.

You're thinking about him again, and it startles you to hear the radio say that, but it's true, you are. Look down at your feet; you're standing right where you saw him last. The tall grass stalks are broken by his weight. He has the most remarkable eyes, even if that's all you can remember about them -- not their color, nor their shape, nor honestly even really how many there were in his face (two, you think, but it could have been up to fifty; after all, how many eyes can fit on a face?), but that they're beautiful and you want to watch them watching you again.

You hear the radio tell that you touch the tree to your right a split-second before you decide yourself to do it. You're getting better at this.

There's a knot in the tree about at eye level, and a little note in there like you expect spies leave. Dead drop. There's a piece of paper inside, and you know he left it, because the radio is telling you he left it, but also because you know he left it, and not for someone else, but for you. You unfold it, and one typed sentence reads YOU ARE NOT IMAGINING THIS reich mir die Hand dann führt dich unser Stern dem Glück entgegen und begleitet dich auf allen wegen ins Wunderland

was wir erträumten und was wir heimlich uns erdacht soll sich erfüllen im Wunderland bei nacht

im Wunderland bei nacht

ROMEO DELTA ROMEO DELTA ROMEO DELTA

ROMEO DELTA ROMEO DELTA ROMEO DELTA

ROMEO DELTA ROMEO DELTA ROMEO talk to him. If you don't, you'll never know. Or you will, but it won't be on your terms, and it's hard to say which of those is worse.

You open the back door, wincing as the rusted metal creaks under the pressure of movement, since you don't want to scare him away, you just want to talk. He doesn't seem the skittish type, though, and as the door swings on its hinges, he turns his head to look at you. He's staring at you now with those remarkable eyes, which you can see now are the same color as DELTA ROMEO DELTA ROMEO DELTA at least for the moment. He raises a hand and tells you hello.

You should say hello back. You won't, but you should. You're going to appreciate that sort of kindness someday.

The radio tells you you should invite him in, and he must have heard that too, because now he's stepping close, like he expects you to move away and let him by. You should, and this time you do, watching his every measured, authoritative step. He walks like a man who's seen military service, strong shoulders straight, chin high, gaze steely. He looks like the men you always wished you could be, the ones who'd served on the decks of ships instead of locked in ill-lit tin cans always this side of being crushed by the weight of water. You wonder if he can hear ROMEO DELTA ROMEO DELTA ROMEO DELTA ROMEO DELTA too.

Of course I can, he says. Except he doesn't really say that, the radio says it for him. His lips remain motionless except to turn up at the corners in a faint smile. Don't be afraid. Don't run. Don't run. Don't run. Don't run.

But you're already running, bolting from the back door DELTA ROMEO DELTA ROMEO DELTA sheer blind panic. Your heart is racing. There's a high fence all around the DELTA gate by the of the house. You make for it, kicking up clods of grassy ROMEO DELTA scramble for the lock DELTA soft splinters of near-rotted wood beneath your ROMEO DELTA as you claw for ROMEO DELTA ROMEO remember the combination. All the ROMEO DELTA in the world, and no combination. All you can think is that you have to get out ROMEO grab it and pull hard, so hard DELTA ROMEO your arm nearly rips from your DELTA at last the wood gives and DELTA ROMEO DELTA opens and you're free.

You take off DELTA the street at a demon's pace DELTA ROMEO DELTA ROMEO not wearing shoes ROMEO pebbles of asphalt tear at the soles of your DELTA ROMEO DELTA radio in your pocket barely ROMEO in there, and it's heavy, too ROMEO every step DELTA take jostles it a little more toward DELTA until

[static]

...central silence underst...interference is...silence means...

...thirty-si...ven one hundred...ten one hundred allowed...

...understood...task un..sixty-five one hundred allowed...

...good little big bad...wolves at the door...nine nineteen...

...two seven sev...central silen...cannot be allowed to...

...my delight on a shiny night in the season of the year...

...where are...the only way out is...thing behind me...

...maydaymaydaymaydaymaydaymaydaymaydaymayday...

...hard to...don't underst...not receiv...not allowake up

un deux trois huit un deux cinq six sept dix neuf un deux trois sept huit neuf cinq six sept dix drink it, you'll feel better.

Sit up gently, gently, there you go. Your head is deux six sept dix but feels clear for the first time in trois quatre cinq neuf dix damp cloth draped across your eyes, so you try to remove it, but there's a hand there telling you to leave it in place, and the voice through the radio says, shh, shh, be still, be still.

You know it's the man even before the radio tells you. His hands are warm against your body; his thumbs brush the skin just beneath the flannel's edge. You ask him who he is, and the radio tells you that he answers your question with a smile. I remember my first time, the radio says. When I met someone else who could do it too. It stopped my heart.

You can't think straight, so you sit up too fast and un deux trois quatre un deux un deux six sept huit quatre cinq six cinq six sept huit neuf trois quatre cinq six sept huit neuf dix sick little taste at the back of your throat, the way you always get after you've been kept 'under observation' for six sept dix neuf 'free to leave' but no one will let you go. At least this time they could believe you believed you'd been spooked by shadows, nothing more, nothing real. They told you to stop listening to the radios. They changed the number of pills they wanted you to take. Chlorine. Clematis. Chlorpromazine. They sent you home. Now here you are.

And here he is, though you can't tell how he got in. He smiles and holds up the spare key, the one you keep in the combination double-lockbox in a hole beneath the false board on your back porch, the one you put there in case you ever locked yourself out, even though you never lock yourself out, that's stupid, you're stupid, you're sept deux trois dix neuf how did he get that key neuf un deux trois un deux cinq neuf sept dix neuf cinq six trois huit

Don't worry, he says with that smile of his; I'll put it back.

No, he sept huit neuf you can't sept huit neuf cinq six and sept huit neuf but he dix neuf un deux cinq six un deux this really isn't neuf cinq six trois sept why would trois huit no trois sept huit sept dix neuf

Shh, shh, he says, putting a hand on your chest, and just like that, like driving out from a tunnel, the signal focuses. Just breathe. It gets clearer when you breathe.

You didn't know you'd been holding your breath until you open your mouth and all the air in your lungs scrambles out in one great gale. The effort of letting it go pitches you forward, everything slipping out like the locks in a canal opening, like God drowning the pharoah's army. Divine and terrible. The rush is so loud it sounds like white noise going out, and like white noise again coming back in. Your breathing has become static in both senses of the word. Good for you, tiger.

The man looks out your window with some distant longing in his eyes, some ache you can't place but know all too well, and recites in a voice somehow familiar to you, in time with the radio: This type of psychotic disorder is extremely rare. It is characterized by intricate, complex, and slowly developing paranoid system, often logically elaborate after a false interpretation of an actual occurrence, Frequently, the patient considers himself endowed with superior or unique ability. The paranoid system is particularly isolate from much of the normal stream of consciousness, without hallucinations and with relative intactness and preservation of the remainder of the personality, in spite of a chronic and prolonged course.

He turns back to you and the radio asks, so, are you crazy?

What kind of a question is that? Of course you're crazy. Has he not seen the pills in your medicine cabinet? Wasn't he just sept dix neuf sept dix neuf un deux trois cinq sept huit neuf cinq the marks on your arms, the little plastic band around your cinq six un trois the radios, for God's sake, might as well be radios instead of wallpaper in here.

Ah, he says, touching your cheek with a strange fondness, like you're a long-lost friend instead of the stranger he's been, quite frankly, stalking, but that doesn't mean you aren't also right.

ABLE BAKER CHARLIE DOG EDWARD FOX GEORGE HOW ITEM JIG KING LOVE MIKE NAN OBOE PETER QUEEN ROGER SUGAR TAPE UNCLE VICTOR WILLIAM X-RAY YOKE ZEBRA ABLE BAKER CHARLIE DOG EDWARD FOX GEORGE HOW ITEM JIG KING LOVE quiet for now, relatively speaking. Quiet as it ever is in your house, anyway. And the man is gone.

You look around the room for him, but he's left no trace. You peek around corners, open closets, check under furniture, but you don't find anything. Honestly, you don't know what it was you were WILLIAM X-RAY YOKE ZEBRA ABLE BAKER all the other times he's been here, he's not been shy about making himself visible. You find yourself thinking about him, even though you can't quite remember what he looked like. Familiar, though, and that matters most. The world is too full of alien experiences for one more unfamiliar thing.

You think back to when this all started, when you GEORGE HOW ITEM JIG KING LOVE MIKE NAN OBOE PETER and at breakfast one morning UNCLE VICTOR WILLIAM weren't really who they said they were. They looked like your mother and father, but you could tell they ITEM JIG KING LOVE MIKE NAN OBOE PETER QUEEN ROGER SUGAR TAPE UNCLE didn't know how you knew, but you knew they'd been sent here to keep an eye on you. They meant you no harm, and you weren't afraid of them like that.

You were just afraid of what they'd done with your parents CHARLIE DOG EDWARD FOX GEORGE HOW

ITEM JIG KING LOVE MIKE NAN OBOE PETER QUEEN ROGER SUGAR TAPE UNCLE VICTOR WILLIAM X-RAY YOKE ZEBRA ABLE BAKER CHARLIE DOG EDWARD FOX GEORGE HOW ITEM JIG KING LOVE MIKE NAN OBOE PETER QUEEN ROGER SUGAR TAPE UNCLE VICTOR WILLIAM X-RAY never told anyone, of course, because what would you have said? Even now, you can't put it into words that don't make someone want to hook electrodes to your head and pump you full of lightning until your brain stops lying to you. You'd be more than happy to let them do exactly that, in fact, if only you thought your brain were lying to you. But now you've seen the man PETER QUEEN ROGER SUGAR been in your house ZEBRA ABLE BAKER proof you need. It might not be enough for anyone else, but it confirms what you've always suspected.

He told you secrets, the man did, bending down and whispering until all you heard was his voice, his real voice, in one ear and LOVE MIKE NAN OBOE in the other. You lay there in the dark, feeling your heart beat in your head like VICTOR WILLIAM X-RAY YOKE while he promised you that the world made DOG EDWARD FOX GEORGE HOW ITEM JIG KING LOVE or at least would make sense, just as long as someone was there to see it. He told you to breathe. He placed his hand on your belly and you focused hard until you could feel it rise up and fall down, and you were making that happen, and his hand was warm against your skin with only a shirt between.

You're still wearing that shirt. You put your hand where his was and begin to breathe like he told you to. And just like that, everything goes clear.

of all the boys I've known, and I've known some

until I first met you, I was lonesome

and when you came in sight, dear, my heart grew light

and this old world seemed new to me

you're really swell, I have to admit you listen

deserve expressions that really fit you here

and so I've racked my brain no, over here

The doctor's talking to you right now, but you don't need to be listening to him. Over here. The little radio on the bookshelf, the one he keeps pointed at the door to hide your sessions from prying ears. You've always found it so thoughtful. Now you need to get out.

Look up at the clock, then tell him you just remembered something you had to do. Make an excuse, anything. There's twenty minutes left, but you have to go. You don't understand why, but you don't have to -- you just have to get out. Get out now. While you still can.

No, you've got to listen, he's could say "bella, bella", even "sehr wunderbar", each language only helps me tell sake, look at his hands. See how loose the skin is there, like someone's stretched it on like an ill-fitting uniform. It may be his skin, but it's not him inside. Look at the gaps at the corners of his eyes; what do you see? You've got to go. Stand up and tell him you've got to go. Stand up and tell him you've got to go or you won't be able to leave at all tried to explain, bei mir bist du schön, so kiss me and say you understand must be one of them.

The man told you about them, remember? The man told you, or at least the radio did. He said they such an old and when they find you they'll and yet I should to your means I am begging there's no time, there's no time, get out, get out, get OUT.

You see him reach into the desk. He says he needs to find the paperwork but you can see the places the skin of his face sags. You know this isn't right. You stand up. You mutter some excuse, something about fearing you've left the stove on. You make a joke about how you can't help it, paranoia, he must understand. He looks surprised, but don't look at his face. Don't go for where you hung your scarf. There's no time. Don't look back. Don't run. Don't run. You'll be safe if you can just each language only helps me tell you how grand you are

I've tried to explain, bei mir bist du schön

so kiss me and say that you will understand...

...top of the ninth we've got Harris at bat, who's had a fair season this year, perhaps not quite what the team expected when they brought him up from the minors, but keep walking, just keep walking going to be low and inside they're at the lunch counter, but if you don't look maybe they won't know you and what a hit! Straight out to center field, and nobody is even in the same time zone! Could this be seen you, so act natural. You put your hands in your pockets and look around as though you might not know this section of town, as though you hadn't grown up on these streets, as though you didn't belong. For one in your life, make it work for you tell you, folks, this is a play you'll tell your grandkids about...

...going to see some warmer temperatures on Wednesday, maybe up into the the black car, is it following you? Did you see it last street? Can you see the face of the man behind the winds from the east bringing light gusts of rain, so keep your raincoat...

...feeling tired and unhappy? Need a little pick-me-up in your wish you'd grabbed your scarf, but keep moving. It'll get your blood going new and improved formula will make teeth begin to chatter, but don't run, they'll see you if you run, they see you anyway, but they'll grab you if you run, they'll grab you with their long sharp available now at your local drugstore or wherever fine...

...units in the area, be advised of a possible eyes ahead, don't look at the suspect is described as a young begging the light at the crosswalk to change, but it doesn't work that way for you. Not yet, anyway. Don't walk. You stand with your hands in your last seen headed northbound on no, don't look at the cop, the cop is your enemy too right now, he may not be one of them but he works for them, and if he gets his cuffs on you they'll dispatch, this is car twelve, we are in pursuit green light means go, now, go, go, GO copy that, we're on our way...

...said talks are going well, and that the President is hopeful he can the car again. Turn here. Down the alley. It's too wide to follow you down narrow a resolution agreeable to both parties in the next few weeks...

...should take a notion to jump into the ocean, 't ain't nobody's bizness if I here, rest a minute, breathe. You realize you're not far from home, just a few blocks to your street. Your feet are aching and your head feels caught in a vise, but that's all right, because you got away. You look out down the end of the alley and see the cars roll by, but sing the shimmy down on Monday, ain't nobody's bizness if I do, if don't stop, and no one comes by but some kids. They give you wary looks and cut you a wide berth, but that's okay. You didn't want to deal with them anyway. They think you're a wino, someone who drinks his madness in instead of starts out with it already soaked through his blood when he opens his eyes. Guys like that are a dime a dozen in parts of town like this. You see them walking away from you, but they're already laughing again, talking about something else. You've been seen but not observed.

That was what the man said: seen but not observed. Everyone who's got sight can see, he said, and everyone who's got hearing can hear, but people can still see and hear without seeing or hearing. That's what people do every day. The kids, who've found a can to kick. The people outside the deli. The woman in the window three stories up, hanging out her laundry on the lines between the buildings as she listens to rather my man would hit me than to jump up right and quit me the invisible, inaudible world everyone is cushioned in.

You still can't see, but you know you can't see, which by the man's estimation puts you head and shoulders above the rest swear I won't call no copper can hear too, though at times like now you wish you couldn't. You didn't want to know that the signal runs on beat up by my poppa not just the broadcasts you can find if you're lucky and the weather's right and your antenna is turned just so. You didn't want to know any of this. You wanted to swallow the drugs and stop believing and learn to be as blind and deaf as anyone else.

You look down at both ends and see nothing. It's clear now. Time to ain't nobody's bizness if I do, if I do...

Helmut grüßt Franz. Guten Tag. Die Größen sechundzwanzig bis zweiunddreißig passen mir gut. Die Sonne scheint herrlich. Unsere Henne ist dabei ein Ei zu legen. Alles Gute.

Helmut grüßt Franz. Guten Tag. Die Größen sechundzwanzig bis zweiunddreißig passen mir gut. Die Sonne scheint herrlich. Unsere Henne ist dabei ein Ei zu legen. Alles Gute.

Helmut grüßt Franz. Guten Tag. Die Größen sechundzwanzig bis zweiunddreißig passen mir gut. Die Sonne scheint herrlich. Unsere Henne ist dabei ein Ei zu legen. Alles Gute.

Helmut grüßt Franz. Guten Tag. Die Größen sechundzwanzig bis zweiunddreißig passen can't help it, the second you see him standing there in the doorway, you run and throw yourself into his arms, nearling bowling you both over. He wraps his arms around you, and you can feel both the surprise and the relief in his body as you hold him. When was the last time you touched someone like this? Have you ever?

Seconds later, you pull away and punch him in the zweiunddreißig passen mir four days, four days he's been gone, and you thought zu legen. Alles Gute. Helmut grüßt truth be told, you don't entirely know what you thought, but it wasn't good. You've always been the king of worst-case scenarios. Fallen bridges. Burning buildings. Leaky portholes. Exploding suns. Anything could happen.

I know it could, he tells you with a smile, rubbing the place on his arm where your fist kissed him hello. No, you think, no, that's not it, the radio has it wrong, that's not what happened at scheint herrlich. Unsere Henne seems unbothered, though, as he stands there with that same familiar smile. I'm sorry, he says, or the radio says for him as he looks at you with sympathy -- not pity, though. You know pity. You've seen pity from your doctors every time you try to tell them that you don't need to be fixed, that you're right, and if they'd just listen they'd hear grüßt Franz. Guten Tag. Die Größen sechundzwanzig

They don't want to, the radio tells you as the man takes off his coat and hangs it on the high rusted hook by the door. That's the problem with most scientists of this era: they think they want to be open-minded, so they've convinced themselves that's exactly what they are. Purely rational. Undoubtably objective. Really, though, they're only working inside their own sets of prejudices. They don't want to find anything that would make everything else wrong.

Of this era? you ask, but he's already heading for the tea. You can ask again if you want, but he's not going to answer.

Instead, you walk over and touch his coat. It's a nice coat, soft but strong, and it feels like Henne ist dabei ein Ei can't be sure that's really what it is. You slip your hands inside his pockets but find them empty. You're invading his privacy, the radio points out, but you feel it's all right because he's been doing the same to you. That makes him laugh as he scoops the tea leaves from the tin, and how long has it been since you heard someone laugh in your house? How long has it been since you had someone else in your house, period? When did you stop having guests? Did you ever start?

When they stopped being the people you knew, the radio says for the man. He wants to know where the sugar is, so you point to a little ceramic jar in the cupboard. When he opens the lid, though, what he finds inside is mostly a congealed sugar-colored lump. You're sorry, but you usually take your tea with lemon only.

Things change, the man says with a smile. He puts the lid back on the jar and gives it several good shakes, and when he opens it again, there's been enough knocked loose for him to pour a little trickle into his cup. A sharp whistle pierces mir gut. Die Sonne scheint startled by the noise of the kettle. You hadn't expected it to heat so fast, since the man only walked in a few moments ago. Didn't he?

You check your watch, but you can't remember what time it was before he showed up, so that doesn't help. He brings you a cup and you put it under your nose, letting the steam waft up your face. It legen. Alles Gute. Helmut grüßt familiar enough with your kitchen to make tea?

Except for the sugar, he reminds you, smiling over the lip of his mug, but memory isn't always what it should be. This used to be my house.

mir gut. Die Sonne scheint herrlich. Unsere Henne ist dabei ein Ei zu not possible. This is new housing, GI housing, built for men like you who Die Größen sechundzwanzig a family of your own, nor wanted to, really. You like women well enough, but you can't trust them -- not for the idiot reasons the other sailors always gave, but because you don't know when one might be replaced, or if she had been already. If you don't run her off with your personality, you're sure you'll run her off with your medicine cabinet.

The man shakes his head while the radio tells you that's not true. You're going to meet some very open-minded women someday, some of whom have prescriptions of their own far more impressive than yours. If that's what you want, of course.

He's changed the subject, or you've changed it and he's let you, but you want to go back. What does he mean, this used to be his house?

But he's not going to answer that either -- and save your pout, the radio says as he leans across the table, because it doesn't work on him. He taps your lower lip with his index finger, and you didn't even realize it was sticking out. You become self-conscious. Do you usually make faces you're not aware of making?

All the time, he says, but don't worry, I hear it's cute.

You glance over at the radio nearest you, the one that's been broadcasting those ridiculous German sentences on repeat for days. It's still on, but the only signal you hear out of it is this one, the one that's speaking to you right now, the one that makes far more sense to you than any German does, even if its sheer existence is impossible.

Not impossible, the radio says as the man drums his fingertips rapidly on the tabletop. Your mother used to do that to get your attention, when you were small, back before she stopped being herself and started being one of whatever it was that took her and replaced her with something no longer herself. Not impossible, it says again, only improbable. It's the same reason you can't hear radio signals without having -- or being -- a radio. Being a radio is improbable, not impossible. Having a radio is neither. Enough possible becomes probable. Enough probable becomes certain. Nothing doesn't happen in an infinite universe.

You look down at your tea. It's gone cold again. The sky outside your window has gone from midday to the edge of evening, all since he arrived. In the dim blue twilight, his face looks almost sad. Soft, too. You want to touch it but don't know how he'd react, and for the love of God, could the radio not say that where he can hear it?

But instead he reaches across the table and takes your hand in his and presses it to his own cheek, which is warm and, yes, soft, and he tells you to shut your eyes and ist dabei ein Ei zu legen. Alles Gute. Helmut grüßt Franz. Guten Tag. Die Größen sechundzwanzig bis zweiunddreißig passen mir gut. Die Sonne scheint herrlich. Unsere Henne ist dabei ein Ei zu legen. Alles Gute. Auf Wiederhören.

ZYT! ZYT!

ZYT! ZYT!

ZYT! ZYT! wakes you up -- wakes you both up, in fact, though from NOMER DZIEWIĘĆDZIESIĄT DZIEWIĘĆ NOMER SZEŚĆDZIESIĄT SZEŚĆ you can't swear to his having been asleep. You don't remember getting back into bed, but you're there now, you beneath sweat-soaked covers and he above, and all the radios are blaring NOMER DZEWIĘĆDZIESIĄT CZTERY NOMER CZTERDZIEŚCI PIĘĆ NOMER CZTERDZIEŚCI PIĘĆ at top volume, except for this one. This one, you can understand. The rest sound like KONEC NOMER DZEWIĘĆDZIESIĄT CZTERY NOMER PIĘĆDZIESIĄT SIEDEM NOMER DWADZIEŚCIA TRZY NOMER TRZYDZIEŚCI DZIEWIĘĆ doesn't make any sense to you.

The man is listening, though, and he NOMER CZTERDZIEŚCI PIĘĆ NOMER CZTERDZIEŚCI PIĘĆ NOMER PIĘĆDZIESIĄT SIEDEM the volume, it's impossible to think, you can't NOMER SZEŚĆDZIESIĄT SZEŚĆ NOMER OSIEMDZIESIĄT DWA NOMER SZEŚĆDZIESIĄT SZEŚĆ

I have to go, he says, pressing a hand to your chest, and you grab for him, but by the time you make your hands work, he's out of your reach and NOMER DWADZIEŚCIA TRZY NOMER SZEŚĆDZIESIĄT JEDEN NOMER PIĘĆDZIESIĄT SIEDEM NOMER PIĘĆDZIESIĄT SIEDEM NOMER DZIEWIĘĆDZIESIĄT DZIEWIĘĆ

TERMINAT TERMINAT TERMINAT TERMINAT TERMINAT TERMINAT TERMINAT TERMINAT TERMINAT TERMINAT TERMINAT

and hear 'bout the best band in the land

they can play a bugle call like you never heard before

so natural that you want to go to war

that's just the bestest had a friend over, you tell her, trying to seem as pleasant and normal as can be. You're certain she's not one of them, because you remember when she was born, back before your parents weren't your parents anymore, and she's been the same ever since. Maybe she just keeps an eye on you well enough on her own.

She's asking for details about your friend, though she uses her mouth and not the radio to do it, so you have to remember that way too. She's hoping the friend is a woman, and you can see the disappointment register on her face when you say 'he'. So much for normal. She asks if he's someone you know from the service. You lie and say yes, you on along, let me take you by the hand up to the man, up to the man who's the leader of the band getting back in touch after a while.

The worry lines on her face don't soften into the rest of her skin. She's the only one who still checks on you, because maybe she's the only one who still has to. She's telling you the doctors have been saying discouraging things about your progress, so you try to cheer up, try to and hear, come on and hear Alexander's Ragtime progress being made, you're taking your medications, one day you'll see the world the way band in the land, they can play hands so tight around your cup you're afraid it'll shatter and come on along come on along come on along

come on along look over to the door and notice, oh, he left his coat. You'll have to return it to him next time he comes back.

Oh no, you look at her face and see you've said something wrong. Dark lines crease the skin between her eyebrows as she points to it and tells you that's your coat.

You tell her that you two must have the same coat, what a funny coincidence and so odd of you not to notice it before this, but you wait too long and in the gap you can see her mouth draw tight, her eyes go take you by the hand (here's my lilywhites) sure you're taking your pills?

Yes, you promise, and you'll be glad to show her, and she can count for herself if she wants to make sure. One with every meal, though you don't tell her the part where instead of swallowing them, you toss them down the care to hear that Swanee River played in ragtime never miss a dose that way on and hear shakes them in her pink-manicured hand and counts come on and hear hands you the bottle back come on and hear at last takes her purse and come on and hear

come on and hear

come on and hear

come on and hear

come on and hear

VLB 96 B29 B2330428 μηδέν εννέα δύο HIER IST DFC SEBEN UND DREIZIG шесть пять четыре три два NOVEMBER UNIFORM NOVEMBER UNIFORM REPEAT REPEAT MESSAGE MESSAGE GROUP 1 0 GROUP ocho ocho uno

every time it rains it rains randomness, or that's what they'd taught you in training D38 D39 D40 D41 D42 D43 D44 signal without source, or with every source. White noise like white light, because it got to be everything by being nothing μηδέν οκτώ τέσσερα

Every radio is on now, every one tuned to a different so much closer than I dare do I want to scold unscrew the caps on all the pill bottles and dump their contents all down the drain. They make pretty little skittering sounds as they roll around your sink, before descending into SPRUCHNUMMER 4 SPRUCHNUMMER 4 SPRUCHNUMMER 4 SPRUCHNUMMER 4 hit the sides at random intervals, making their own YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT just can't understand its signal. When it comes to tiny pretty pills, you're not a radio.

μηδέν πέντε εννέα WHISKY TANGO ROMEO VEINTE Y UNO lesz szemem, hogy még egyszer lássalak wonder what they mean to anyone else listening with you tonight. There was a knock on your door earlier, a few hours or a few days ago, but you stayed still as death, and eventually it went три два один один два три четыре пять шесть sheets over your windows, which is smart, because you think they can't see und was wir heimlich uns erdacht soll sich erfüllen im Wunderland don't know how good their technology is, though. Radio waves travel through walls, water, bodies, space. The universe is filled with radio waves, spanning POZOR! POZOR! 97178 97178 listen long enough and you might hear LO LO LO LO LO 82067 82182 31657

That's what the man told you as you lay in bed, feverish and cold at once, wracked with hysteria and withdrawal you even now scarcely recall, before the great sound woke him and he had to go. If you could hear the universe, you could change mir gut. Der sonne shein verlösch by observing, you could demand it exist. You do demand it exists already. The trick is doing it on purpose. The signals run all day and night, broadcasting KONEC KONEC KONEC KONEC KONEC KONEC KONEC no sense in the signal until you're there to make sense of it. Radio waves were everywhere, but only radios could hear them. Without a receiver, they don't exist cinq six sept dix neuf un deux trois sept huit neuf trees falling in forests. Cats living and dead. Certainty in an improbable world. Nothing matters until the destination is there to make the origin matter.

There can be no unwatched world, the man said, running his hand across your damp brow, as you shook so hard your teeth chattered. Did that happen? How much of anything is your delusion? You grab for the tvoundsechzig strich tvouhundert-tvouundzwanzig your fingernails scrape against metal, not medicine. What do you want? Who's watching you?

herrlich. Unsere Henne ist dabei ein Ei zu legen. Alles Gute other people like us, he said, and you can remember now, you can finally remember, the way sometimes dreams come back to you not at ATTENCION! ATTENCION! halfway through the day, when some real-life stimulus gives context to the tatters of sleep still clinging to your brain like cobwebs. You're going to come with them. He says it not like possibility or probability, but certainty. You're going to be a witness.

Your hands are shaking, and your stomach your eyes are always saying the things you're never saying I only hope lie on the floor and press your face to the cool tile. You're burning up again. You should go to ES FOLGEN TALON FüR 849 849 8 GRUPPEN 231 231 17 take care of GALLIPOLI HAVANA ITALIA JERUSALEM KILOGRAM LIVERPOOL relapse 746 746 746 22749 22749 22749 withdrawal goodnight and still you linger ACHTUNG SPRUCH GEHT! sign the papers and they'll finally take away your TERMINAT TERMINAT TERMINAT

TERMINAT

No, you say, you shout, and you slap your hand against the floor to push yourself up and away. You stagger forward, crawling and stumbling. You hit the table and knock his mug of tea -- still full of sweet tea, as though he never drank it at all, as though he were never there at all -- to the ground, shattering it behind you and causing a terrific splash. The bathroom's too far, but you make it to the back door and hang out over the edge of the porch as you throw up things you didn't know you'd had in you. You're spitting out inky motor oil, retching great poisonous white gushes of venom. You clap a hand to your ears and realize they're bleeding. The world spins forward in a great miserable gush, and you hang with it, clinging to the boards of the porch so you don't spin off into space. Your heart beats against your ribcage hard enough to bruise you from the inside out. You start coughing up murky seawater, and you realize that's not coming from your stomach, but from your lungs. You have a sea inside you. It's time for it to come out.

How much poison can a body take and not die? How much has been filtering through you all these years, the way radio waves pass through most people's bodies and out the other side unnoticed? Did you overdose in your kitchen? Did you drown beneath the ocean? Did you smother in your crib?

Did you survive because there was no one there to see?

The observed object, now, you. Witness, witnessed. You fall back on your back and expect to choke again, but instead you find your lungs mercifully clear, maybe clearer than they've ever been in your life. You take in a great gulp of air and hold it, and as you do, you can feel a pair of vibrations inside your lungs, tiny little waves of energy trapped in there, bouncing off your soft tissues. You exhale, and as you do, you can hear them -- one a commercial for a laundry soap, one a telegraph to tell a man his father has passed away, both ferried on the white noise of your breath on their way throughout the galaxy.

You reach up to touch your ears, but the blood there has already dried, and when your fingers press against it, it flakes away like ash. The sky has gone a deep velvety blue, and stars twinkle in the distance. They have their own signals too, said the man, and someday scientists will build giant radios made of telescopes just to listen to the heartbeats of pulsars and quasars and even the Earth's own sun. No, to hear what they used to sound like. Echoes, he said, with his forehead pressed to yours, his body your own body's mirror. Signals. The past hurled so far into the deep as to become someone else's present. Everything carried infinitely forth into a universe of possibilities, made certain only on arrival. Anything else was only as improbable as you made it.

It's then you realize you can't hear the radio anymore. It's then you realize you no longer need to.

As dawn creeps in somewhere unseen outside, you turn around to find him there, standing in your dining room, holding a whole, complete mug in his hands. It's the one you broke.

Is that what you observed or is that what you assumed? he asks, and you have to admit that it's the latter. He hands it to you and there's not a crack in it. The observed universe is very different from the assumed one, he says, and he puts his hands over yours. You hadn't noticed before, but they're the same size as yours. You run the pad of your right thumb over the base of his left thumb and feel the scar you got from a rifle misfire in basic training. You lean in to kiss him and he tastes so familiar it's like tasting nothing at all.

There's a knock on the door, but you ignore it. You hear someone call your name, even shout it, but it barely even registers over the rush of everything else. Your name has just become one more thing that feeds from its own color into the white.

You take the cup and hold it out at arm's length, and the both of you watch together as you let it go. It falls and hits the ground, and this time it breaks, because you saw it happen. Possible becomes probable becomes certain. He places his hand inside yours, filling the space the cup occupied, and you close your fingers over his. He smiles and wants you to put your arms around him, so you do, holding his chest to your chest. He says your name and you swallow it, trapping the sound inside you so no one else can observe it. It's yours now, and no one else's.

You grab at the hem of his shirt and pull it off over your head, until you're both bare-chested in the near-dark of the room. It's daylight outside, somewhere, you think, but the windows and doors have long since been boarded shut and covered over. Inside is only for you.

What they want, he explains as you kiss his neck, is to keep the observation under control. They're like the scientists who refuse conclusions outside their prejudices. Keep your seeing quiet. Keep your hearing dark. Let nothing happen for you outside the realm of the expected. A predictable universe is a safe universe. No monsters under beds, no signal in the sound. No echoes. No stars.

You push him back against the bed and crawl on top of him, and he pins you to the mattress, putting a knee between your legs. You can see him here, so he's here. All your senses have him on their radar. He is the definition of certainty here as he bites a red ring into your shoulder. You tell him to bite harder and hope it'll scar, and from seeing the small pink oval in the same place on his shoulder, you know it will. You so recently emptied yourself that you now feel just plain empty. You'd rather have him in there.

Now someone's knocking at the window as he pulls your pants off and rolls you onto your side, then nestles up behind you, his mouth pressed to the back of your neck, just as naked as you are. You've never been an exceptionally sexual person, but maybe that was only before you could feel everything. It all rushes into you now as he tells you to breathe, as he makes you promise you'll keep listening to him. It's the only way he'll be able to stay, he says, and you don't even have to ask what he means this time, because you know. He brushes your hip with his hand, then reaches around to grab your cock and rub his thumb over its head. You shiver and rock against his body, feeling tremors crawl up your legs. At first you think you're the one shaking, but then you realize the source is external. Everything is humming. The cosmos in motion.

You reach back and card your hand through his hair, feeling it snag in the thick locks you've always hated, but which you have to admit look good on him. Everything looks good on him, every time you've seen every bit of it. And wouldn't your doctors have a field day with that narcissism? It'd be a whole new diagnosis for your file. But they're not here now. It's just the two of you and the rest of the universe.

His cock slides up and back against your ass, rocking into a rhythm, and you feel a thunder-like vibration course through you as he groans low in his chest. You're learning all sorts of things about yourself today.

With your next breath, you turn the dial and tune in to a couple making love in a house just down the street; the one after that absorbs the radiation of two more bodies twined together in that same house's basement -- or maybe the same bodies at a different time, or maybe neither one is happening now. There are echoes of all sorts of emotions here, but passion is its own frequency, and you tune in to that as he strokes your cock and gasps against your neck. It's a warm red frequency, and it's as real as any other in the universe. It has to be real, after all. You're its witness.

He smells like sugar and strong tea, like ozone, like space. Like something that's made a long journey and come back home. You almost want to feel afraid, you feel that would be somehow appropriate, but instead he has you and you're writhing in his touch. He knows where to grab you to make you sweat. The fever's back now, but this time the cause is not the sickness but the cure. Burn with it. It only eats what is no longer necessary.

Someone from outside calls the name you swallowed, yells it louder now, and you think you recognize your sister's voice. So sorry, can't come to the door right now, currently indisposed. Another voice shouts, and this one is deep and unfamiliar, but stern and official. A storm a thousand miles away cracks with a bolt of lightning at that same moment he sucks at your earlobe in a way that sends sparks down to the tips of your toes. Another bolt rips its way down to earth as he closes his teeth around the skin there with a force just on this side of pain. It's happening because you know it's happening; your presence is making it real.

You can feel his lips turn into a smile against your skin. So, he whispers, by that same token...

The people outside your house aren't there. You can't see them and you aren't listening. You might assume they're there, but assumption isn't enough for proof. And just like that, the room goes quiet, quiet enough that you can hear a great roar behind the silence, like the one that isn't the sea trapped inside seashells. It's the sun, he tells you, as you gasp and he kisses your throat. Someday they'll build great radios just to hear what's already in your head right now. Some day it won't be empty noise. Someday this will all mean something.

White noise isn't random, says the radio in your head, says the universe as filtered through you. Nothing is random. There's only signal that can't be decoded, sounds that have no context, words still looking for a language. Come and give it meaning. Your cock jumps in his hand as sensation pours through you, and a distant sun flare grabs your orgasm and steals it out of you. You can't breathe and he's kissing your neck and telling you that everything will be well, that all manner of everythings will be well. Instants later, you're shooting forth again, another jet of liquid white noise, not random at all, but in search of a greater sense.

Your house is gone. Your eyes are shut and your breathing steady, but unobserved your surroundings disappear. You can assume the room is still there, so you keep your eyes shut and you don't listen, and in no time it disappears too, from the uncertain to the improbable to the impossible. Your rug's not there. Your bed's not there. Your sheets aren't there. Your clothes aren't there.

The man's not there either, and you understand that now, because neither are you. You couldn't get a good view from here, anyway. Time to rise. Time to find the others who'll watch with you. Time to see something real. Time to make it real. Eyes shut and ears open, you exhale and

[static]

Members Only

Kurai bentorē (暗いベントレー)

This is Midwestern 92.53 FM! Welcome to KRCD Radio, host of all your favorite chart hits, inside scoops, interviews, and Indie Insider.

An annoyingly chirpy jingle rang out.

"Good evening, all. Welcome to the Indie Insider. I'm your host, Bryan Allison, and tonight, boy, do we have a great show for you! The lineup includes the latest rumblings from the indie underground, including new tunes from the Ramada Saints, the Walking Wounded, and Kevin Daley! Most exciting of all, Kevin is here in the studio with us, today! Stick around for our exclusive interview with this fella, who's even going to sing for us. And, of course, we have our usual news roundup, at the end of the show. All right, let's get started!"

Indie Insider ran through its usual program of subculture favorites, featuring plenty of indie classics from the '90s, even throwing in occasional big names such as Nirvana and At the Drive-In here and there. The interview with the young star, Kevin Daley, was left till the end, as standard procedure when showcasing a big name. Keep the listeners hanging around for what they really want, was the idea. Put the star on too early and they lose interest in the rest of the show.

Daley was doing the promo tour for his new album, Bayswater Road, calling around to all the local stations, newspapers -- whoever would help him spread the word. As an independent with no real attachment to a record label, he was responsible for doing almost all of his own promotion. As it turned out, he was rather comfortable with charming radio hosts, newspaper journalists, and the like. His long blonde hair and good looks didn't hurt, either; they were part of why the Kevin Daley name was a big deal in the South Dakota indie scene.

His real start in the industry had been putting together a five-song EP of his own material and covers, with some high school friends. The recording, made with an old four-track recorder bought at a yard sale for $5, was technically sloppy, but artistically interesting. Daley's lyrics and engaging vocals outshone the testosterone of his band mates. This EP was the gateway into gigging at small bars and clubs. Those were the days of playing weekends, missing school to rehearse, and scraping together enough cash to rent a van and make it across the state to more small bars and clubs.

Seven years later, here Kevin was, on the Indie Insider. He never really made it 'big,' mostly because he didn't buy into the hoop-jumping capitalism of the industry. Gigging at local clubs still gave him enough drive and spare change to keep working on new material and to get by comfortably. Travelling out of state to feature in summer festivals, brought in more cash, but not the desire to climb any higher on the career ladder. Journalists often cited lack of ambition in their blurbs on Daley's career, but being the big fish in the small pond felt comfortable.

"Welcome back to the Indie Insider, and yes, it's time for what you've all been waiting for. Local legend Kevin Daley joins us for a chat, and then he'll play us a song from his upcoming album, Bayswater Road, coming out on the 5th of April.

"Kevin, thanks so much for joining us. I've been a big fan since I first heard you play live three or four years ago at the Thirsty Duck bar. Things have come on a ways since then!"

"That's nice of you to say, Bryan. Glad you're a fan! I do remember playing Thirsty Duck, but I've gigged there maybe twenty or thirty times since I started off, way back when." Kevin found radio delivery easy by now, after years of cramming into little booths, usually while being interviewed by aging, balding men. The studio here was cramped as usual, but at least the host was easy on the eyes -- nicely built and with a cute smile.

"That's cool, Kevin -- you'll have to remember us little people when you're playing Ozzfest." Bryan was just running the radio shtick playbook. "Now, can you tell us a bit about your new album, the one you're going to be playing a song from in a few minutes?"

"Sure. The album is called Bayswater Road. I'm sure anyone listening who's been following my work will get the reference. The album is sort of a concept album, but not quite. It deals with the issues a young musician faces: putting their work out into public, having it scrutinized and torn apart and played non-stop. It's about the other side of the fame coin. I guess it's not the most original topic, but it was important to me. You need that desire to come up with something good."

"For sure, for sure! Fascinating to hear your thoughts on the songs. Can I ask, if you don't mind, what's the meaning behind the song Sioux Long?"

"Oh, that? Ha, that's my updated take on the classic country-western don't-steal-my-man song. Did you like it?"

"Loved it. All right, now let's get you over to that guitar and we're going to hear you play something new, isn't that right?"

"Sure, I'll play you something from the new disc. Just give me a minute to get ready here."

Kevin walked over to the booth, picked up his Martin acoustic guitar, and started picking out a few notes to feel his way into the instrument. Getting a nod from the studio engineer, he began to play a song from the new album.

Bryan relaxed into his leather swivel chair, excited, stressed, and relieved, all at the same time, to get the highlight of the show underway. He was great at delivering the canned banter required of studio hosts, but he was much more interested in getting to know the young musician for himself.

Kevin began to sing. He had a sweet, not very powerful voice, but it carried a melody beautifully. His guitar playing was a subtle underlay to the vocals.

But after a few bars, it became apparent that something had gone wrong with the inputs into the mixing desk. Being broadcast live to thousands of local listeners was just the sound of the plectrum scratching against strings. No notes. No voice. Kevin had no monitors and continued completely unaware, while the sound engineer behind the window was in a clear panic, flicking switches, pulling faders, and swearing under his breath.

The audio was finally restored just as he was singing the outro verse. Bryan hadn't wanted to interrupt Kevin, so the musician had continued to play on. The room buzzed with the creative energy of the singer and the silent panic of the engineer. Almost four minutes of essentially dead air had just gone out to KRCD listeners.

After realizing what had gone wrong, Bryan had no choice but to finish the show like a professional.

"It appears we had some fairly serious technical problems during the live performance that was just broadcast. Please accept my sincere apologies for this. Nobody was looking forward to this more than I was, and we've let our listeners, and Kevin, down."

Bryan looked around to see Kevin in heated conversation with the engineer in the control room.

"I'm afraid we don't have time for Kevin to play for us, again," Bryan continued, "and we have to launch straight into our news segment. Please accept my apologies -- we will make sure this doesn't happen again!"

Bryan hit a button on his desk to queue up the canned news segment just in time to see Kevin drop his guitar and briskly stomp out of the studio.

"Kevin, wait!" Bryan called as he rushed after the singer. The engineer hung his head with his palms facing outward, as an admission of guilt.

"Kevin, I'm really sorry. I'll find a way to make this up to you," Bryan said as he caught up to Kevin and put an arm around his shoulder, as much to keep him from running off as to comfort him. "Look, we fucked up. This looks really bad for you, but the blame is on us. I'll make it up to you. I mean, I thought you sounded really great. I've never heard you sing up close before."

"Listen, forget about it. This has happened before, I know the deal. Just don't call me up again. I'll be better off that way." Kevin didn't exactly spit the words out with conviction.

"Dude, seriously, this was just a mistake. We don't usually screw up this bad. Please let me make this right."

"Ah, okay. God, sorry, I'm overreacting," Kevin relented. "But how can you make this right? I'm supposed to be promoting the new disc, getting the word out. First impressions are everything."

"Look, we'll have you back on the show in two weeks. That's our first possible slot, if I push some other guests back. We'll get you to play again, and we'll make sure everything goes right this time. I'm gonna have your album on our playlist as soon as it's out, anyway. You know I love your stuff!" Bryan said, barely taking a breath.

Kevin visibly sighed, calming down with each passing sentence.

"All right, okay. I'll take you at your word, Mr. Allison. It could not go much worse than today."

"Great, brilliant. Look, why don't you come out for a drink with me tonight, after I finish up in the studio, and we can sort out the details, get you penciled in for a couple weeks from now? I know a few nice bars near here. We can grab a couple drinks and blow off some steam."

"Look, I dunno, maybe. Here, take my number. Call me later, if you're serious about this, and we can work something out."

Kevin took a dog-eared business card from his back pocket and gave it to Bryan, then turned and left.

Bryan headed back in to deal with the fallout. The KRCD boss wasn't going to be too pleased, but he didn't mind so much in light of the thought that he might be having drinks with Kevin Daley that night.

"Thanks for meeting me, man, I appreciate it. Feel really bad for making you look stupid on air earlier," Bryan said.

"It's okay, I understand. People make mistakes. I've cooled down from earlier, anyway... I'm not really the grudging type."

The two young men had ended up in Lucky's, a trendy cocktail bar near the city center.

"How's your martini? Good? Must say, I'm enjoying my Sex on the Beach," Bryan said, with a cheeky smile.

"I'll let you in on a secret, Mr. Radio Host -- music is my first love, but cocktails are most definitely my boy toy."

"Interesting! I definitely didn't have you pegged as the martini type -- you've got the rocker long hair, and since when do rockers sip cocktails?" Bryan asked.

"Well, I had you down as the Diet Pepsi type, so I guess we're both wide of the mark."

"I've never been the designated driver, don't worry. Anyway, I cleared out some space in the show after next, and we'll be able to get you in for at least one song and maybe a couple, if you want. Does that date work for you? First of April?"

"I'll have to see. I don't have my diary here, with me, but it's probably cool. Do you need a definite yes tonight? I don't know if I can give you that without checking."

Bryan winced. "A 'yes' would be really great tonight, but if you can give me a 'probably,' it should be good enough. I've already told the Walking Wounded they're postponed back to June. Their manager was not happy, but that's showbiz in South Dakota. It's practically Hollywood here, ya know?"

Kevin forced a laugh.

"Yeah, I really can't give you a firm 'yes', but I'll think about it. Is that good enough?"

"Whatever you want, Kevin, I'm just trying to fix things -- it's all up to you," Bryan said. "Look, you're dry, there, buddy. Another round? Same again?"

"Please."

The two drank cocktails for what felt like hours, but who knew how long it was? Both loosened up a lot, after the third or fourth drink. They worked their way through each of their life histories, bit by bit, as people do, after enough drinks.

"The best time for me, apart from now -- because now's pretty awesome -- was high school. I was just getting into music, just had the real raw urge to get some songs down on tape. It was so much easier back then, just making songs with no pressure, no one expected anything, but me wanting to prove myself. You know?" Kevin said.

"Yeah, I guess I know the feeling. I mean, I've no musical bone in my body, but in some way, the radio business must be similar. Don't know that I ever had that burning creative desire like you, but I did have to fight to get my first few radio gigs. And it was because I loved music. Sure, I didn't make it myself, but I knew what was good, and I felt like I could really show people some killer bands they'd maybe never hear of."

"That's cool, I respect that. So you were saying you first saw me a few years back in Thirsty Duck?" Kevin asked.

"Yeah, that's right. I saw you do a thirty-minute set opening for some rock band. As soon as I saw you, I knew you were something special. I mean... I thought your music had a really cool energy, and the words to your songs were really, you know, really unique. I knew you had something special right away. Didn't hurt that you're a total babe, too," Bryan said.

Kevin, now rather tipsy, couldn't help slipping an arm around Bryan's shoulders.

"Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm glad that people dig those club gigs I do. Sometimes get the feeling that nobody cares because I'm not some big name, I'm just a dude with a guitar. But thanks," Kevin said.

"Take my word for it, people definitely appreciate you!" Bryan said. "Listen... will we have one more cocktail and then call it a night? Bar's closing in twenty minutes."

"We just got started! I don't think I can bail on cocktails this early, my friend. Are you working in the morning?"

"No, just... well, no, I don't have work until tomorrow afternoon. That's when my Saturday slot is. Well, this bar is closing, but I guess we could go for a walk or something -- keep our chat going," said Bryan. Neither guy apparently wanted the night to end.

"Actually, I have a minibar back at my place. How about we head back there, and I'll make us a couple of daiquiris or white Russians, or whatever you fancy."

Bryan paused, quickly mulling the pros and cons in his head, but alcohol quickly decided in favor of yes. "All right, I'll come back to yours, but only for a couple. Guy's got a reputation to keep, after all."

They walked out to hail a cab, arms around each other's shoulders.

Sitting in front of an '80s sitcom rerun, the two guys continued their chat about life and music, mostly ignoring the TV. Kevin's place was generously supplied with alcohol, and they made good use of it. Arms still around each other, the guys got closer together, and Kevin, half-sleepy, half-drunk, put his head against Bryan's shoulder. They fell asleep like that, TV on, sitting on the sofa in the living room.

"Ahh, God, my head!" Bryan moaned, as he gradually dragged himself back to consciousness, in the morning. He reached for a glass of water on the nightstand, but coughed it up as he realized it was a martini remnant from the night before. "Are you up, Kev?" he asked.

"Urrgh," Kevin replied.

"Yeah, same here," Bryan said. He began to wonder where they were, and why they were in a bed together.

"This, uh... this your room, Kevin?"

"Ummm," Kevin groaned affirmatively.

Bryan got up and shuffled to the kitchen in his boxers, returning with two glasses of water and some painkillers. He fumbled back into bed and handed Kevin a glass and some pills.

"Those were some serious cocktails we had last night, man. Drink up."

"Tell me about it. Feels like I can see in four dimensions," Kevin said, sitting up and gulping down the water and pills together. "What even happened, last night?"

"We had a good time!"

"Oh crap, the radio show. That totally bombed." Kevin sighed.

"Do not worry about that. We're going to sort it out. You're booked in for two weeks from now, I'm going to promote the new album like crazy, and we'll issue an apology on the next Indie Insider. Seriously. It's all taken care of."

"Thanks," Kevin said. "I guess I didn't thank you already, but I appreciate it, having me on the show and helping out like this. I really need support like this. Otherwise, my albums don't really sell. So, thank you, Bryan."

Kevin leaned over and kissed Bryan on the cheek.

"I'm just doing it because I think people should hear your music. Really," Bryan said, turning round to hand Kevin his water and to kiss him on the lips.

They slipped into each other's embrace and began to kiss, both guys still very hungover. The endorphins from making out helped to mask the throbbing headaches. Bryan took any opportunity to run his hands through Kevin's shoulder length, soft blonde hair, while Kevin took off his own T-shirt and jeans.

Both guys, in boxers only now, pulled tightly together. Kevin licked at Bryan's cheek, ear, neck, as he pushed his hands down to Bryan's ass, pulling their hips close together.

"Is that morning glory I feel, Mr. Allison?" Kevin asked.

"Maybe. Almost certainly it is. You can find out, if you want."

Kevin placed his left hand flat against Bryan's stomach and gradually slid it lower, underneath his boxers.

Kevin breathed in Bryan's ear, "Almost certainly is," as he wrapped his fingers around Bryan's growing cock.

"It seems I'm not alone, either," Bryan said, pulling at Kevin's upper lip with his tongue.

Before long, neither guy was wearing anything as they kissed under the bedcovers. Each had a hand around the other's shaft, tugging in a syncopated rhythm. Kevin made the first move, writhing himself towards the end of the bed, tentatively taking Bryan's head in his mouth. Bryan threw the duvet on the floor and laid back, arms behind his head, watching the young singer's tongue dart about.

"God, you're a tease," he said.

"You don't like to wait, huh?" Kevin blew on the tip and licked his lips provocatively.

"No, I don't! Please continue," Bryan said.

Kevin took to the task with extra vigor, licking further along the shaft, and finally taking it fully into his mouth. While he sucked and slurped, he played with himself to stay hard. Bryan's dick was well-proportioned, a little chunky, thicker in the middle, slightly curved, and shaved. A thread of saliva tied it to Kevin's mouth, as he pulled up off of it.

"You got a rubber?"

"Umm, yeah, give me a sec." Bryan rummaged through the bedside cabinet drawer, and pulled out a little foil square, which he tore open. "You wanna help me put it on?" Bryan asked.

"Sure." Kevin knelt down in front of Bryan, stretched the condom out, and then slowly slid it on, looking up with puppy dog eyes. He slid it into his mouth again and clasped his hands around Bryan's ass, to try to pull it further in.

Bryan closed his eyes, focusing on the pleasure, and played with Kevin's curly hair. After a few minutes, he could take no more.

"Okay, okay, get on the bed!" They climbed onto the mattress and got into a spooning position. Bryan grabbed a little bottle of lube and slathered it over the condom and his fingers. He gently teased open Kevin's ass and made sure it was well lubricated.

"Kevin," he said, reaching over to kiss the younger man, "do I have to wait any longer?"

"Part of me wants to test your patience, but most of me wants you to fuck me. Please."

"I hate to keep a guy waiting." Bryan eased inside Kevin slowly, just the tip at first, then tentatively more and more. His cock felt like exploding, so he kept the tempo low. Once he was all the way in, he reached around and used his free hand to play with Kevin, stroking his dick, then caressing his balls, then pushing against the prostate.

"Oh, God, yes, keep doing that!" Kevin said, contorting his neck to kiss his big spoon behind him.

Upping the tempo of both his thrusts and strokes, Bryan drew them both to the precipice of climax. Finally, the clenching of Kevin's ass, tightly around Bryan's cock, was too much for Bryan, and he grabbed Kevin's hips and pulled hard into him, as he came.

For a few moments, Bryan was paralytic with bliss, only groaning and shuddering, before he remembered that other humans, including Kevin, existed. He moved over Kevin, as Kevin lay on his back, and did his best to keep up the quick pace of the prior stroking, now using his mouth and tongue.

Kevin's cock was, like its owner, tall and thin, but Bryan was a match for it, taking most of it deep in and out of his mouth.

At the speed of Bryan's mouth and tongue, Kevin felt the orgasm quickly building and couldn't do much to stop it.

"Hey, Bryan."

"Mmm?" Bryan gargled.

"Can you invite me to your radio show more often?"

"Mmm." What seemed to be a smile and a nod.

"I love the star treatment you give your guests. Never got this at the South Dakota Gazette...." His voice tapered into a moan, as he spent his load. The climax felt like it lasted forever. But all too soon, they were back under the covers, cuddling.

"That's definitely the best hangover sex I've had," Kevin said.

"Is it a regular activity for you?"

"No. I mean, I have the membership card, but I don't get to use it often. You oughta join the club."

"I think that would be kinda cool."

They went back to gentle kissing, till they dozed off.

This is Midwestern 92.53 FM! Welcome to KRCD Radio, host of all your favorite chart hits, inside scoops, interviews, and Indie Insider.

The chirpy KRCD jingle played.

"Good evening, all. Welcome to the Indie Insider. I'm your host for tonight's show, Bryan Allison, and we've got a special treat lined up for tonight! We welcome back the young and very talented Kevin Daley, who will do us the honor of singing live in the studio, once again -- technology willing, of course!

"Kevin, feels a bit like deja vu, doesn't it? How are ya doing, and please tell us about the song you're gonna perform for Indie Insider listeners tonight."

"Hey there, Mr Allison, glad to be back on your show. This song is actually a new one. It's not off the new album, and nobody has even heard it, yet. I guess this is the world premiere...stick that on the show promo! It's called 'Members Only' and it's about having sex when you're so hungover, you want to die. I think you might like it."

Dragon Prince on the Sea

by Midorin

Happy Lunar New Year! Or almost, anyway. I hope you all have a good one if you celebrate it. I haven't been updating a lot recently because there's been a lot of work, but I thought I'd pop in and let you all know that I'll be visiting the Vietnamese folklore exhibit at the Getty tomorrow. Louis got some free time, so we're going on a date there. It'll be really exciting, since there's hardly ever anything about Vietnamese folklore--maybe it'll even give me an idea for my next comic!

UPDATE: Never mind, just got a call from Louis. The date is cancelled.

If pressed as to the reason why he's still dating Louis after seven long years of missed dates, forgotten anniversaries, and arguments heated enough to bring the Pacific Ocean to a boil, Thanh would be able to list three things: he's passionate, he's good-looking, and he's not bad in bed.

"As your older brother, I have to tell you, those are not good reasons," Hung says when Thanh lists those things over dinner at Bun Bo Hue Thom.

"First of all," Thanh snaps, "you are not my older brother. Second of all, you didn't ask me for good reasons. You just asked me for reasons."

"The 'good' was implied. And I might as well be your older brother. How many years have I burned my hands over the stove to feed you, broken my back to shelter you, stayed awake at night worrying about you--"

"You have done none of those things," Thanh says, dragging his hand down his face.

"What are you talking about, you brat? Who cooks for you all the time?"

Thanh can't refute that in all their years of living together, the number of times he's had to approach the stove has been paltry compared to the number of times Hung has cooked a balanced meal for them, so he settles for narrowing his eyes at Hung and slurping his noodles in precisely the loud, obnoxious way that Hung can't stand.

Instead of asking Thanh if he was born in a cave, Hung just fixes a serious look on him. "All of that aside, you know I have to ask: Why did you break up with Louis this time?"

He'd known this question was coming, but Thanh still has to stare down at his bowl for a minute before answering. Hung has heard about every one of Thanh's breakups with Louis, and he's never berated Thanh or made him feel childish for them, but it's still embarrassing having to explain that for the dozenth time he's failed to make it work with his boyfriend.

Eventually, he says, "It's stupid. We were planning on going to the Getty tomorrow to see the Vietnamese folklore exhibition because it's closing soon. I even stayed up all night to finish my commissions early, but he called me tonight and told me that he has a last-minute protest to attend. He said we could go after the protest since it's in the morning, but I fucking hate being wedged in between his schedule so I sort of lost of my shit and started yelling."

"I'm sorry," Hung says, nudging the last banh beo in his direction. "That was really inconsiderate of him." The "as usual" hangs in the air between them.

Thanh sighs and shovels the banh beo into his mouth. It's hot and chewy, heaped with just the right amount of chopped shrimp and fried shallots. No matter what his mood, nothing is as good as eating at Bun Bo Hue Thom. The ache that's been in his chest ever since he got the phone call from Louis loosens a little and he starts drinking the broth from his noodles. "It's okay," he says. "I mean, it's not okay because I'm totally sick of Louis' shit, but he probably would have tried to do the 'I'm more Vietnamese than you' competition, so it's better that we didn't go."

Hung snorts. "That does sound like it would have been annoying." He chews on his chopsticks. Thanh has seen him do it hundreds of times, especially when he's thinking about something, but he can't help staring. Heat starts creeping up his neck, so he coughs and busies himself draining the last of the broth from his bowl.

"Why don't we go to the Getty together tomorrow?" Hung asks.

Thanh stops slurping and stares at him over the rim of the bowl. "Wait, really? Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. And please put the bowl down and stop staring. It makes you look country."

Thanh kicks Hung under the table. "Shut up!"

"Ow! Do you want to go or not, brat? Honestly, your ingratitude pains me deep inside."

Putting the bowl down with a clatter, Thanh clasps his hands together and bows from the waist up. "I want to go! Thank you so much for offering to take me, Anh Hung," he says in his best Vietnamese.

Hung chokes on the sip of tea he's taking. Wiping his mouth on the napkin, he says, "All right, all right, there's no need to prostrate yourself." He gets up, taking out his wallet. When Thanh starts to protest, he cuts him off. "Let the rich one pay. Next time you can treat me."

"That's what you always say!"

Hung smiles and ruffles Thanh's hair. "And that's how it's always going to be. You have the good fortune to have a generous older brother. Don't complain about it."

UPDATE: Turns out I'm going to the Getty after all! Hung said he would go with me. Expect to see some pictures soon.

As much as he likes to talk about Thanh's good fortune, Hung can't complain that he doesn't have any, either. If it weren't for Thanh, Hung might have spent all of third grade eating lunch in a bathroom stall with only his Batman lunch box for company. Nobody had particularly liked him when he'd first moved from San Jose to Westminster: Hung Bui with his stuck up manners, his matching Batman paraphernalia, and his indecipherable dialect when speaking Vietnamese. He'd been teased by all the kids in his grade until Thanh, a year younger and a head shorter, leaped onto his main tormentor and bit him on the arm.

Thanh had gotten a month of detention for it, but even the indignity of being dragged out of the principal's office by his parents faded when Hung sat down next to him at lunch the next day and offered him half of his rice and gio. It's been years since then, and Hung doesn't really need defending anymore, but Thanh would still bite Johnny Nguyen if he so much as looked at Hung the wrong way. There are some memories that are indelible, and Hung clutching his lunchbox, biting his lower lip to stop it from quivering, is one of them.

There's also the memory of Louis standing up in the middle of a high school assembly and cussing out the ASB members for putting on a homophobic skit. Thanh knows now that the boy he'd stared at in admiration then is also selfish and thoughtless, but every time Louis begs him to give their relationship another try, he remembers the courage it took to come out in the middle of a crowded gymnasium.

Hung has always had a less rosy view of Louis, but except for the one sensational time he'd called Louis a condescending piece of shit and punched him, he curbs his dislike remarkably well. Now he limits himself to the occasional snipe at Louis' attempts to become the next Richard Aoki. Thanh can't say the same for Louis, who feels the urge to criticize Hung's serial dating often and at length. One time, Thanh had lost his temper during one of Louis' sermons and told him that Hung's dates liked him considerably better than Thanh liked Louis when he got insufferable.They'd fought for half the day.

Thanh tells Hung about it when they're on the way to the Getty.

"I wouldn't even call it 'dating,'" Hung says, snorting. "It's more like...what's the word in English? 'Booty calls.' I'm sure it scandalizes that guy."

Whether it's out of nostalgia for a country he's only visited a few times or an incurable desire to provoke the white people who look uncomfortable at the sound of a foreign language, Hung only speaks Vietnamese with Thanh. To Thanh's relief, he forgoes the Central dialect that he speaks with his parents and uses the Northern dialect that Thanh is more familiar with.

"Booty calls," he repeats disbelievingly in English. Most of his end of the conversation is conducted in that language. "Are you listening to yourself right now?"

"What else would you call it? It's not as if they're my boyfriends."

"I'm not judging or anything, but you know your mom's started asking the ngai to find you a steady boyfriend, right?"

Hung shudders. "Don't talk about that plant. It's unnatural and I'm certain it watches me every time I visit home." He turns into the Getty Museum's parking lot, waving off Thanh's proffered cash and paying for parking with his credit card. "I don't need a steady boyfriend anyway. The casual sex is working out just fine."

"I'm sure it is," Thanh mutters.

"What was that, punk?"

"Nothing, Anh Hung," Thanh says, louder this time. "I just said that you're too handsome to be tied down by one man. Hey, can we go see the supernatural creatures section first?"

Thanh's splits with Louis continue to be as much of a spectacle as Glee's mid-season finales, but nothing will ever top the first time they broke up. Thanh winces a little every time he remembers it. He'd screamed at Louis all the way from Bruinwalk back to his dorm room, then slammed the door in Louis' face, opening it only once more to announce, "I'm so fucking done with you. Don't show your face to me ever again."

To be fair, Louis deserved it. They'd been at college for two years, and in those two years Louis had indefinitely postponed their anniversary road trip to San Francisco, missed multiple dinner dates, and, on the memorable day of their breakup, told Thanh that he wouldn't be able to make it to his art exhibition. Thanh had even told him about it a month in advance and extracted a promise that Louis would be there.

The only good thing to come out of that time was Sisters. Thanh hadn't gone to class for a week and remained holed up in his dorm room, but still, he'd drawn nonstop. The walls of his room were covered with sketches of everything from fanart of the Korean dramas he was watching to Vietnamese folklore that he remembered Hung's father telling them when they were children. The idea for Sisters, though, had come from Hung.

"You know what I always found frightening about the story of Tam and Cam?" he asked while visiting Thanh one day. He pointed at a sketch of Cam weaving at a loom made of the cedar tree Tam had been reincarnated into. "The fact that inanimate objects keep talking to Cam. It's supposed to be because she stole her sister's husband, but doesn't it seem like she's the protagonist and Tam is just a vengeful spirit haunting her?"

Thanh stared at Hung, eyes widening. Then he leaped for his sketchbook and pencil. "Tell me more," he demanded, sitting crosslegged in front of Hung.

Even though it was his first attempt at a full-length comic, Thanh had finished Sisters in a little over a year. There are things he knows he could do better now, but even if he had the chance, he wouldn't go back and change them. People had loved the idea of a Vietnamese Cinderella story done as horror, and during Sisters' run, Thanh had been propelled from a relatively popular fan artist to one of the most well-known web artists. The merchandise he makes for the comic still sells out regularly, and his commissions business is a steady supplement to his job as a freelance illustrator.

Thanh had wanted to split the money he made from Sisters with Hung, but Hung had refused.

"I have a job, too. Besides, my parents own Marseilles By Night. I don't think I'm going to be lacking money anytime soon."

"That's not the point," Thanh said. "You came up with the idea, and you helped me plan out things while I was writing it. It's your story, too."

"It's your story. Every time I look at it, I know that there couldn't be anybody else who made this. If you want to give me credit for something, give me credit for making your website."

In the end, Thanh had credited Hung not only for the website but for the inspiration behind Sisters. It added another thorn in his and Louis' relationship when they got back together--Louis was only lukewarm about the comic, but for some reason, he hated seeing Hung's name on the website. Thanh refused to take it down, though. Hung had helped him create the comic, so Hung's name was going to stay right where it belonged.

Thanh's phone starts vibrating incessantly while he and Hung are ogling a lifesize figurine of Kim Quy the turtle. When he checks the caller ID and sees that it's Louis, he ignores the call and turns off his phone. Hung raises an eyebrow.

"I don't want to talk about it," Thanh says.

"Then I won't ask."

They continue their tour around the exhibit, Hung reading aloud any captions in Vietnamese for Thanh, until they come to a display of betel leaves and areca nuts.

Thanh reads the placard aloud: "The legend of Tan and Lang gives us the origin of eating betel leaves and areca nuts, but the custom also appears in other legends, most notably the story of Tam and Cam."

Hung gives an exaggerated shudder. "Every time I think about that story, I remember Sisters. I know I came up with the idea, but it still gives me nightmares when I think about the ending."

"You're such a baby, Anh Hung."

Hung tries to cuff Thanh on the back of the head, but Thanh ducks. "You little punk. Why do you only call me 'older brother' when you're being disrespectful, huh?"

"I call you Anh Hung at other times, too!"

A strange look crosses Hung's face, but he turns back to the display before Thanh can interpret it. "You said on your blog that you're trying to come up with a new idea for a comic, right?" he asks, as if they've been talking about that all along.

Thanh frowns. Hung is a master of avoiding the subject. He even has the occasional success at redirecting conversations with his mother from the perennial question of his bachelor status to something as banal as her health. If Thanh asks him what he's thinking about, he'll probably just start expounding on how exquisite the lighting in the exhibit is, so he files the memory away instead and just nods.

"Do you want to do something with Vietnamese folklore again?"

"Of course. I like our folklore, and it sort of gives me an advantage that nobody ever talks about it."

Hung looks up from the display, the indecipherable look on his face replaced by a smile. "Whatever you come up with will be great. I look forward to it."

Maybe there really is something to the lighting in the exhibit. Thanh wants to take a pencil and sketch the way the light softens the sharp angles of Hung's face, turning his expression into one that Thanh has seen only a few times.

"Is there something on my face?" Hung asks, breaking the strange silence growing between them.

"Just your face," Thanh says, relieved to have that old childish reply to fall back on. He would rather do high school over again than admit that he just had the compulsion to draw Hung--and not for the first time, either. His sketchbook at home is full of drawings he's done of Louis, but there are none of Hung.

"Ah, I understand. Heaven gave me a face this handsome, so you can admire it as much as you want to."

"Your head is going to explode from how conceited you are," Thanh snaps.

"And you're going to suffer in the next life for being so disrespectful to your elders." Hung flicks his nose, and Thanh swats his hand away, swearing.

Their bickering attracts the attention of a security guard. She gives them a glare that promises their imminent eviction, so Thanh coughs and lets his hand fall back to his side. Hung laughs, and Thanh can't resist pinching his arm in retaliation once they're out of the guard's sight. It earns him a pinch from Hung, too, and they jab each other back and forth until they get absorbed in the displays again.

Thanh doesn't stop thinking about the smile on Hung's face, or the way he'd said, "I look forward to it." It's not as if Thanh isn't confident in his own abilities, but half of what had made working on Sisters so fun was sitting next to Hung and suggesting ideas that Hung either elaborated on or shot down. They'd bickered a lot, but it had always made the comic better than it would have been if he'd worked on it alone, and Thanh misses having something that he could ask for Hung's help on.

"Anh Hung," he says, as they're leaving the exhibit.

"What is it?" Hung says. He's smiling at his phone as he types a reply to someone. It's probably one his innumerable dates. "Are you hungry? I was thinking that we could go to K-Town and get soondae."

Ignoring the urge to peek at Hung's phone and see who it is, Thanh says, "It's not that. I was thinking...instead of just looking forward to my comic, how about you work with me on it?"

Hung looks up from his phone. "What?"

Thanh doesn't know what to do with his hands, so he sticks them into his pockets. His phone bumps against his palm, and he curls his hand around it. "Well, you do work with illustrations too, and you sort of unofficially worked with me on Sisters. Why not make it official this time?"

Hung is silent for a long moment. Thanh is about to tell him to forget it when his face breaks into a grin. "What is this? Could it be that you're asking for my help?"

The edges of his phone stop digging into Thanh's palm as he unclenches his fist. "What the fuck are you talking about? It's not like I've never asked for your help before!"

"What an ugly temper. How will we ever work together if you're going to yell at me all the time?"

Relief eases the tension in Thanh's shoulders, even as he says, "For once can you give me a straight answer? Do you want to work with me or not?"

Hung puts his phone away and turns his full attention on Thanh, who tries not to fidget. "Of course I want to work with you," he says, smiling. "When do we start?"

The first story Thanh and Hung ever came up with hadn't been Sisters. When they were younger, they'd made up stories all the time: stories about dragons guarding treasures, stories about wuxia warriors who dueled their way across a mythical country, even stories about how their elementary school teacher had lost his fourth finger. Hung's version of that particular story is that the principal had his finger bitten off by an angry crocodile while trying to rescue his best friend from the depths of the Amazon.

Thanh's mom still keeps the drawing that he did of their favorite story: a fairy tale about a dragon princess who gives a magical stone to a young boy named Hai. The stone had given Hai the ability to understand animals, and after he defeated all his rivals and became the strongest warrior in the land, he came back and married the princess. The illustration Thanh's mom keeps on her fridge is of their wedding. No matter how many times Thanh begs her to take it down, she insists on showing it off to visitors as her son's very first illustration.

The stories became less frequent when they entered high school, especially after Thanh started dating Louis. Some of their most heated arguments had been over the little in jokes Thanh and Hung shared.

"It's like you two are in your own little world," Louis told him. "If you like him so much, maybe I'll just leave and you two can be together."

He'd begged Louis to stay, then. Remembering it still gives him a sick feeling in his stomach, but it's not as if that was the last time he had to do that. He'd tried to tell Louis about the stories so he could feel more included, but Louis couldn't tell one character apart from the other. Even now, he only asks Thanh in passing about the art he's working on. Eventually, it became easier to just avoid doing little things that might upset Louis, like talking to Hung about their stories.

Hung hadn't mentioned it when Thanh started steering the subject away from their stories, which Thanh had been grateful for at the time. He hated talking about the fights he had with Louis; it was like laying out all his failures in a row. There had been a small part of him, though, that wanted to ask Hung if he missed the worlds they used to make together, or, as the years went on, if he remembered them at all. Thanh remembers all of them, although the details have become a little blurred. The important things remain, though: there was a dragon princess, and a young boy, and a vast ocean spreading out before them with no end in sight.

Been too tired to make a proper post lately, but today's a slow day, so I'm spending some time trying to think about that new comic. I think that trip to the Getty might have jogged something. Plus, I'll be getting some help!

Thanh's not particularly choosy about his living conditions, but if he had to pick all over again, he'd still pick the apartment he and Hung have in Little Tokyo. The things to like are multiple: he can get to any restaurant within five minutes of walking; it's quiet after nine o'clock; and the living room has a large window that floods the room with sunlight and a long seat running underneath it. He and Hung had set up their work tables so they could make use of that seat, as well as the natural light.

He's sitting at his work table, putting the final touches on a commission of Jason Todd, when Hung walks through the door smiling and singing Sai Gon Dep Lam under his breath. There's only one thing such a cheerful attitude could mean.

"Did your booty call go well?" he asks.

Hung throws himself onto the seat next to Thanh. Even if he hadn't been singing Sai Gon Dep Lam, his hastily patted down hair, unbuttoned collar, and the giant hickey on his heck would have tipped Thanh off. Thanh tries not to think about who could have given him that mark.

"It went quite well," Hung says, stretching. "I won't horrify you with the details, though."

"What details don't I know already?" mutters Thanh, who's met more than his fair share of Hung's dates when they sleep over. The most salient thing he gleans from those occasions is that they enjoy sex as much as Hung does, and are just as vocal about it.

Hung ignores him and points to the art of Jason Todd. "Is that a commission? It looks good. I'm glad you kept the skunk hair."

"I don't know what you're talking about. Skunk hair is the only hair that Jason has." Thanh saves the file and closes it, opening another one. "Look at this, though. I've been thinking about some ideas for our comic, and I drew concept art for it."

When Hung's eyes widen in recognition, Thanh smiles. "It's the dragon princess! Or should I say the dragon prince?" He studies the illustration, finger hovering over the screen as he traces the lines of the dragon prince's robes. His eyes linger on the prince's face for a moment, as if he's contemplating something, but when he opens his mouth all he says is, "Yes, I think this is an improvement on the specimen your mother has on her fridge. He doesn't look like Lance Bass in appropriative clothing."

"Will you fucking let that go? I was ten, I didn't know that you could draw Asian people as anything other than Siamese cats."

"Fair enough. What's your idea for this comic?"

"Okay," Thanh says, leaning in as he warms up to the subject. "So, obviously it's going to be a queer re-telling of our old story. I was thinking that we could use that archetype of the hero's journey, with the dragon prince as the supernatural aid who gives Hai the magic stone to help him on his journey."

"Is his goal still to become the very best?" Hung asks dryly.

"Fuck no. I'm still trying to decide what it should be."

Hung shifts closer to study the illustration again, and Thanh catches the faint smell of his cologne. He wants to ask Hung if he ever wears anything other than Vert de Chanel, but changes his mind when he considers that it might be a little creepy to know the name of Hung's favorite brand. It really does smell good though. Thanh tries not to lean in and sniff.

Hung doesn't seem to notice Thanh's difficulties. He's already stolen one of Thanh's Spectrum colored pencils and started chewing on it. "How about this," he says at length. "He can--"

Thanh snatches the pencil out of his mouth. "These cost a shitton of money. Stop chewing them up!"

Hung raises an eyebrow."What's wrong with you? Has that guy been bothering you?"

Louis has, in fact, left Thanh no fewer than twenty texts and half a dozen voicemails, all a mix of pleas and angry accusations. Thanh has heard most of them before; he can even recite them by heart. He doesn't feel like rehashing it with Hung.

Putting the pencil back in the fake jade mug he uses for all his drawing supplies, he says, "Sorry. I'm just, uh, really distracted when you do that. What were you going to say?"

Hung's posture is still relaxed, but the stare he fixes on Thanh is steady. Thanh holds his breath, waiting to see if Hung will press the subject. To his relief, Hung just says, "Well, I should try to break the habit of chewing on things anyway. I was about to say that Hai can go on a journey to China. We have dozens of stories about people trying to stop invasions by the Chinese, so maybe that's what he goes to China for."

"Wait, wait, let's write this down." Thanh opens a text document and pushes his laptop over to Hung. He can see the idea taking shape in his mind, just like it had when he and Hung started talking about Sisters, and he reaches for his sketchbook so he can capture it.

Hung's fingers tap over the keyboard as he keeps talking. "We could play with genre like we did in Sisters. Instead of historical fantasy, it could be something else, like cyberpunk or steampunk."

"Steampunk!" Thanh exclaims. The sketch underneath his fingers starts taking the shape of a rickshaw chugging along, puffs of steam trailing behind it. "A steampunk story set in Viet Nam would be so cool. Maybe the dragon prince isn't really supernatural then. I don't think that really fits with the genre."

"He can be the prince of the country," Hung says. He reaches over with one hand to ruffle Thanh's hair, his other hand still typing out notes. All the relaxed cheerfulness of before is gone, replaced by an excitement that mirrors Thanh's.

Thanh is in the middle of drawing Ha Long Bay populated with steam-powered junk boats when his phone lights up on the table.

Hung checks the caller ID for him. "It's Louis. Do you want to take the call?"

His hand pauses for only a moment. Then he resumes drawing, his gaze fixed on the paper in front of him. "No. Let it go to voicemail."

Thanh has argued with Louis and yelled at him so often that it's almost a reflex by now. He doesn't remember the individual conflicts anymore, just an overarching feeling of irritation and frustration. On the other hand, Hung's one altercation with Louis remains as memorable as Rebirth of Evangelion.

When Louis had found out that Thanh was applying to the Design Media Arts major at UCLA, he'd accused him of only doing it to follow Hung. "It's easy for him to pick a major like that. His parents are rich, so he doesn't have to worry about the job prospects. What are you going to do if you can't get a job?"

"What are you you going to do if you can't get a job with a major in Asian American Studies?" Thanh shot back. With college application deadlines approaching and class projects due, he hadn't slept more than three hours each night for the past week, and his temper was suffering even more than usual.

Being stumped by his own flawed logic always twisted Louis' looks to resemble a constipated poodle. After a moment, he said, "There are plenty of jobs you can get helping the community. I didn't mean that you have to make a lot of money, just that you have to have something to do."

"I hope you get pissed on by a bunch of cats. Are you trying to tell me that drawing isn't doing 'something'?"

Thanh didn't get a chance to talk to Hung about it until he came back from LA for the weekend. They went to Bun Bo Hue Thom together, then to a boba shop where Hung read Thanh's personal statements for him.

"If Louis wants to do Asian American Studies, he can go ahead," Hung said as he marked up Thanh's personal statement with a big red marker. "He shouldn't be telling you what to do with your life, though."

"Maybe I can double major in DMA and Asian Am," Thanh said. He'd felt guilty after the argument, especially when Louis had apologized first, and the compromise had been on his mind.

Hung looked up at him. "Is that really what you want to do?"

"Well, I was thinking that it's good to have a range in majors."

Hung remained skeptical even after Thanh tried to explain the benefits of double majoring to him, but he hadn't shown any signs of untoward rage until Louis came to pick Thanh up for their movie date.

Louis gave a perfunctory nod to Hung, then leaned down to kiss Thanh. "Hey, babe."

"Hey," Thanh said, smiling up at him. "Guess what? I was just talking to Hung about double majoring."

One minute, Louis was smiling down at him and saying, "Is that so? I'm glad you took the time to think about it and come to a rational decision," and the next he was howling on the ground while Hung tried to land another punch on his face.

Thanh and Louis can agree on one thing about that incident, and it's that the only thing that saved Hung from getting arrested was the fact that his parents had large amounts of money at their disposal. Of course, only Thanh approved of that. Louis still refers to the incident as "that time Hung got away with being a bully just because he's rich."

For his part, Hung had apologized to both Louis and Thanh. Thanh suspects that only the latter apology was sincere, since Hung still occasionally looks as if he'd like to test the generosity of his parents' bank account again.

"What the hell got into you?" Thanh asked him.

Hung shrugged. "Whatever got into you when you bit Johnny Nguyen." Thanh started protesting that it was different, but for once, Hung didn't let him finish. "Thanh," he said, the corners of his mouth turning down. "You don't have to listen to me, but I have to say it at least once: Louis isn't good for you."

At the time, Thanh hadn't understood. What was a few fights when they'd been together for so long? It was normal, and he told Hung as much. He even did the double major, and kept at it until the first breakup with Louis, when he'd dropped Asian Am for Asian Humanities. Only when he was staring at the gap on his shelves left by the Asian Am books he'd sold did the meaning of what Hung had said start unfurling in his mind.

Hey everyone! Hope you all have been doing well, and apologies for the brief updates. I've been hard at work, and I'm excited to tell you that as of now, I've started work on a new comic. Read on below for a summary!

"Set in an alternate timeline of Viet Nam, where the advent of steam engines has radically altered not only the machinery but the very course of history, The Journey follows Hai, a young boy tasked with an important mission: to travel as an envoy to China and present to the emperor five mechanical birds crafted by the prince of Viet Nam. The purpose of his journey is simple, but as Hai becomes mired in politics and intrigue, that purpose becomes more and more muddled."

As I mentioned in my last post, I'll be getting some help with this new comic. I'll be working with Hung, who I'm sure you're all familiar with as the inspiration behind Sisters. We're still doing a lot of the groundwork for the story, but as you can tell, this will be very different from Sisters. As far as dates go, you can expect to see the first chapter go up sometime in late May or early June. We'll be putting up the character designs and concept art soon, though, so keep checking the website for updates and previews!

On another note, thank you to those of you who checked in to see how I was doing after the breakup with my ex. I've been doing a lot of thinking over the past couple of days, and I feel a lot better now. It's hard to let go of feeling like you have to keep trying to make something work just because it was supposed to be special, but I think that I'm finally ready to do that. If you see me wavering about this, feel free to slap some sense into me--just because I said I'd let go doesn't mean it'll be easy.

Thanh reads over his post one more time, then publishes it. A moment later, Hung, who's sitting next to him, says, "As if you would let anyone slap you. You'd just slap them back."

"It's metaphorical, you prick."

Hung lays a hand over his heart. "Your harsh words continue to hurt me."

"Stop being so melodramatic. What have you been thinking about so intensely? You've practically chewed that pencil in half."

"What? Oh." Hung looks down at the pencil as if he's just noticed it. He sets it aside. "I was just thinking about the ending for our story. We still haven't decided whether Hai comes back or not."

Thanh has been thinking about that all night, so the answer comes to him immediately. "He should come back. It's sort of the whole point of the story, isn't it? He goes on a journey and changes a lot so he can come home with new understanding."

"Things are supposed to change, though, so he shouldn't end up where he started."

"I mean, it's the same place physically, but he's not in the same place, if that makes sense."

Hung reaches for the pencil again, but Thanh slaps his hand away. "Do your thinking without getting splinters in your mouth!"

"That is ridiculous. I have never yet had splinters in my mouth." He relinquishes the fight for the pencil, though, and taps his fingers on the table instead.

Thanh goes back to drawing an illustration of the prince entrusting the birds to Hai and lets Hung think. He glances over every once in a while to see how he's doing, only to find his gaze lingering. Ever since they started working on The Journey in earnest, Hung hasn't been on any dates. He hasn't even left the apartment, except to meet some clients who've asked him to design a website for their new dim sum restaurant. The lack of an admiring audience means that he doesn't spend hours on his outfit and hair, which greatly expedites things when they venture out of the apartment for meals. But even with uncoiffed hair and sweatpants, he attracts admiring glances from passersby, a feat that both impresses and annoys Thanh.

After a few minutes of silence, Hung says, "I suppose the whole point of the story isn't to leave home, but to come home."

"Yeah! Exactly! And it's like there are two journeys, one external and one internal."

"The question is who or what compels him to come home."

"The prince," Thanh says without hesitation. "That was in the original story, too. The prince is the one who sends him on the journey, so the prince is the one he comes home to."

"I sense a love story hidden in this tale of adventure."

"Even adventures have love stories in them. It's because love stories are about finding something, too."

The strange look crosses Hung's face again, but it passes quickly this time. He smiles and says, "I see. So at the end of this adventure, does Hai get to marry his prince?"

Looking intently at his screen instead of at Hung makes it easier to say, "Yes, he does. Or at least, he should."

Hung's voice is nothing but relaxed as he says, "He's quite fortunate then. That's a handsome prince."

Thanh ventures looking over at Hung again, only to see that he's closed his eyes and laced his hands behind his head. "Is that a yes or a no then?" he asks.

Hung doesn't open his eyes. "It's a yes. Hai should come home and marry his prince."

There's something building on the tip of Thanh's tongue. It's heavy, and he wants to let it roll off and into the silence between them. But before he can, Hung looks over and says, "By the way, I've meaning to ask you: did you base the prince's design off of me? Don't hit me for being conceited. He does look rather like me."

Thanh looks at the prince on the screen, then at Hung. There's really no denying the resemblance between them, so there's only one thing left to deny. "It's a coincidence! I didn't mean to draw him like that, but it just sort of happened."

"There's no need to be so embarrassed," Hung says, grinning. "I already told you, Heaven gave me a face this handsome, so you should feel free to use it as a model. I do look rather like a prince, don't I?"

"Fuck off. Don't get carried away just because you look like you take a shower every now and then." He swats Hung on the arm, then turns back to his illustration. Hopefully, Hung won't say anything about the blush creeping up his neck, even though they're sitting too close for it to be anything but obvious.

It seems like he will, especially when Thanh feels his eyes on him for a long moment. But then he says, "Showering regularly is more than I can say for most people." He picks up his pencil and starts chewing on it again. This time, Thanh doesn't stop him.

In college, Thanh had slept with Hung.

It was only once, and it was during his first breakup with Louis. Thanh can't explain how it happened. They'd been sitting at Thanh's desk because Thanh had a breakthrough while planning Sisters and wanted to show it to Hung. He remembers gesturing excitedly with his hands, and Hung grabbing them as he leaned in and kissed Thanh. His lips were soft and warm, so Thanh had let him kiss him again and again, until they both ended up on his bed with their clothes strewn on the floor.

Thanh has never told Louis. He never even talks about it with Hung, who just apologized when Thanh tried to ask him about it.

"You were in a vulnerable place, and I took advantage of that. I'm sorry. I won't do it again."

It wasn't what Thanh wanted to hear. He wanted Hung to answer his questions: "Did you like it, too? Did you mean it when you said you loved me?" He needed a solid answer to make sense of everything swirling around in his head, but the questions had died in the back of his throat, and all that was left was the image of Hung smiling down at him like he held the world in his hands--and no matter how many times Thanh has tried, he can't recreate it in any drawing.

Happy April Fool's Day! Don't worry, though, I'm not going to pull a prank on you. Everything I say in this post is 100% genuine. First of all, thank you for all the comments and replies to my announcement about The Journey. Hung and I were overwhelmed by how much support and enthusiasm there was.

That being said, I know you all have been waiting patiently for previews, and I'm happy to say that Hung and I have finalized enough things to start posting them. Again, this is definitely not a prank. Click through the link to see character designs, profiles, and some images from the very first chapter of The Journey. As usual, thanks for your support. I (and Hung) look forward to hearing from you!

"You always sound unnaturally cheerful in your blog posts," Hung says as he scrolls through the post.

"Shut up! It's not like I can start saying things like 'What's up, motherfuckers.'"

Hung raises an eyebrow. "That isn't even what you sound like in the real life."

"You get my point."

Snorting, Hung beckons to him. "Come over here, punk. What do you think about this so far?"

Thanh leans over. Hung has been working on the title banner for The Journey for most of the day now, and his progress is apparent. What had been the bare outlines of a banner in the morning was now filled in with Hung's elegant calligraphy spelling out the title. Large white birds with wire wings perch on the tips of the letters.

"It's beautiful," Thanh breathes. "Are you sure you don't want to alternate drawing chapters?"

"I'm quite sure. You have experience composing panels and postures, and I have experience with blending palettes. It'll work out better if we split drawing and coloring."

This discussion is almost rote by now, so Thanh elects not to follow it until the end. When Hung makes up his mind, there's no changing it.

They're trying to decide on colors for the banner when someone knocks on the door. Thanh and Hung stare at each other.

"Were you expecting someone?" Thanh asks. Hung wouldn't have invited one of his dates over without telling Thanh, but maybe one of them is a little overeager due to Hung's long absence.

Hung frowns. "No. I don't think it's anyone here to see me." He nods at Thanh's phone, and Thanh's stomach sinks.

The calls and texts from Louis had gotten so incessant that Thanh had blocked his number. Almost two months have passed in blissful silence, but when Thanh checks his blocked messages, he sees a text from Louis that says, "we need to talk. i'm coming over to your place." It's time stamped half an hour ago.

"Shit," he mutters. He should have remembered that Louis clings onto everything with the tenacity of a particularly malicious pit bull. He's probably been gearing up to this confrontation for the past two months.

"Is it him?" Hung asks.

Thanh nods. "He sent me a text saying he's coming over. That fucking asshole, does he think I just sit around all day and wait for him to show up?"

"You can ignore him," Hung says. "If he wants to sit outside the door and wait, we can call security. Of course, I could also go outside and reacquaint my fist with his face."

Thanh stares at the text message, trying to make up his mind. After a moment, he says, "No, it's all right. I'll go talk to him."

The concern on Hung's face is easy to interpret. Thanh tries to smile.

"Don't worry. I promise that I'm not going to change my mind and take him back."

Hung opens his mouth, then closes it. Thanh can tell that he wants to chew on his touch pen, and waits to see if he'll say what's on his mind. But all he says is, "All right. I'll be right inside if you need anything."

Thanh nods. "I'll be back," he says, and goes towards the door.

On the other side, Louis is pacing back and forth. "Babe," he says, a smile breaking across his face when he sees Thanh. "I was worried that you weren't going to answer. You didn't reply to my text."

"I blocked your number," Thanh says. Louis' eyes widen. "We're supposed to be broken up, remember?"

"I know, but that was in the heat of the moment and we never got to talk about it."

"It's been two months. We can talk, but I haven't changed my mind."

The smile on Louis' face becomes strained. "Can we at least talk about this inside, Thanh?"

Thanh reaches behind him to make sure that the door is securely closed. "No, I'd rather not. We can talk outside the building if you want to, though."

"Is Hung in there? Do you not want me to come in because of him?"

"Stop trying to make this about Hung," Thanh snaps. His grip on the doorknob tightens. "He didn't do anything to fuck this relationship up."

"I don't know why you're even living with him," Louis continues, as if he didn't hear Thanh. "We should have moved in together after second year."

Thanh tries taking deep breaths to calm the irritation he feels boiling up inside his chest. It doesn't stop his voice from rising in pitch and volume, though. "You are fucking unbelievable. Do you have the memory of a goldfish? We were going to move in together, but then we broke up and I didn't have anyone to live with."

"But the year after--"

"That is not the point here!" Thanh drags a hand down his face. "I can't do this inside. My neighbors are going to call the cops or something. Let's go outside." He starts stomping away before Louis can say anything else.

Thanh doesn't stop walking until he gets to the plaza in front of the Japanese American National Museum. It's a Monday, so there are only a few visitors taking pictures outside. Throwing himself down on one of the steps leading up to the museum, Thanh buries his face in his hands and waits for Louis to catch up. He knows he's there when a shadow falls over him.

"Thanh, look--"

"You want to make this work," Thanh says, uncovering his face to look up at Louis. "You're really, really sorry, and you promise that you'll try harder if I'll give you a chance. But you also want me to understand that the work you're doing is really important, so you might not always succeed at doing what I want you to do. You love me though, you love me so much, and you don't know what you'd do without me."

Louis presses his lips into a thin line. It's familiar to Thanh, and he has to swallow the instinct to apologize. "That's what you wanted to say, wasn't it?"

"I know I've said it before, but I mean all of it," Louis says slowly. "Are you trying to tell me that you never felt that way?"

Thanh's irritation has subsided, and all that's left is a creeping sense of exhaustion. Not even Louis' questions can goad him now. "Louis, I stopped talking about things you didn't like with my best friend. I chose a major in college that I didn't want to do because you wanted me to do it. I forgave you for putting down the career I wanted and for never supporting me in it. I loved you, and it was terrible."

"What are you trying to say?"

Thanh gets the words out in a rush, before he's too scared or too tired to say them. "I'm trying to tell you that it's over, Louis. I can't do this shit anymore."

"Babe, if this is about the Getty--"

"It's not just the Getty, and you know it. You keep prioritizing going to protests and meetings over our dates, and you know what? That's okay. The work you do matters, and if it's important to you, I'm not going to stop you from doing it."

"Then why are you mad?" Louis asks.

Thanh has heard this question hundreds of times, but only now does he have the right answer. "Because I'm important too. Because I want to be treated like I'm important, and not like someone that you casually pick up whenever you have a bit of spare time. I don't care if the truth is that I'm not as important as your work--but if that's case, then you can't keep hanging onto me."

"Are you telling me to choose between you or my work?"

"No," Thanh says, meeting Louis' eyes. This is the boy he fell in love with seven years ago, and what makes him sad is not that he's become a stranger--it's that Thanh knows him better now than he ever has. "I'm telling you to admit that you've already chosen."

He lets out a deep breath, and waits for Louis' answer.

When he gets back to the apartment, Hung is waiting for him.

"How did it go?" he asks.

Thanh tries to talk past the tightness in his throat. "Obviously it went well. I'm back, aren't I?"

It's only when Hung draws him into a hug that he starts crying in long, heaving wails that shake his whole body. Even then, Hung doesn't let go of him. He strokes his back and hair, repeating the same words: "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay--you're going to be okay."

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Been going through a rough time, but all your messages have meant a lot. I don't have any updates for The Journey this time, but here's a photo of Hung and me--I finally got him to agree to let me pay for his meal! Doesn't that soondae guk look delicious?

"I'm not ungrateful for the free meal, but is there a particular reason you insisted on it today?" Hung asks. He stretches out on the couch in their apartment. The resemblance to a smug, well-fed cat is uncanny, and Thanh can't believe that he finds it endearing. At least the warm feeling in his chest helps loosen some of the tension he's been feeling all day.

Sitting on the edge of the couch, he says, "Well, you've been paying for my meals for years now, so I thought I'd return the favor."

Hung nudges him with his foot. "That's very nice, but you need to get off the couch, punk. Respect your elders' need for rest."

Thanh smacks his foot. "Will you quit it with the 'elder' thing? You're only one fucking year older but you talk like you're ancient." He takes a moment to breathe in deeply, then says, "Actually, I took you out to lunch because I wanted to thank you for--for being there for me all this time."

Hung blinks. "That's not something you have to thank me for."

"Yes, it is. But that's not all I wanted to say to you." Thanh's palms are getting clammy, and he wipes them on his pants. "Do you, um...do you remember that time we slept together in college?"

Hung's expression flattens into something neutral as he says, "I do."

He came ready for Hung's evasions, but it's still hard to keep talking when Hung looks as if he's ready to deflect any attempts at pursuing the topic. "When we slept together, you said that you loved me. Did you mean it?"

There's no answer, except for the strange look. This time, it's not hidden as easily, and Thanh thinks he's beginning to understand what it means. It gives him the courage to say, "Can you, for once, answer me honestly? Not how you think I want you to answer, or how you think a responsible older brother should answer. Do you love me?"

"Of course I love you," Hung says immediately.

"Are you in love with me?" he asks, voice shaking.

Even when Hung doesn't answer, he keeps talking. "It's okay if the answer is no. It was a long time ago, and I kept messing things up with Louis, so if you didn't mean it or if you feel differently now you can tell me. But I'm in love with you." His voice cracks. "I've always been in love with you, and I don't know why I never realized it or told you, and I'm sorry. If it's not too late, I--"

Hung cuts him off with a kiss as warm and urgent as the first one. "Don't apologize," he says, cradling Thanh's face in his hands. "There's nothing you have to be sorry for."

"But I never told you--"

"And I never told you. I should have told you in high school, but then you met Louis." Thanh starts to apologize, but Hung cuts him off with another kiss. "You don't have to be sorry for that either. You loved him, and it just turned out that he wasn't good to you. That's not your fault."

"You tried to tell me," Thanh says.

"I should have told you more directly, but even if I had, it wouldn't have mattered. You had to make your own decisions, and you did what you thought was best."

"It was the exact opposite of that."

Hung cards his hand through Thanh's hair. "We both made mistakes that we regret. They brought us here, though, didn't they?"

"I guess they did," Thanh says. The tension in his shoulders has gone away, but not the tightness in his throat. Hung must notice, because he starts stroking Thanh's back and kissing his face all over. Thanh leans into him, returning all his kisses with the same urgency.

This time, they don't make it to the bed. Hung presses Thanh down onto the couch and kisses him: short, sweet kisses that turn wet and open-mouthed and make Thanh arch up with a moan.

"Patience," Hung murmurs, pressing Thanh's hips back down. "We'll get to what you want eventually."

"Fuck patience," Thanh gasps as Hung starts sucking on his neck. "Fuck fuck fuck, touch me, please touch me--"

Hung obliges him by tugging his shirt off and stroking his nipples. Thanh whimpers. "I've been thinking about this for so long. I can't believe I forgot how loud you are." He sucks on the juncture between Thanh's neck and shoulder before moving down and sucking on each of Thanh's nipples in turn. Thanh starts bucking up again, unable to do anything except beg for more.

Sitting up, Hung tugs on Thanh's pants. "Take these off."

Thanh wastes no time kicking his pants off and spreading his legs. "I want you to fuck me," he says, reaching down to stroke himself. "God, I want you inside me, come on--"

"What did I just say about patience?" Hung tugs him into a sitting position, then gets on the floor and kneels between his legs. He smiles up at Thanh. "Don't worry. This will feel good too."

He lowers his head and licks from the base of Thanh's cock to the tip. Thanh swears and bucks his hips up. Hung sucks on the tip of Thanh's cock until Thanh is frantic with desperation. Then he pulls away and asks, "Do you want to fuck my mouth?" His face is flushed, his eyes dilated, and Thanh can't nod his head fast enough.

Thanh expects him to say something smug, but instead he just swallows Thanh's cock eagerly, eyes falling shut. Of course--he hadn't been a tease the last time, either. Thanh's head falls back on the couch as Hung's hot, wet mouth takes him in. "Hung," he whimpers, thrusting into his mouth. "God, fuck, you feel so good, so good. You're so hot, fuck."

Hung reaches up and grabs Thanh's hand, guiding it to his hair. Thanh takes the hint and tangles his fingers in it, tugging Hung's head closer as he fucks his mouth in a hard, steady rhythm. "Yeah, that's it," he moans as Hung takes it and moans around his cock. "You're so good at this, you make me feel so good, ah, Anh Hung--"

When he looks down again, he sees that Hung has a hand thrust down his pants. Heat spikes down to his toes, and he tugs on Hung's hair sharply, gasping, "Anh Hung, I'm going to come." He starts thrusting into Hung's mouth faster, his rhythm faltering as his orgasm rips a scream out of him. "Anh Hung, Anh Hung, Anh Hung--I love you--"

Thanh's body goes limp, and he slumps against the couch. His throat feels sore from the scream--he hopes none of their neighbors decide to either call the cops or file a complaint with the building manager.

The couch creaks as Hung climbs back onto it and throws his arm around Thanh's shoulders. Thanh feels warm skin against his legs, and looks down to see that Hung has shed his own pants. Hung catches his look and raises an eyebrow. "See something you like?"

Thanh is too tired to hit him. "What do you think?" he asks, and leans against Hung. "And don't try to tell me that your dick is a gift from Heaven, either."

"I would never say something as ridiculous as that."

Thanh snorts. Then he looks up at Hung and says, "Hey. You still haven't given me a direct answer, you know."

"You mean what you asked me about in the beginning?"

"I only asked you one question, you insufferable asshole."

Hung smiles, and it's the expression Thanh has replayed in his head hundreds of times. "What do you think the answer is, you little punk? I'm hopelessly in love with you, just like I've always been."

Hey everyone, hope you've been keeping cool, especially if you're in the SoCal area. If you've already checked my website, then you've seen the new layout and banner and probably know what this post is about. But for those of you who haven't, I'm excited to announce that The Journey has launched as of today, and the first two chapters have been uploaded. I'd like to thank everyone who's commented on the previews and expressed their support for this comic, as well as well as the new people who've just found this website. I hope that you enjoy your stay here.

As you all know, this time my comic is not a solo venture. The lineart might be mine, but the title banner and the exquisite coloring for the comic belongs to my boyfriend, Hung. You're probably familiar with him, since he's vain and likes to make me post his pictures online often. He's a lot more modest about his creative ventures, though, so that's why I'm taking the time to give him credit and the spotlight he deserves. Feel free to say hi to him in the comments and compliment his work (not his looks, though, he doesn't need that). He's been with me since the inception of The Journey, and will be until the end.

FIN

About Shousetsu Bang*Bang

Shousetsu Bang*Bang is a webzine for original gay fiction. Issues are published bimonthly, with special issues in the spring and fall, and all are available online for free.

Established in 2005, Shousetsu Bang*Bang is intended as an online, English-language text equivalent of one of those All Yomikiri Bimonthly Summer Special 100 Extra Pages!! manga phonebooks where every story is a complete romance, self-contained in 30 pages, and heartwarmingly predictable. All stories in the regular issues contain stories of romance between men, are between 1500 and 23,000 words, and include explicit male-male sexual content. The special spring issue shifts the focus to women, and all stories in that issue include explicit female-female sexual content. Though tone and subject vary from story to story, the spirit of the 'zine is one that encourages true love and happy endings.

We welcome all writers to contribute original material to issues! Complete rules and guildelines for text submissions can be found on our website. Signups are posted two months prior to each issue's publication date, though these are neither mandatory nor binding. Artists traditionally publish under pseudonyms, as in the style of contributors to yaoi manga collections, but are not required to maintain anonymity.

Artists are also encouraged to participate, both by illustrating for authors and creating original standalone pieces. Complete guidelines for art submissions can be found here, and artists wishing to offer illustration services should do so in the signup post for each issue. In addition, the special fall issue welcomes contributions of short, original comics.

Submissions are always open. Send in your story or artwork as an email attachment to shousetsubangbang at gmail dot com. Please read the rules and guidelines first.

Published by Shousetsu Bang*Bang, ©2014

226: Love is in the Air

The Folklorist

Bedtime Stories

Riverfront Blues

No Safety Net Required

Like All Good Stories

zero six four eight three are you listening

Members Only

Dragon Prince on the Sea

About Shousetsu Bang*Bang