blind for you Ch.2

[LittleRooster]

Dear reader, I do not own Fruits Basket...And I don't Plan to.

The ear plugs sat awkwardly in his ears, applying gentle pressure to his skull that would have been bothersome if he hadn't grown familiar with the sensation over the years. The Beretta fit in his hand like the curve of an old lover's body, familiar and unforgotten. For three years, he had neglected the gun save for brief visits to the indoor shooting range and subsequent cleanings, but like any coy and eager lover, it was more than willing to forgive him for his inattentiveness. But not without a certain degree of difficulty, of course.

However, Kureno knew it wasn't the gun's fault that he had fired every round in the Beretta's double stack magazine and hadn't managed to pierce the small inner circle on the target. Holes from the bullets were littered as close as a ring away from the center, but none had hit the mark.

Sighing, Kureno put the safety on the gun and ejected the magazine, looking warily around the empty firing range. He had learned how to fire a gun at this very range, from the very same man who stood behind the nondescript wooden counter in the back of the room. The room hadn't changed in all these years, and the consistency should have placated him, but the fact that it was illegal for a Japanese citizen to own a gun was enough to make a mess of his nerves, which were already in wild disarray from last night's encounter.

He needed a gun. A gun to match the black semiautomatic he had seen shoved haphazardly into the waistband of the dark figure's pants last night. He could still see the hammer as clear as day, moonlight glinting on the grip as the man darted away from the window. Guns were such a rare image for him to see that his mind hadn't immediately registered the arc of the hammer, or the thickness of the grip.

Even as the sun rose over the world and Akito tossed restlessly to avoid the golden rays snaking into the bedroom, his black terror had been sharp enough to spur him out of bed and back to his house. He always tried to be very apathetic towards the Beretta, but today its solid weight both comforted and scared him.

Kureno found that he both hated and loved the weapon. Hated it because it was illegal and because its bullets made large messy holes in human flesh. Loved it because it could save someone's life if an outsider ever threatened his family. With all the threats and attempted kidnappings in the recent past, someone in the Souma family had to own a gun. Someone had to pull the trigger if Akito's life were threatened. Who better than Kureno, the one who was always at her side?

But even as he placed the empty magazine on the table by his elbow, Kureno wondered if he would really be able to put a possibly fatal hole in someone's body. He wouldn't hesitate to get between Akito and a bullet, but to rob someone else of their life...could he really do such a thing? It seemed so cruel. It wasn't his right to deal out death. He wasn't God.

His brow creased with his preoccupied thoughts as he set the Beretta on the table. He removed the foamy ear plugs, and the silence in the room was just as complete without the sound-deadening cylinders. The Soumas were a reputable clan, but the city still bore the remnants of an underground network of yakuza long dead. It was by such illegal means that this firing range had been constructed out of the basement of one of the dilapidated buildings in a mostly abandoned district of the city.

Soundproofed walls. A system of codenames. A nondescript foyer with a hidden bell that only clients knew where to find. For those high-class members of society who wished to indulge in ownership of illegal firearms, this range was the only one of its kind in the city where they could practice their delinquency. For them, it was a luxury. For Kureno, it was a necessity.

He still remembered the day he had first arrived at the firing range, in an unmarked white car that had picked him up on a dark corner in the early hours of morning. The driver, a man with monotonous voice and a forgettable face, had asked him his name, and Kureno had given it: the English pronunciation of the word "Rooster." Kureno hadn't realized that confessing to Akito that he wished he could do more to protect her would have such results. He never knew the Souma family had such disreputable connections, or what fear had prompted Akito to fulfill his wish to such an extreme that she placed him far outside the range of legality.

When the sharp-eyed old man who managed the range had put the Beretta into Kureno's cold fingers six years ago, he had nearly dropped it. When the old man lowered the target shaped like a human being, Kureno had felt his insides twist into a knot. But he had fired bullet after bullet into that target, getting closer to hitting the mark under the man's tutelage. He had pulled that trigger over and over until the recoil felt not like resistance, but yielding. The Beretta had never become an extension of himself like he heard described in action novels. He still viewed it as a separate being, and would like to keep it that way.

"You finished?" the old man asked, approaching Kureno slowly from the side. He wondered if any gunman had ever spooked on the man before. So many things could transpire behind these walls, and no one would hear it. This room could swallow you at leisure, and all efforts to beg for salvation would be like screaming into a void of nothingness.

"Yes, sir," Kureno said politely.

The man frowned, but the gesture was lost underneath the mass of his beard, which had obtained more streaks of gray since Kureno had last seen him. "You sound disappointed. You really wanted to hit that mark, didn't you?"

"I've hit it before," Kureno said as he packed his gun into the briefcase and closed the hidden panel that concealed the weapon.

"Sure you have, son," the man said, voice raspy from years of smoking. "But today you were on edge. And you're off schedule."

Kureno looked at him in surprise. "You know my schedule?"

The man snorted, creases around his eyes tightening in what might have been amusement. "Of course I do. Rooster comes in twice a year, once in February, once in November. It's the middle of June, and here you are. Damn near shit my pants this morning when the Rooster called, wanting to come down to the range."

Kureno forced a smile, holding his briefcase in front of him as if to ward off the man's piercing gaze. "Just trying to step up my game."

Black eyes slid to the target littered with bullet holes, save for that naked and untouched center circle. "You're wasting your time."

Kureno felt his heart sink a little. "I know I can improve."

The man's eyes slid back to him. "That's not what I meant. If a man like you ever kills someone, it's not gonna be with a gun." He suddenly grinned, slightly yellow teeth flashing amongst the salt-and-pepper jungle of his beard. "Not personal enough for you."

Kureno didn't know what to say to that, but he thought he felt something shift within him, like his heart skipping a beat, only this was more like a restless tumble right before waking.

The man waved his hand. "Eh, get outta here now. Got someone else coming in."

Kureno bowed politely and made his way to the lonely hole in the wall that served as the exit. You never came out the way you came in. Never knew who you might run into. All the people who came to this range had codenames or remained anonymous. For all he knew, Akito could be walking in the front door at this very moment with two Glocks at either hip, ready to make mincemeat of the hapless targets. The vision struck him as both frightening and amusing. Akito with a gun. Look out, world.

The stairwell was deathly quiet and dimly lit, but it was almost a relief after the false purity of the white-walled basement range. At the top of the stairwell was a Western-style door that could only be opened from the inside since the outside had no handle or knob to speak of.

The white car was waiting for Kureno at the curb, just as it always had in the past. Whether it was the same car, or even the same driver, Kureno had no idea. For all he knew, all the drivers who took clients to the range were instructed to dress, talk and act the same.

"Name?" the driver asked as Kureno slid into the backseat.

"Rooster," Kureno replied, closing the door. Maybe it wasn't the same driver.

"Where to, Rooster?" the man asked gruffly, pulling away from the cracked cement of the curb. The building that harbored the range in its bowels was just another gray, deteriorating mess amongst a thousand messes.

"Takanaka Detective Agency, please," Kureno said without thinking.

"That's not where you were picked up," the driver said in a monotone. Maybe it was the same driver after all.

"I know. I have a few things to take care of."

One of the man's hands slid off the wheel, and Kureno suddenly realized that his life was in danger. The driver didn't think he was really Rooster, which meant that someone was trying to fuck over his clientele, which meant punishment for the guilty party.

"My car is parked behind a sushi bar next to the shopping district," Kureno said hurriedly. "If you want to drop me off there, it's fine. That's where I was picked up this morning."

He waited, mouth too dry to form another word, praying he wasn't about to get a bullet in the head. Akito might be sad if that happened. After a second, the man's hand resumed its position on the wheel, and Kureno allowed himself to breathe again.

*

Not seeing Kureno's face in the morning had made Akito obscenely gloomy, even more so than usual. She recalled going to sleep without him, but she could have sworn she'd felt his body curled against hers several times during the night. She awoke to find sunlight poking her obnoxiously in the face, illuminating the short strands of brownish-red hair on the pillow beside her head. She'd even buried her face in the pillow and inhaled deeply to find that it smelled heavily of Kureno's shampoo. Either the servants were getting lax with the laundry, or Kureno had been in bed with her sometime during the night, but left before she awakened. That did not make her happy. He should have had the decency to wait to tell her good morning.

To exacerbate matters, the maids were being exceptionally fussy today, flitting around Akito from the moment she stuck her head out of her bedroom, asking if she wanted tea or breakfast, or maybe a bath and a change of clothes. She didn't want any of those things. She just wanted Kureno to be there when she wanted him the most.

Even a soak in the bathhouse and a healthy overdose of lavender bath salt didn't refresh her; if anything, she emerged marginally more irritable after her failed efforts at relaxation. It was someone's fault this morning was already shaping up to be atrociously bad, and it certainly wasn't hers, of course. Blaming the absent Kureno for her darkening mood was so much easier.

Yoko was immediately at Akito's side the minute she stepped out of the bathhouse. This time there was another maid named Natsumi with her. Strength in numbers.

"H-how was your bath, Akito-san?" Yoko stammered out.

"Too hot," Akito snapped, even though the water had been fine. "Has Kureno come back yet?"

The two maids exchanged glances, their bewildered expressions mirror images of each other. This time, Natsumi replied with a hesitant, "We haven't seen him since this morning."

Akito's expression slowly melted into a scowl. "You saw him this morning? Why didn't you tell me that before?"

Yoko looked intimidated, but Natsumi burst out, "Forgive us, Akito-san. Kureno-san told us to watch over you carefully this morning, to make sure you had everything you needed, and that you were safe and didn't go wandering off by yourself."

Akito hadn't the slightest idea why Kureno would give such a strange order, and her ignorance only made her angrier. Why didn't anyone tell her anything? She was the head of the damn family, after all.

When she heard a light step and a quiet inquisition in the form of her name, Akito whirled with a harsh "What?" to find one of the older maids, a refined woman named Noriko, bowing gravely, long since accustomed to her master's mercurial moods.

"Akito-sama," she said levelly. "There is a guest at the front gates. A man named Inoue Kazuhiko."

A frown tugged the corners of Akito's mouth. "What does he want?"

"To extend his apologies to you in person," Noriko replied. "Nothing would make him happier than for you to grant his request."

That almost made Akito laugh. "How very arrogant of him to believe that I care anything about his happiness."

"Inoue-san thought you would say as much. But nevertheless, he still wishes to meet with you."

"Have security escort him in," Akito said tonelessly, brushing past Noriko. "Send him to the audience room of my quarters."

"Yes, Akito-sama," she said obligingly.

Back in her bedroom, Akito discarded her thin yukata for a men's kimono that she liked to wear when greeting guests that weren't family. The garment wasn't nearly as airy as her yukata, and she instantly started sweating as she tied the sash on the kimono. The material kept the heat of her body trapped close to her skin, its minute but steady pressure almost suffocating. She paused for a moment to catch her breath, wondering why she felt especially frail this morning. No breakfast. A hot bath. Stifling clothes. No Kureno.

Akito gritted her teeth in frustration and slammed the closet door shut, not caring if the wood snapped or the sliding mechanism became damaged. Unlike humans, doors didn't bleed or cry, and could be easily repaired with the proper handiwork.

The alien charge of otherness Akito felt as she entered the audience room reminded her of how long it had been since she allowed an outsider to visit the Main House. In her personal rooms, only the presence of Kureno lingered like a heavy musk, easily overpowering the shades of Hatori and Shigure. Sometimes Akito even felt a whisper of her precious Yuki, though his presence had grown faint as the years went by, which both saddened and angered her.

Kazuhiko was kneeling properly on the tatami mats, dark eyes cast to the side, watching the garden in its entire summertime splendor through the open shoji doors. Two mugs of tea sat on the table, along with a medium-sized gift box wrapped simply but beautifully in red paper.

He stirred upon seeing her enter the room, rising from the floor and bowing deeply, raven's wing black hair unsettling from its proper arrangement to hang near his face. "Good morning, Souma-san."

"Inoue-san," she replied levelly, bowing back before settling herself across from him at the table. She stared as he knelt again on the pillow, noticing that although the lines around his eyes were more evident in the sunlight than they had been at the restaurant last night, he moved with the grace of a man half his age. No arthritis or rickety knees for Inoue Kazuhiko.

"This is just a small gift," Kazuhiko said respectfully, nodding his head in the direction of the box. "Thank you very much for allowing me into your home. You really have a beautiful estate. Your family is quite lovely as well."

"Thank you," Akito said politely.

Kazuhiko absently pushed his hair away from a face Akito belatedly realized was quite handsome. She had never noticed his appearance before; he was a rather mundane man who tended to keep to himself, and the Inoue family had never broached the subject of an alliance with the Souma family before. Only his eyes made him especially distinctive, like chips of melted obsidian in his strong-boned face. Eyes that always seemed to be quietly weeping. It was beginning to irk her.

The man seemed to notice the change in her mood because he sighed and glanced out over the garden again. "I'm very sorry if my son's behavior upset you last night, Souma-san. He was very homesick overseas, and I apologize if he made a wrongful assumption about you."

"Maybe if you weren't so ashamed of him," Akito said with barely-veiled nastiness, "he wouldn't pounce on the first person he thinks is 'like him.' Things like desire grow more intense if they are kept bottled up."

Kazuhiko cocked his head to the side in what looked to be honest confusion. "I am not ashamed of my son's sexuality, though I'm sure Daisuke believes differently."

"I'm inclined to believe Daisuke over you," Akito said flatly. "His desperation last night was very real."

The man bowed slightly. "Forgive me for saying so, but the Soumas are the most traditional of all the seven families. My family only recently attained its current prestige." The corners of his mouth turned slightly upwards in a smile. "I suppose you can say we're a bit more modern."

Akito lifted an eyebrow. "But surely it makes things difficult for you. It's not like Daisuke-san will be able to give you an heir."

Kazuhiko shrugged, broad shoulders lifting underneath the fabric of his white shirt. "We'll discuss those things when the time comes. Daisuke is still quite young."

The man's resignation was grinding her nerves, and since the events of last night still gave her an excuse to be standoffish with him, she could let bits of her annoyance show. "How unorthodox of you. Next thing you know, there will be a female head of the Inoue family."

To her surprise, he smiled. "More terrible things have happened in the past, Souma-san. A female in power would not mean the demise of my family."

Akito glared at him, an odd mixture of emotions warring within her. She wanted to demand if he truly believed it would be appropriate for a female to be the head of a family, but that would mean reopening her own wounds in the presence of someone she had no reason to trust.

"And what does Daisuke's mother say about her son being homosexual?" she asked.

Kazuhiko didn't even flinch at the word. "I'm sorry to say that my wife passed away recently."

"My condolences," Akito said, surprising herself. His eyes were looking darker and deeper, more abysmal than before. It seemed she had found the source of that grief: his dead wife.

"She was a good woman," he said sincerely. "I'm just happy that I was able to be at her side when she was still alive."

Akito's chest tightened unexpectedly. He had to be lying. People in positions of power didn't feel these sorts of things for people. The only things reflected in their eyes were wealth, business, and power. They didn't cherish their wives. Children were just a means to continue the legacy they had left behind. If Akito had a husband, would he speak of her with such reference and devotion, even after she was dead? If the only child she birthed was a gay male, would he still love her?

Probably not. After all, Kazuhiko's wife was a "good" woman. Akito was not good. Sometimes, she wasn't even a woman.

Kazuhiko sighed again. "I'm sorry to darken your morning with such things, Akito-san. May I call you Akito-san?"

"Go ahead," she said quietly.

He smiled, but the shadows remained in his eyes. "Thank you. Please feel free to refer to me by my given name as well." He rose to his feet, and Akito rose as well, feeling weak and awkward, as if she were no longer made of flesh, but of some transparent substance that couldn't conceal what lay within her.

Kazuhiko bowed. "I'll be taking my leave now, but if you are free later this week, I'd be honored if we could have dinner together, since you were unable to finish your meal last night."

"I'll have my assistant contact you," Akito said tiredly. Her empty stomach suddenly reminded her that she hadn't eaten anything yet, and the heat and clothing wrapped around her small body were starting to get to her.

She would later blame her weariness for not instantly refusing Kazuhiko, as she typically did to those who asked to meet her outside the bimonthly dinner, but at the moment, all she could think was that she wouldn't mind seeing this man again.

*

"You're not really giving me much to go on, Souma-san," Yamane Shouichi said dryly. "I don't know how much I'll be able to turn up with little more than a physical description."

Kureno shifted anxiously, tightening his grip on the briefcase, all too aware that he was carrying illegal weaponry. He had filled the briefcase with papers and invoices to make it look genuine in case he had to open it for whatever reason. Back home, he had also tested the durability of the briefcase, even going so far as to fling it against the wall to see if the hidden panel popped open and the gun fell out. It hadn't, but he was still nervous. Maybe he should have tossed it around some more...

"Please do your best, Yamane-san," Kureno said. "I've been told you're one of the best private investigators in the city."

"I'm good," Yamane said without pride. "But the description you gave me could match any man in the city. And as for your other suspicions..."

"I firmly believe he was carrying a gun," Kureno insisted. "Check for any affiliation with yakuza or other gang activity. He also had a bit of an Osakan accent, if I'm not mistaken. Please understand this is a great concern for me."

"Everyone who comes in here has great concerns," the man said, reclining his considerable bulk in his amazingly sturdy chair. "If I turn up relations to the yakuza, I'm going to the police."

"That's fine, Yamane-san. I just want the identity of this man."

Yamane narrowed his eyes, looking Kureno up and down. "The Soumas have a damn good private investigator within the family. Why not go to her?"

Kureno felt the lines of his face harden. "This is a personal issue of mine, Yamane-san. It is not something I want to involve my family in."

Except his family was already involved, in a big way. The head of the Souma family could be in danger at the moment, and though Kureno knew his "errands" were of vital importance, he couldn't help but go a little over the speed limit as he drove away from Yamane's office and back home. It was true that Souma Touko was an excellent private investigator, and on Kureno's orders, she would have looked far and deep into any issue for absolutely no charge. Instead, he had driven for thirty minutes to reach the office of a man whose services required a high amount of yen, all of which Kureno paid for out of his own pocket. He didn't want to use one of the Soumas' bank accounts and have Akito somehow find out that he had conducted business outside the family without her knowledge.

The last twenty-four hours had been filled with too many outlandish people and activities for Kureno not to do anything about it. First there was the shady man prowling around the gates of the Inner Circle, then the incident with Inoue Daisuke, and finally the shadowy, gun-toting figure peering in the window of Kureno's office last night. A man who, as far as Kureno knew, might still be on the Souma's property right now.

He drove faster.

He was pleased to see that security was still in place when he arrived home, though the guards at the gate informed him gravely that they heard Akito was looking for him, which didn't bode well. Kureno accepted the information with a sigh, knowing that Akito probably wouldn't like waking up to find that Kureno had, in her eyes, temporarily seized control of the family and started issuing orders.

Despite knowing that his prolonged absence would only displease Akito further, Kureno parked the car in the Main House garage and began to walk to his house, which was at the back of the Inner Circle, far away from everyone else's. He had rooms and an office close to Akito's in the Main House for the days and nights when Akito wanted him close to her, but there was no safe place to hide his gun in those rooms. The need for the detour took precedence over the threat of Akito's worsening temper. He would rather Akito be alive and angry with him than dead because Kureno had misplaced his weapon.

When he arrived at his home, he saw two young maids (Yoko and Natsumi, if he remembered correctly) tittering about uncertainly on the porch, relief obvious on their faces when they caught sight of him coming in their direction.

"Kureno-san!" Natsumi, the smaller of the two, exclaimed. "Thank goodness you're back! Please go see Akito-san immediately!"

"I will, but I need to put this up first." He showed her his briefcase, realizing belatedly that he should have given a different excuse. He didn't want her offering to put it up for him.

"That's fine," Yoko jumped in. "Akito-san is inside your house right now."

"Oh," Kureno said, surprised. "Ah, thank you."

He passed them and made his way into the house, glad to see that Akito hadn't been so angry that she made a mess of his house, which she had done in the past. He found her in his office, seated in his large computer chair with a horrific scowl on her face. Behind her, the cheery window full of sunlight brightened the room, but didn't make her angry expression any less threatening.

"Good morning, Akito," he said politely, sliding the door shut behind him.

"Morning is gone," she snapped coldly. "It's almost time for lunch, and you are behind on your schedule."

"I'm sorry, but there were things I had to take care of."

"Like what?" she demanded. "Ordering my servants and security guards around like you're head of the family? Those two bothersome bitches outside refuse to leave me alone."

"I'm glad," he said sincerely, pleased that Natsumi and Yoko had taken his orders to heart. "Your safety is most important, Akito."

She scowled at him, her angry eyes sliding down to the black briefcase whose handle he grasped tightly in his right hand, as if afraid someone would snatch it from him. He saw realization slide over her face, but still she asked, "What is that?"

"The last means I have of protecting you," he said quietly. "The most deadly of means."

Akito leapt out of the chair, and for a brief moment, he was afraid that she would try to rip the briefcase from his hands, but all she did was close the curtains on the window, plunging the office into deep shadow. "Why do you have that?" she asked tightly without turning around. "What happened?"

"May I put this away first?" he asked, holding up the briefcase.

Akito looked over her shoulder at him with guarded eyes before nodding briefly. Kureno walked over to the bookshelf that hugged the back wall of his office, or so it seemed. There was actually a bit of space between the shelf and the wall, and Kureno slipped the briefcase into the small area. He'd have to clean the gun later; he didn't know if taking out the weapon would upset Akito or not.

"I'm sorry I called out security without your permission," he said, turning back to the small-framed woman still standing in front of the window. "But last night I saw a man staring into the window of my office at the Main House. He had a gun."

Akito frowned. "A gun? Is this the same person you saw sneaking around the wall yesterday?"

"It might be," Kureno said. "In fact, it probably is, but last night it was too dark to see any of the man's face."

"Was the gun in his hand?"

"No, it was down the front of his pants."

Akito smiled a bit maliciously. "Not a very good place to put a gun. You should have grabbed it and pulled the trigger."

"There was a window between us, and besides, that wouldn't have worked if the safety--"

"It was a joke, Kureno," Akito said loudly, voice overriding his. "You're so gullible."

Kureno frowned at her. "You're not taking this very seriously."

Akito shrugged and leaned her back against the window. "Security's been running around since this morning. I think they would have found this man if he were still on the complex, as you seem to think he is."

"He could have left," Kureno admitted. "But I'm worried about how he got into the Inner Circle in the first place. I already questioned the nighttime maids who are supposed to watch the front gates. No one came through the gate last night. My only other guess is that he found a way over or under the wall." He paused, realizing for the first time that Akito was wearing a man's kimono, one of several she put on when greeting guests from outside the Souma family. "Akito, why are you wearing that?"

"None of your business," she told him icily.

"Who did you meet with?" he demanded. "And if you don't tell me, I can just ask the guards at the gate."

Her graceful eyebrows snapped together in an angry scowl. "Who do you think you are, demanding such things from me?"

"Someone's who's concerned about your wellbeing, Akito," he said, stepping forward and placing his hands on her tense shoulders. "I don't like the idea of strangers being inside the Inner Circle at a time like this. Please tell me who it was."

He didn't know if it was the "please" or the soft tone of his voice that did it, but Akito stared defiantly up at him as she said, "Inoue Kazuhiko."

Kureno couldn't repress the frown that pulled down the corners of his mouth. "The head of the Inoue family?"

"He was apologizing for his son's behavior last night," Akito said. "He wasn't here very long, and guards escorted him in. By the way, I need you to contact him and set up a dinner date sometime later this week."

Kureno's frown deepened. "Akito, I don't think that's a good idea."

"I don't care what you think," she snapped, putting a hand on his chest and pushing him away from her. "It's not like I'm interested in being his buddy. I just can't stand being here all the time with people like you impeding on my freedom."

"It's not good for you to be left alone," Kureno insisted, though he could feel Akito's increasing stubbornness as she grew angrier and angrier. "Someone should be with you at all times until we've determined for certain that man is not still in the Inner Circle somewhere."

Akito glowered at him. "Fine. I'll call Shigure."

"No."

Akito went rigid. "Did you just say 'no'?"

"Every time Shigure-nii comes over, you end up getting upset," Kureno replied, growing a bit agitated by Akito's resistance. "Then you'll be so angry that you won't want anyone to be around you."

"You're the only one upsetting me right now!" she yelled, shoving past him. "Stop telling me what to do!"

"Akito!" he called after her, but she had already stalked out into the hallway, thunderous footsteps heading for the front door.

He let her go, knowing that she had reached the point where anything he said would be unable to penetrate the cloud of rage that so often obscured her rational mind. He feared briefly for the safety of Yoko and Natsumi, but a peek between the curtains showed Akito storming away from his house like a roving thundercloud, the two maids following a few meters behind. Kureno sighed, recalling his earlier thoughts about preferring Akito alive and angry than dead because he couldn't protect her. An angry Akito was an Akito unable to think clearly, an Akito who hurt people in fits of furious passion. If he wanted to protect her, he had to keep her angry tantrums down to a minimum, which meant that there had to be changes around here. Many changes

[flynfreako]

ooooo what's kureno gonna do to change things? @.@