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rallamajoopPosting sneakily from work again just to get this chapter up. Something of a dialogue-heavy installment this time around - lots of blather to get through, but this should be the last chapter like this before we're back to the action again in a big way. I'm actually getting to close enough to the end of this at last that I've got a rough estimate of about how many chapters there are left to go (though the answer there is 'still a good few yet').
Other parts: The original ficlets, Plot notes, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Side Story 1
Beyond the borders of their tiny camp the fallout following the destruction of the Complex was far from over. So isolated and remote were the ruins that even the best vehicles the Complexes had at their disposal had taken weeks to make the full journey – only now had they at last begun to arrive. The Complexes had not responded by halves – convoys of armoured trucks dwarfing even the vehicle the Diet Building had sent on the reverse journey earlier that year were sighted converging on the ruins from multiple directions. Not since the first days After had there been so much traffic, nor any event so mysterious and terrible to attract attention to this part of the country, and it made everyone up to the leaders of the two local superpowers nervous. Never before had Kurogane’s camp received regular visitors asking for news they didn’t yet have, but now Kamui and Fuuma wanted reports almost by the day.
They were difficult questions to answer without giving away too much. Try as they might to keep Chi safe and secret, any fool who heard a fraction of the news Kurogane’s camp distributed could have guessed that their source originated at the Complexes themselves. Fuuma asked Doumeki point blank whether the destruction of their nearest Complex was going to cause a ‘problem’ for them where future weather reports were concerned. When Doumeki said no, he went on to point out that lying to create a false sense of security in a group of rather touchy people who would be very disappointed if they got hit by an acid storm without warning could be awfully bad for community relations in the area. Doumeki told him they had nothing to lie about. He didn’t much like the smile Fuuma gave him after that, or the declaration of how pleased the Tower’s leader was that the news was so good, but at least he wasn’t asked any more questions on the matter. Fuuma seemed satisfied that if there was any problem, it wasn’t going to be his.
The simple fact was that after the first burst of panic there wasn’t much news to be heard on the channels about the tragedy. Every natural disaster from earthquake to meteor strike had been ruled out as a cause early on, and after that the Complexes had halted open discussion very quickly. If they were still talking about it at all (which seemed more likely than not) then the administrators were exchanging their theories in messages so heavily encrypted that even Fye hadn’t found a way to decipher them. Until the people in charge had an explanation they liked, the investigation had become top secret.
Kamui for one wasn’t satisfied with that explanation.
“You’ve heard nothing more?” he asked testily. Doumeki wasn’t sure whether he was being accused of deliberately withholding information or not trying hard enough to get it, but either way this was trying his patience.
“We don’t make the news,” he said. “We can only pass on what comes our way.”
“Then you believe the Complexes are hiding the truth of the matter even from your sources?” Kamui suggested.
“It’s more likely they don’t have an answer yet either. The vehicles they sent would only just have arrived…” there Doumeki hesitated, because Kamui was giving him a look of surprise, even disdain.
“Are you labouring under the belief their agents have only just reached the ruin now?’ They were there weeks ago, within days of the event.”
Doumeki frowned. “How? For them to travel that fast…”
“They came in flying machines,” said Kamui. “Wasteful technology from a past age; even the Complex does not use such things lightly. You had not heard? They passed over Diet Building territory weeks ago.”
“…We hadn’t,” was all Doumeki could say in reply. Flying machines… it sounded so crazy that if he’d heard it from many other sources he would have dismissed it as ridiculous. Such creations were the stuff of old stories – all the more suspect when the only person he’d heard of them from was Fye. The communications Chi had intercepted had implied the people sending them had a fair knowledge of the site, but there’d been nothing about flying machines. Fye would had to have mentioned something like that if there had.
“They have had plenty of time to investigate,” said Kamui. “I find it unlikely they’d send in so many men as were on those vehicles if they weren’t satisfied with the answer they had. The risk they run if the danger remained would be too great. But still you tell me they have no answer to announce?”
“Or they’re hiding the answer they have,” Doumeki added. He didn’t like where this was going. “Have you been investigating the ruin yourselves?”
“What kind of fool do you take me for?” Kamui snapped. “One of their Complexes was destroyed a mere day’s travel from Diet Building territory. How do you expect they would interpret anything we did that left a direct trail from the ruin back to our base?”
This was an angle that had barely occurred to Doumeki, but now the point had been raised it did seem obvious – terribly so. “You’re worried the Diet Building will be blamed.”
“I cannot account for how those in the Complexes may think, but it their position it is what I would assume. If the cause was not natural and no accident, then attack by the Diet Building or the Tower would be the next most obvious theory.”
“It’s a risk,” Doumeki had to agree.
“If that is what they conclude, there is even the possibility they are deliberately hiding it from this ‘source’ of yours. Since the trading mission we undertook at your instigation, you must admit the chance they are aware we have access to some portion of the news they exchange.”
Doumeki remembered Oruha’s reaction to the list of trade items they’d so faithfully reproduced. It was difficult to answer questions like these without giving too much away, but the simple truth of the matter was, “We can’t rule it out.”
“Then you see why we are so desperate for any news that may come our way.”
“If we hear anything at all, we’ll let you know,” was all Doumeki could think to say in response.
“I will be counting on that,” said Kamui darkly, not the least satisfied by anything that had passed in that day’s discussion.
Doumeki had plenty to think about on his journey home, but the thought he kept returning to was that telling Watanuki what they’d discussed was not going to be fun. What they knew of Kohane’s involvement in the ruin of Complex wasn’t strictly the sort of news they were obligated to pass on, but neglecting to mention it – even after Kamui had asked so directly – was a definite lie of omission. With the matter of the ruined Complex becoming political, it was an omission Watanuki would feel all the more keenly responsible for.
“None of them from the Complexes… have any idea about Kohane, do they?” Watanuki asked awkwardly when the tale was done (which had been every bit as unenjoyable a task as predicted). He’d taken the news as well as could be expected, but he was avoiding eye contact again, Doumeki noted. It was a hard habit to break him out of, and at moments like this it came back full force.
“No,” Doumeki assured him. “Nothing we’ve heard has mentioned anything like her. There shouldn’t be anything left behind to lead them to her either.”
“But they’re looking for her, aren’t they?” asked Watanuki. “Even if they don’t realise that’s what they’re doing. It’s really important to them that they find out what destroyed the Complex or they’ll go on being scared it could happen again. And if they don’t find out the real reason it could mean they decide it was the Diet Building or the Tower even though that’s completely wrong, and…”
“Do you want to tell them about her?” Doumeki asked, cutting him off. He wasn’t personally very clear on the subject of how Kohane had been involved. Everything he’d heard about it had been blurted out in that one conversation with Watanuki, at a time when he’d had more important things on the forefront of his mind. Given his position he wasn’t sure he had either the right or the means to understand it in full, but for this much he didn’t need to.
“Of course not,” Watanuki protested. “But I can’t help wondering…”
“It wouldn’t make any difference even if we did find a way to tell them,” said Doumeki. “You’d never get them to believe that was what happened. And if you did convince them, what could they do?’ They wouldn’t have any idea how to deal with someone who could cause something like that single-handedly.”
Watanuki snuck out a look that suggested he half-suspected he was being told patronising half-truths, but most of the nerves drained out of him. He took a step forward and slumped so that his forehead rested on Doumeki’s shoulder. One of Doumeki’s hands drifted up in response to rest at the base of his neck. This was a physically demonstrative as Watanuki would ever yet let himself be, and it meant a lot.
“Thanks,” Watanuki said softly.
“It was only the truth,” said Doumeki automatically, and hoped he’d meant it.
“So? Truth takes any shape you think the other person deserves to hear,” Watanuki muttered, without moving away. “I did mean it when I said thankyou.”
Doumeki gave the back of his neck one last reassuring squeeze and stepped back to make Watanuki face him. “Come on. It’s almost dinner time. I’ll need to tell the others about this too.”
Watanuki nodded reluctantly and followed him out.
***
It didn’t go down much better with the others either. Doumeki’s recount of the main points of the conversation he’d had with Kamui was met with uncomfortable silence.
“But… but the Diet Building and the Tower didn’t have anything to do with it, did they?” said Sakura anxiously, the first to voice her thoughts.
“Kamui knows they’re innocent. Why would he be so worried?” Syaoran agreed. Kohane stared down at her hands in her lap in silence, her meal untouched.
“Ah, if only the world were so perfect that the innocent were never punished!” Fye sighed. “But Kamui isn’t wrong to be nervous. The investigators the Complex sent won’t rest until they find an explanation, and if there’s no evidence to be found and someone important just happens to come up with the idea that the Tower or the Diet Building have been up to now good, then they might convince themselves of anything just so that they have an answer.”
“The Complexes have ignored the larger camps around here in the past, but the thought of anyone outside their borders amassing the kind of manpower and reputation that our neighbours have must be a concern to them,” said Kurogane. “They’ve shown no mercy to gangs that threatened them before. The only reason that ever stopped is because no-one’s dared challenge them in a long time.”
“Then they might really decide to attack the Diet Building just because they don’t know what really happened?” Syaoran gasped.
“Well, only if they like the idea of going to war against a gang they believe has the means to ruin a Complex without leaving a trace,” Fye pointed out.
“Do you think it was a mistake to make that trading mission?” said Doumeki. “We’ve drawn their attention to the Tower and the Diet Building. Given them more reason than ever to suspect someone out here was a way of listening in on their transmissions too.”
“I doubt it,” said Kurogane. “The opposite is more likely. If anyone near here had the means to destroy a Complex and plunder its corpse, they wouldn’t waste weeks travelling to trade for supplies. We may have done everyone a favour.”
“I don’t think the risk could be very high,” said Fye thoughtfully. “Those investigators would have to look very hard indeed to find anything that would convince them the Complex came under attack?” The question was aimed at Doumeki and Watanuki, still the only ones in their number to have seen the place.
“There was nothing we saw that made it look that way,” Doumeki agreed. “It was more like the damage came from inside.” Privately, he hoped Watanuki wasn’t going to start fidgeting too obviously with the stress of repressed secrets.
“Then it’s more likely they’ll decide it was some kind of accident. An equipment malfunction, maybe. Perhaps even a deliberate act of sabotage, though it would take a lot to prove it.”
“Sabotage?” Syaoran frowned at the unusual word. “That’s… like when you tamper with someone else’s bike so it doesn’t work, right?”
“More or less, though this is a much bigger scale,” Fye replied.
“But who could do something like that?”
“Only someone from the inside could get access, but it would take a true madman who loathed the Complexes beyond all reasons to do such a thing deliberately. And as I understand they’ve started screening everyone there for any sign of the crazies frequently and thoroughly in the last couple of years since I left,” he added, almost like an afterthought, thought it got him a look from Kurogane of an unusually shrewd variety.
“They’ve had investigators there for weeks now,” said Doumeki. “If the explanation was that simple, wouldn’t they have announced it?”
“Perhaps not,” said Fye. “Not until they knew what the accident was and were thoroughly certain it wouldn’t happen again; or until they caught the saboteur. The last thing they’d want to do would be to tell people there was a danger they had no way to protect them from.”
“Um,” said Kohane suddenly. “Do you think anyone there will notice I’m gone?” Nervously she looked up a little to find all eyes turned on her, Watanuki looking downright worried by what she might say. This was the first and only thing she’d said all meal.
“Unlikely,” said Kurogane dismissively. “I doubt your body will be the only one they don’t find and identify.”
“But… they’ll be trying to find out what people were doing right before the disaster, won’t they? There’s ways of getting information off even damaged computers…”
“Oh, up to a point,” said Fye. “All depends on the damage – and the computer. But you can be certain nothing they’ve got stored there will tell them where you went.”
“They won’t easily trace you back here,” Kurogane agreed. “When the boys went to pick you up, they moved too fast and quietly to leave any trail.”
“It would make more sense to assume you’d wandered off into the Deadlands and collapsed somewhere,” Doumeki put in.
“And… and the Deadlands are so big that if they think you’re lost out there they don’t bother looking for you!” Sakura blurted all at once, an uncharacteristic kind of authority lurking behind her eyes.
“So even if they think she got out of the Complex they’ll think she’s dead, right?” Syaoran concluded.
“You all have such a nice way of putting it,” Watanuki grumbled faintly. Kohane looked around the ring one last time, finding the same answer behind all the gruff words spoken, and nodded once, letting herself give a small smile as she turned her face back to the meal in front of her.
And at the time, it all sounded so logical no-one questioned a word.
Other parts: The original ficlets, Plot notes, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Side Story 1
Beyond the borders of their tiny camp the fallout following the destruction of the Complex was far from over. So isolated and remote were the ruins that even the best vehicles the Complexes had at their disposal had taken weeks to make the full journey – only now had they at last begun to arrive. The Complexes had not responded by halves – convoys of armoured trucks dwarfing even the vehicle the Diet Building had sent on the reverse journey earlier that year were sighted converging on the ruins from multiple directions. Not since the first days After had there been so much traffic, nor any event so mysterious and terrible to attract attention to this part of the country, and it made everyone up to the leaders of the two local superpowers nervous. Never before had Kurogane’s camp received regular visitors asking for news they didn’t yet have, but now Kamui and Fuuma wanted reports almost by the day.
They were difficult questions to answer without giving away too much. Try as they might to keep Chi safe and secret, any fool who heard a fraction of the news Kurogane’s camp distributed could have guessed that their source originated at the Complexes themselves. Fuuma asked Doumeki point blank whether the destruction of their nearest Complex was going to cause a ‘problem’ for them where future weather reports were concerned. When Doumeki said no, he went on to point out that lying to create a false sense of security in a group of rather touchy people who would be very disappointed if they got hit by an acid storm without warning could be awfully bad for community relations in the area. Doumeki told him they had nothing to lie about. He didn’t much like the smile Fuuma gave him after that, or the declaration of how pleased the Tower’s leader was that the news was so good, but at least he wasn’t asked any more questions on the matter. Fuuma seemed satisfied that if there was any problem, it wasn’t going to be his.
The simple fact was that after the first burst of panic there wasn’t much news to be heard on the channels about the tragedy. Every natural disaster from earthquake to meteor strike had been ruled out as a cause early on, and after that the Complexes had halted open discussion very quickly. If they were still talking about it at all (which seemed more likely than not) then the administrators were exchanging their theories in messages so heavily encrypted that even Fye hadn’t found a way to decipher them. Until the people in charge had an explanation they liked, the investigation had become top secret.
Kamui for one wasn’t satisfied with that explanation.
“You’ve heard nothing more?” he asked testily. Doumeki wasn’t sure whether he was being accused of deliberately withholding information or not trying hard enough to get it, but either way this was trying his patience.
“We don’t make the news,” he said. “We can only pass on what comes our way.”
“Then you believe the Complexes are hiding the truth of the matter even from your sources?” Kamui suggested.
“It’s more likely they don’t have an answer yet either. The vehicles they sent would only just have arrived…” there Doumeki hesitated, because Kamui was giving him a look of surprise, even disdain.
“Are you labouring under the belief their agents have only just reached the ruin now?’ They were there weeks ago, within days of the event.”
Doumeki frowned. “How? For them to travel that fast…”
“They came in flying machines,” said Kamui. “Wasteful technology from a past age; even the Complex does not use such things lightly. You had not heard? They passed over Diet Building territory weeks ago.”
“…We hadn’t,” was all Doumeki could say in reply. Flying machines… it sounded so crazy that if he’d heard it from many other sources he would have dismissed it as ridiculous. Such creations were the stuff of old stories – all the more suspect when the only person he’d heard of them from was Fye. The communications Chi had intercepted had implied the people sending them had a fair knowledge of the site, but there’d been nothing about flying machines. Fye would had to have mentioned something like that if there had.
“They have had plenty of time to investigate,” said Kamui. “I find it unlikely they’d send in so many men as were on those vehicles if they weren’t satisfied with the answer they had. The risk they run if the danger remained would be too great. But still you tell me they have no answer to announce?”
“Or they’re hiding the answer they have,” Doumeki added. He didn’t like where this was going. “Have you been investigating the ruin yourselves?”
“What kind of fool do you take me for?” Kamui snapped. “One of their Complexes was destroyed a mere day’s travel from Diet Building territory. How do you expect they would interpret anything we did that left a direct trail from the ruin back to our base?”
This was an angle that had barely occurred to Doumeki, but now the point had been raised it did seem obvious – terribly so. “You’re worried the Diet Building will be blamed.”
“I cannot account for how those in the Complexes may think, but it their position it is what I would assume. If the cause was not natural and no accident, then attack by the Diet Building or the Tower would be the next most obvious theory.”
“It’s a risk,” Doumeki had to agree.
“If that is what they conclude, there is even the possibility they are deliberately hiding it from this ‘source’ of yours. Since the trading mission we undertook at your instigation, you must admit the chance they are aware we have access to some portion of the news they exchange.”
Doumeki remembered Oruha’s reaction to the list of trade items they’d so faithfully reproduced. It was difficult to answer questions like these without giving too much away, but the simple truth of the matter was, “We can’t rule it out.”
“Then you see why we are so desperate for any news that may come our way.”
“If we hear anything at all, we’ll let you know,” was all Doumeki could think to say in response.
“I will be counting on that,” said Kamui darkly, not the least satisfied by anything that had passed in that day’s discussion.
Doumeki had plenty to think about on his journey home, but the thought he kept returning to was that telling Watanuki what they’d discussed was not going to be fun. What they knew of Kohane’s involvement in the ruin of Complex wasn’t strictly the sort of news they were obligated to pass on, but neglecting to mention it – even after Kamui had asked so directly – was a definite lie of omission. With the matter of the ruined Complex becoming political, it was an omission Watanuki would feel all the more keenly responsible for.
“None of them from the Complexes… have any idea about Kohane, do they?” Watanuki asked awkwardly when the tale was done (which had been every bit as unenjoyable a task as predicted). He’d taken the news as well as could be expected, but he was avoiding eye contact again, Doumeki noted. It was a hard habit to break him out of, and at moments like this it came back full force.
“No,” Doumeki assured him. “Nothing we’ve heard has mentioned anything like her. There shouldn’t be anything left behind to lead them to her either.”
“But they’re looking for her, aren’t they?” asked Watanuki. “Even if they don’t realise that’s what they’re doing. It’s really important to them that they find out what destroyed the Complex or they’ll go on being scared it could happen again. And if they don’t find out the real reason it could mean they decide it was the Diet Building or the Tower even though that’s completely wrong, and…”
“Do you want to tell them about her?” Doumeki asked, cutting him off. He wasn’t personally very clear on the subject of how Kohane had been involved. Everything he’d heard about it had been blurted out in that one conversation with Watanuki, at a time when he’d had more important things on the forefront of his mind. Given his position he wasn’t sure he had either the right or the means to understand it in full, but for this much he didn’t need to.
“Of course not,” Watanuki protested. “But I can’t help wondering…”
“It wouldn’t make any difference even if we did find a way to tell them,” said Doumeki. “You’d never get them to believe that was what happened. And if you did convince them, what could they do?’ They wouldn’t have any idea how to deal with someone who could cause something like that single-handedly.”
Watanuki snuck out a look that suggested he half-suspected he was being told patronising half-truths, but most of the nerves drained out of him. He took a step forward and slumped so that his forehead rested on Doumeki’s shoulder. One of Doumeki’s hands drifted up in response to rest at the base of his neck. This was a physically demonstrative as Watanuki would ever yet let himself be, and it meant a lot.
“Thanks,” Watanuki said softly.
“It was only the truth,” said Doumeki automatically, and hoped he’d meant it.
“So? Truth takes any shape you think the other person deserves to hear,” Watanuki muttered, without moving away. “I did mean it when I said thankyou.”
Doumeki gave the back of his neck one last reassuring squeeze and stepped back to make Watanuki face him. “Come on. It’s almost dinner time. I’ll need to tell the others about this too.”
Watanuki nodded reluctantly and followed him out.
***
It didn’t go down much better with the others either. Doumeki’s recount of the main points of the conversation he’d had with Kamui was met with uncomfortable silence.
“But… but the Diet Building and the Tower didn’t have anything to do with it, did they?” said Sakura anxiously, the first to voice her thoughts.
“Kamui knows they’re innocent. Why would he be so worried?” Syaoran agreed. Kohane stared down at her hands in her lap in silence, her meal untouched.
“Ah, if only the world were so perfect that the innocent were never punished!” Fye sighed. “But Kamui isn’t wrong to be nervous. The investigators the Complex sent won’t rest until they find an explanation, and if there’s no evidence to be found and someone important just happens to come up with the idea that the Tower or the Diet Building have been up to now good, then they might convince themselves of anything just so that they have an answer.”
“The Complexes have ignored the larger camps around here in the past, but the thought of anyone outside their borders amassing the kind of manpower and reputation that our neighbours have must be a concern to them,” said Kurogane. “They’ve shown no mercy to gangs that threatened them before. The only reason that ever stopped is because no-one’s dared challenge them in a long time.”
“Then they might really decide to attack the Diet Building just because they don’t know what really happened?” Syaoran gasped.
“Well, only if they like the idea of going to war against a gang they believe has the means to ruin a Complex without leaving a trace,” Fye pointed out.
“Do you think it was a mistake to make that trading mission?” said Doumeki. “We’ve drawn their attention to the Tower and the Diet Building. Given them more reason than ever to suspect someone out here was a way of listening in on their transmissions too.”
“I doubt it,” said Kurogane. “The opposite is more likely. If anyone near here had the means to destroy a Complex and plunder its corpse, they wouldn’t waste weeks travelling to trade for supplies. We may have done everyone a favour.”
“I don’t think the risk could be very high,” said Fye thoughtfully. “Those investigators would have to look very hard indeed to find anything that would convince them the Complex came under attack?” The question was aimed at Doumeki and Watanuki, still the only ones in their number to have seen the place.
“There was nothing we saw that made it look that way,” Doumeki agreed. “It was more like the damage came from inside.” Privately, he hoped Watanuki wasn’t going to start fidgeting too obviously with the stress of repressed secrets.
“Then it’s more likely they’ll decide it was some kind of accident. An equipment malfunction, maybe. Perhaps even a deliberate act of sabotage, though it would take a lot to prove it.”
“Sabotage?” Syaoran frowned at the unusual word. “That’s… like when you tamper with someone else’s bike so it doesn’t work, right?”
“More or less, though this is a much bigger scale,” Fye replied.
“But who could do something like that?”
“Only someone from the inside could get access, but it would take a true madman who loathed the Complexes beyond all reasons to do such a thing deliberately. And as I understand they’ve started screening everyone there for any sign of the crazies frequently and thoroughly in the last couple of years since I left,” he added, almost like an afterthought, thought it got him a look from Kurogane of an unusually shrewd variety.
“They’ve had investigators there for weeks now,” said Doumeki. “If the explanation was that simple, wouldn’t they have announced it?”
“Perhaps not,” said Fye. “Not until they knew what the accident was and were thoroughly certain it wouldn’t happen again; or until they caught the saboteur. The last thing they’d want to do would be to tell people there was a danger they had no way to protect them from.”
“Um,” said Kohane suddenly. “Do you think anyone there will notice I’m gone?” Nervously she looked up a little to find all eyes turned on her, Watanuki looking downright worried by what she might say. This was the first and only thing she’d said all meal.
“Unlikely,” said Kurogane dismissively. “I doubt your body will be the only one they don’t find and identify.”
“But… they’ll be trying to find out what people were doing right before the disaster, won’t they? There’s ways of getting information off even damaged computers…”
“Oh, up to a point,” said Fye. “All depends on the damage – and the computer. But you can be certain nothing they’ve got stored there will tell them where you went.”
“They won’t easily trace you back here,” Kurogane agreed. “When the boys went to pick you up, they moved too fast and quietly to leave any trail.”
“It would make more sense to assume you’d wandered off into the Deadlands and collapsed somewhere,” Doumeki put in.
“And… and the Deadlands are so big that if they think you’re lost out there they don’t bother looking for you!” Sakura blurted all at once, an uncharacteristic kind of authority lurking behind her eyes.
“So even if they think she got out of the Complex they’ll think she’s dead, right?” Syaoran concluded.
“You all have such a nice way of putting it,” Watanuki grumbled faintly. Kohane looked around the ring one last time, finding the same answer behind all the gruff words spoken, and nodded once, letting herself give a small smile as she turned her face back to the meal in front of her.
And at the time, it all sounded so logical no-one questioned a word.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-14 01:22 pm (UTC)...waiiii?!?! *cries*
Been lurking for a while, thought I'd say hi ( ^ that's how you say hi) and love the stories. :3
but he was avoiding eye contact again, Doumeki noted.
Awww, he's still working hard on that isn't he? Doumeki is such a sweet guy. In a sort of '....what?' sorta way. X)
Yeah, and thanks for the cliffhanger there. Now thoughts of doom will plague my thoughts for the rest of the week. D:
no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 05:29 am (UTC)Doumeki's not exactly trying actively to change anything, just noticing Watanuki's behaviour. He would probably see it as a good sign if it did change, especially now that things are resolved between them to the point that Watanuki can start to relax a bit, but for now it's more just a sign that he's keeping an eye on things.
This chapter has actually already been up for most of a week, so if all goes well the next may go up tomorrow. And we'll see how things go after that.