The Odd Couple

by H.J. Bender

The summer of Sage Datier's twenty-first birthday was a summer to remember. Firstly, he had successfully completed the required amount of training necessary for him to become a certified practitioner of kendo. His family rejoiced. It was also around this time when it was decided that Sage should finally spread his wings and leave the nest for good, and his folks gave him three days to pack all his belongings and get the hell out of Dodge before he was disinherited. Sage, confused and perturbed, took his things and reluctantly departed. His family rejoiced.

Now temporarily derelict and with no idea where to go, the blond turned to his four old friends for help, whom he was soon to discover all had lives of their own by now. He swung by Cye's place first, assured that he would get free room and board from the group empath, but found to his dismay that Cye was out at sea taking a marine biology course for extra credit in college next semester and wouldn't be back until hurricane season. Sage could have easily picked the lock and made himself at home but that just wasn't courteous, he decided.

Sage, with his entire horde of suitcases, then looked up Ryo's address in the phone book and headed over to the tiny apartment complex where he lived. He caught Ryo on his way out, equipped with an enormous net of soccer balls and decked out in futbol garb like Pele. Ryo apologized and explained that his girls (the fifteen some-odd young ladies ranging from ages 6 to 9 that he was coaching for extra pay that summer) were practicing for a big tournament in a few days and that they needed every second of scrimmaging they could manage. Ryo also meekly explained that he just didn't have the room (or the furniture, for that matter) to accommodate Sage.

Halo's next target would have been Rowen, but his blue haired companion had already written Sage that he would be over in the U.S. with his dad, on a tour with the IAAP (International Association of Astronomers and Physicists). Mia was currently living on campus at Shinshei University to earn extra hours for her teaching degree.

So that left only Kento.

Sage swallowed his guts and pointed his caravan toward the shady side of town.

* * *

There was a knock on the door of Kento Rei Fuan's rather Eurotrash-style apartment residence and the jaunty, muscular Ronin opened up and was shocked to see his slender, blond and very travel-worn looking friend in the hallway.

Kento blinked. "Well . . . Hey, Sage. What's up? Are those suitcases?"

Sage looked miserably at the floor as he mumbled in a barely audible voice, "Can I stay with you for a few days . . ."

"Huh? What happened?"

"My parents made me move out yesterday and I need some time to gather my thoughts and find a place of my own. None of the other guys have time or room for me so . . . you're my last hope."

Kento looked surprised to say the least. He and Sage had never hit it off as friends, although on occasion they'd hit each other. They lived in two separate worlds that were completely obtuse, and even cooperating together to save the world from a King Kong-sized demon was a challenge. Their attitudes were different, their tastes were different, their ideas were different; they were oil and water personified, and both were well aware of it.

"I promise not to get in the way," Sage said, as if reading the thoughts between them. "I can sleep in the bathtub if you-"

"Don't be retarded, dude," Kento chided as he took the young man by the arm and led him inside. "Sure you can stay. Uh, I work during the day Monday through Thursday regular hours and sometimes Friday and Saturday nights so you won't see much of me."

Works for both of us, Sage thought, inspecting a cluttered end table that was positively driving him mad with the unstacked magazines and coffee rings. "I can even . . ." He leaned down and tried to inconspicuously neaten the mess. ". . . clean up a little around here during the-"

"Don't touch anything," Kento said sharply, and Sage hastily withdrew his hands like a scolded child. "You don't have to do anything. This is my place, after all," he said, giving the impression that if Sage were to so much as sit on the couch he'd be cast into Purgatory. "And . . . Well, you're my guest so don't work, don't clean up or anything, you're no maid . . ."

"Well, you're certainly no housekeeper," Sage commented, peering into the kitchen with counters cluttered with dirty dishes, cereal boxes and cooking appliances.

Kento glowered and bit back, "My flat, my rules. I like living this way."

"What, like a barbarian?" Sage had drifted into the kitchen, grimacing at the overflowing table of junk. "Martha Stewart would just die."

"I didn't ask Martha Stewart and I didn't ask you, so get your things and take 'em to the room at the end of the hall on the right," Kento snapped. "You can sleep in there. It's more or less the junk room, but it's got a futon in there and a small dresser," he added grudgingly.

"Thanks," Sage said softly, turning and walking with his suitcases down the hall.

Kento sighed heavily and tried not to dwell on the fact that he had just made a really huge error in taking Sage in. But he was his friend . . . sorta. He couldn't just say no, could he? How could anyone shut the door in the face of a fellow comrade in arms?

"No prob, Sage . . . No prob."

* * *

Everything was fine at first. Kento and Sage did their best to avoid each other, knowing that if they spent too much time together that eventually their disagreements would rub the fur of the natural universe the wrong way and trigger some sort of cataclysmic, apocalyptic calamity. It worked for a while, but ultimately it came down to two guys, one apartment and one boring Thursday night that made them realize that barely seeing each other was just a little too much for either of them to bear.

"What is that smell?" Sage looked up with his nose wrinkled in disdain as he sat on the worn, stained sofa and went through the classifieds with a highlighter. "It's been bothering me since I came here."

"Prob'ly your upper lip," Kento muttered. He was seated in the recliner, drinking a can of flat Mountain Dew that had been sitting out on the counter since yesterday afternoon, and munching on some stale Fritos at the same time. He was watching TV on a set so old that it still sat on the floor and was in black and white--even though the only channels that the busted, crooked rabbit ears and tinfoil-covered coat hanger could pick up were the public broadcasting stations, news, game shows and the odd channel here and there, depending on the weather in Canada at the time. Right now it was Jeopardy, and if Kento's mental tally were correct, he'd owe 257 bucks right about now. He wanted to murder Alex Trebek with a sledgehammer.

Sage made a face at Kento's grungy, mismatched socks on the feet that were propped up on the tattered, folding TV dinner tray stand, and curled his lip. "I think it's those socks, Kento. When was the last time you changed them?"

"Hello, mother? It's none of your damned business," he growled.

"Then what is that awful stench?"

"How the hell should I know? Everything around here stinks."

"I wonder why."

"Don't start in on me, Sage," Kento said warningly.

"Alright, alright." The blond put his hands up in defense and looked down at the classifieds. "My bad. You're right. I'll just keep my nausea to myself."

There were a few minutes of peace as Sage went back to scanning the newspaper; a couple of commercials. A double jeopardy round. And finally Sage slammed down the highlighter on the coffee table and stated, "It smells like a rotting animal carcass."

Kento turned his head and practically yelled, "You wanna know what it is? Then look for it!"

Sage jumped to his feet. "That would take me all night! This whole place reeks to high heaven! We're probably attracting every vermin in the city!"

"Will you quit squealing? I'm trying to watch TV!"

"You don't even like Jeopardy!"

"I like it more than listening to you bitch my ear off!"

Sage's mouth opened in shock. "That was totally uncalled for."

"And so were you," Kento retorted, making the blond sit back down in silence at being reminded just how gracious his gruff friend was being with him. It was humbling, but also incredibly annoying--like wearing your shoes on the wrong feet. Sage found it irritating that he was being subdued into silence because he felt in danger of being thrown out . . . And Kento just might do it. He was highly uncultured and uncivilized, but if Sage wanted a roof over his head he was going to have to deal with this for a little while.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, resuming his combing of the classified with perhaps a little bit of desperation in his method.

"No prob," Kento sighed. "Hey, next time you're up, wouldja mind grabbing me a beer from the fish tank over there?" He jerked a thumb toward the narrow bar counter in the kitchen where a 20 gallon tank was set up. There were goldfish and other little creatures swimming about in the murky, greenish water. There were about eight beers lodged in the pebbles at the bottom; a suckerfish was attached to one.

Sage's jaw very nearly hit the dirty, filth-covered floor in horrified awe.

"You may have to pry Georgie offa few cans. He loves alumi-"

"Kento . . ." the terrified young man said very, very slowly. "Why do you keep your beer in the fish tank?"

"Huh? Oh. Well, the fridge runs warm and the freezer doesn't work. I keep frozen food in a cooler under the sink and the rocks in the tank are pretty cold, so I just put my beer in there. Why? You want one, too?"

Sage looked at Kento as if he had gone stomping mad. "NO."

Kento shrugged nonchalantly. "Your loss."

* * *

Sage had looked upon the moment as something gained than lost; a longer, saner, healthier life versus getting some kind of rare, unknown ichthyoidal disease from Kento's disgusting, wormy fish.

Sage never did find out what was making that awful smell, but he resolved to do anything within his grasp –and budget- to be rid of it forever and ever, and so that very weekend he went down to the local herb store and bought (using what little money his parents had given him) a potpourri simmering pot, some Asian spice potpourri, three miniature bonsais to keep himself occupied and of sound mind, and a dozen small potted plants (there was a buy-one-get-one-free sale).

Kento was working all day Saturday so Sage had time to plug in the boiler in the living room and get a nice, almost-fresh smell wafting through the apartment before he came home. Sage also opened every window in the place and put one or two potted plants on each sill, depending on the state of stink the room was in. He put the bonsais in his own room, which he had arranged to his desire and was now the only semi-clean area of the entire apartment.

When Kento came home at eight o'clock that evening to a flat that had most definitely been touched by an angel and was saturated with the odor of ginger, sandalwood and lavender, he raised a fuss and began sneezing fit to shake the apartment complex from its foundation. Rotten old Ms. Oonishi, the irritable old widow that lived a floor down, started shouting about the noise and threw her telephone at the ceiling.

When at last the melee had been calmed, Sage had apologized grudgingly; he hadn't known about Kento's mild allergy to lavender and they had to leave the windows open for two days and wash everything to get the smell out. Kento was incredibly peeved about the entire thing, and the fact that it gave Sage and excuse to clean absolutely every piece of cloth in the place.

When asked about the potted plants and bonsai trees in his room, the blond had replied, "It's to get a good chi flowing through here. There's bad karma all up in this place and I'm trying to get it to mellow out a bit."

Kento had retorted something rather crude and insulting about karma and mellowing out to Sage, but had left him alone nonetheless.

* * *

Since it was indirectly Sage's fault for upsetting Kento's allergies and making him break out in hives and eat Benadryl all of the following day, the indignant apartment owner decided to exact some well-deserved justice on his temporary tenant's ass by not only saddling him with the enormous task of washing everything in the apartment (except for Kento's own clothes), but to get him back for stewing potpourri in his apartment without his permission. Kento hated potpourri even more than doilies and matching living room furniture. He was determined to have his vengeance.

So the next day he managed to buy a few leaves of raw weed from Benji down at the record store, came home, put them in the fragrance cooker and showed Sage just what he thought of "mellowing out the bad karma" in his apartment. It certainly mellowed something out, and it wasn't just the karma. A dose of Mary Jane that size wasn't enough to stone the occupants or make them too high (even Kento shied away from stuff like that), but it certainly made his day to see Sage stumbling around dizzily for about four hours and constantly wondering and asking where he put his belongings.

Kento laughed his ass off for about a week and Sage could never figure out why, or exactly how he woke up at 5 PM the next day dying of thirst, lying on his bed in a pile of spilled Cheetos and wearing all of his clothes backwards.

* * *

Of course, after that incident with attempting to do some good and unwittingly doing some bad, Sage became the unofficial slave at Castle Rei Fuan as a sort of punishment, and if he ever attempted to skip or shirk his duties, Kento was not too far away to remind him that he was letting Sage bunk with him for free. And considering that Kento didn't really have that much grace or courtesy in his entire body, let alone his heart, Sage swallowed his bitter comments and did the tasks without complaint.

However, when one actually considered the tasks, there weren't that many. Kento was the worst housekeeper since the invention of Poor White Trash and he absolutely forbade Sage to clean up any room aside from Sage's own, or touch any of his personal belongings. Kento's excuse was always: "I throw stuff on the floor for a reason, ya know." But he never said why when his snappy roommate requested an excuse.

Kento never actually told Sage to clean up; he only manipulated him by saying how much it cost to live alone these days, and how hard it was to find a place in the crowded city, how lonely it was to be alone and so on and so forth. Even though Kento would be glad to see the compulsive neat freak be gone from his personal space and put an end to the nagging complaints about how he could live in such a deplorable pit of garbage, he enjoyed having someone at home whom he could boss around at will. It was sort of like having a free maid.

But Sage, for all his gratitude toward his friend, did not like playing the part of maid to someone who had no sense of personal hygiene or cleanliness. It was appalling. There was dirty laundry in every room, junk mail, crusty dishes and music catalogues all over the kitchen counter, mountains of dishes in the sink, dirty magazines from the 1970's in the bathroom with the pages slowly decomposing, rotten, stale or otherwise inedible food stocked in the barely-working refrigerator or in the dusty pantry that was home to some sort of furry creature that made quite a racket when the door was opened, and the kitchen sink perpetually filled with fermenting pots and pans hadn't been attended to since Sage had moved in with Kento. There was a thin growth of pond scum along the surface and Sage feared it to be breeding some sort of mutant amphibians; it bubbled oddly from time to time, like something was down in there, especially at night.

To make matters worse, Kento forbade the use of the AC since it ate the electric bill and instead condoned leaving the windows open, where the humid summer heat made the entire house smell sour. It was also unbearably hot most of the time, and the only way to stay cool was to keep clothes stored in the refrigerator. Thus, the fridge took on the odor of a stagnant men's locker room. Neither Sage nor Kento ate anything that had to be refrigerated. And every now and again the toilets would back up because of bad pipes and worser plumbing, and one time Sage caught Kento taking a fourth-story whizz out the bathroom window and promptly had a shit fit.

The bathroom in itself was a particularly revolting item, as Sage grimly discovered one evening when he attempted to take a shower; a shrill screamed pierced the air, followed by the sound of slamming cabinets and several unidentifiable bangs that could have been objects being hurled against a wall at very high velocity. Kento, seated comfortably in his chair and catching up on some women's underwear knowledge from the latest issue of Victoria's Secret, sighed and stood to his feet, walking in the direction of the row.

A door in the hall burst open and Sage, dressed only in a towel about his hips, collided with the wall and was just about to run for his life when he saw Kento standing, looking at him in awe. It was either the lack of clothes on Sage's rather slender, wiry frame that caused the prolonged glance, or the fact that Kento's eyes were blinded by so much white skin, rendering him stupefied.

Kento opened his mouth to speak but Sage cut him off before he could make any comments on the blond's pasty complexion: "That bathroom-" He pointed into the maw of the open doorway. "-is in an incredible state mass decay." He put a trembling hand on his forehead to soothe himself and took a deep breath. "The shower fixture . . . moved by itself, and something in the toilet is making the seat bob like the lid on a pot of boiling water. Kento . . ." Sage gritted his teeth angrily. "Just how long has it been since you've cleaned in there?"

The lad shrugged nonchalantly. "I dunno. Ask the guy that lived here before me."

"KENTO REI FUAN!" came an exasperated shriek, followed by another stabbing indication of the interior of the lavatory. "It looks like a GREENHOUSE in there!"

Kento squirmed uncomfortably, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's probably just the stucco wall finish that makes it look dirty. And being painted brown doesn't help-"

"You idiot!" Sage cried, bare chest heaving. "The walls aren't brown stucco, they're white tile! I spilled some rubbing alcohol the other day and it showed white! That 'brown stucco' is MILDEW, Kento!"

A dumb look settled onto the dark haired young man's face. "Holy shit."

"How do you live like this?"

Kento shrugged. "I only shower every other day. I hardly see it."

Sage's jaw unhinged and stayed that way for several moments while two very large lavender eyes (or one, rather) glared at him in absolute horror. Kento scratched his nose and leaned forward, peeking into the bowels of the bathroom nervously.

"Er, ah . . . Tell ya what. I can pick up a few jugs of Clorox on the way home from work and maybe a few brushes… and you can clean it up if you want."

Sage narrowed his eyes evilly at his roommate. "Clean it up if I want?"

Forty five minutes later

Kento grimaced as he kneeled over the grotesquely putrid toilet, pouring Clorox over the entire seat and scrubbing it with a brush, rubber gloves squeaking loudly. Even through the surgical mask he could smell the foul scent of mold and decay rising up from the murky yellow-brown water of the commode. The Clorox fumes had long ago given him a raging headache, and he turned his head to the side to heave out the breath that he was holding.

"Jesus Christ, Lord in Heaven," Kento stared at the peeling paint on the ceiling and prayed. "Don't let me go unconscious now. My head'll fall into the toilet and I don't wanna die in this cess pit, Lord. No one should go to Heaven after choking on raw sewage."

That was perhaps, for the first time, Kento had actually done any cleaning at the apartment, maybe even since the building had been constructed back in the 60's. He would have made Sage do it but the young man had been so angry and so repulsed (and so naked at the time) that not even his temporary landlord's idle threats could make him toss a drop of Mr. Clean in the lavatory's direction. When all had been said and done, the two things that they had gotten out of this petty argument was a clean bathroom and one less reason for Kento to keep a cattle prod underneath the sink.

* * *

But these times of intense rivalry between the two roommates were not always occurring on a consistent basis; there were also times when the two could put aside their differences and sit down in the evening without bringing up the topic of Kento's housekeeping or Sage's job hunting. Neither was going too well anyway, and they seemed to sense it in that sort of mildly telepathic way that held them connected a long, long time ago, back when they had but one purpose in this world, and that was defending it from evil.

It seemed like someone else's lives, those days. Both of them had almost forgotten how much they had once relied on each other for survival. Now it was different. Now they had the real world to try to get along with, a world where they had to pick up where their lives left off when Talpa came to town. Neither wanted to admit it, but it was a lot harder than it looked, going back to normal after they'd seen the kind of things they had. How could anyone face that sort of horror and trauma and not carry it with them for the rest of their lives? It was impossible. But there was always time. Time healed all wounds, and they secretly prayed together, alongside each other as brothers in arms, that the memories would fade away and let them live their lives again.

Kento was slouched comfortably in what had become his typical post-work resting place in front of the television in the broken, beaten, worn out La-Z-Boy with a half-empty beer in his hand and a paper plate of pizza crusts in his lap that told of the presence of the delivery boy, bringer of food, at the apartment earlier that evening. Sage, who had become somewhat indifferent to the state of the disgusting sofa, was lying across it languidly, gazing at the TV with the same zoned-out, zombie-like lack of expression that was on Kento's face.

Neither was listening to it; they were exhausted. Sage alone had walked nearly five miles on foot in the city today, keeping up with his job applications and being too cheap to take a cab. He wished he would have. His feet were killing him. And Kento had worked overtime and had been at the grindstone since eight o'clock that morning. His feet were killing him, too.

"Is there any pizza left?" he muttered, not breaking his hypnotic gaze with the altar of entertainment.

"I dunno," the blond replied lifelessly.

"Check the box and see."

"Why?"

"'Cause I said so."

Sage lifted himself off the couch with a displeased grunt and walked into the kitchen, opening the pizza box and counting. "Five slices left," he stated and trudged back to the sofa.

"Good," Kento said. "Breakfast tomorrow."

"You eat pizza for breakfast?" Sage inquired disdainfully, letting himself fall onto the sofa.

"Sure. Better than nothin'. It's the most important meal of the day, breakfast."

Neither young man said a word for a while, until a question that had been nagging Sage since he first came to live with his friend made its way to his lips out of idle curiosity: "So . . ." he drawled out slowly. "Where exactly do you work these days?"

"I got two jobs."

"Wow, that's pretty amazing."

"Why? You think I'm retarded or something?"

"No, no," Sage said hastily. "I was just commenting because . . . Well, I'm looking for a job, too. And so far I haven't had much luck." Kento nodded faintly and then a prolonged silence ensured. Finally, Sage found his train of thought again and asked, "So what jobs do you have?"

Kento leaned back lazily and propped a foot up on the coffee table. "Well," he grunted. "You know Hyoushi?" At the blank look on the blond's face, Kento sighed. "Hyoushi 102.9? Radio station? Import punk rock?"

"Hyoushi? You work there?" Sage asked in disbelief.

"I'm sort of like the intern there. Sometimes they let me DJ the songs. Doesn't pay much but it sure as hell beats working a fast food restaurant."

"That's awesome!"

"I know. Lucky break; my cousin's dating the son of one of the big wigs who owns the studio, and she got me set up." Kento took a gulp from his beer. "I also work down at Houshasei, the record store. I get paid better there cos I'm one of the VIPs since I work in cahoots with Hyoushi, and I can always keep them up to date on all the hits and stuff. It's really cool."

Sage folded his arms meditatively in his lap and leaned forward. "So . . . What happened to the restaurant thing?"

"Look, I like food, but I don't like it that much. When you spend over twelve hours a day around food, everything you eat loses its taste. It's like smelling the same rotten smell every day. You get used to it."

Sage nodded. "Which explains why you can stand to live here." He chuckled.

"Hey. Shut up," Kento snorted, but looked as if he were about to grin.

"So you just totally quit the food industry deal?"

"Hell yeah, man. I want a life outside of what my family expects of me. I mean, look at me-" The muscular young man opened his arms wide. "-I'm built like a brick wall and I don't wanna be maintaining this figure for nothing, you know?"

"Ha, maintaining your figure . . ."

"Well, I do. Now. I work out all the time."

"How? Lifting garbage out from under the sink?"

"Hey, that's not my garbage," Kento snapped.

"Then who's is it? It's absolutely decomposed."

"I dunno. Must have been the guy who lived here before me."

"Kento," Sage growled. "When you moved into this apartment, did you do any cleaning at all?"

"No. It was already clean when I got here."

"Then why is there a sack of putrid, rotting refuse underneath the kitchen sink?"

"How in the hell should I know?" Kento cried. "It's not mine. I'm not moving it-"

"The hell you aren't."

"I think you're forgetting whose place this is."

"I think you're forgetting one of the first rules of decent human living."

"God dammit," Kento muttered. "Okay. Okay. I'll throw that fucking trash out the next time I'm in the kitchen."

"You'll throw that fucking trash out now," came the corrected statement.

"Don't tell me what to do in my own home, Datier," the thunderous voice of the Ronin Warrior of rock boomed.

"Okay, okay," Sage said in that high-pitched, I-understand-now-quit-chastising-me tone of voice that every teenager has used with one of their parents before. "You don't have to raise your voice to get your point across."

"Oh really? Whadda ya call ten blonds standing ear to ear?"

Sage scowled and narrowed his eyes at his roommate--he hated blond jokes more than anything and his sisters had tormented him with it as a kid; he rolled his eyes and snapped, "I don't know. What do you call ten blonds standing ear to ear?"

Kento took a gulp from his beer and grinned. "A wind tunnel."

"Was that meant to insult me? Because it didn't."

"Oh really? What did one blond's thigh say to the other?"

Sage didn't answer.

"Between you and me, we could make a lot of money! Ha ha!" Kento laughed.

"Hey, I've got a joke," the insulted young man growled. "What's black, blue and red and lying in a ditch?"

Kento blanked out.

"The son of a bitch who told too many blond jokes."

"Ooh. Hey, that's a pretty good comeback, Sage. I'm proud of you."

"What for?"

"For being a mean old bitch."

"Yeah, you must be rubbing off on me." Sage shot him a grade A sneer.

"Touché, heifer."

"Bite me, douchebag."

"Ha ha ha!"

And this was how time was spent between rounds of arguments over messes, food and anything else that one person did that annoyed the hell out of the other. It wasn't altogether a civil conversation, but when you're talking to Kento you should be grateful for what you get.

* * *

In the days that followed, it came to be increasingly apparent to Sage just how many pairs of torn jeans Kento had in his possession, for it seemed that the paragon of perpetual pestilence never did his laundry but always seemed to have a clean pair of blue jeans lying around . . . Or at least jeans that could have passed for clean. Sage, an almost obsessive cleaner of clothes who was always neurotic about looking his best at even the most informal occasion, was beginning to subconsciously keep track of Kento's outfits.

When one day Kento went to work wearing the same shirt Sage had seen him wearing that weekend and the same khakis that had the smudge of dirt from the weekend before, the persnickety young blond could stand it no more and took it upon himself to do all of the laundry in the entire apartment, including his own. It was as if he worried about the filth from Kento's clothes contaminating his own clean ones.

So one afternoon Sage said to Kento as he prepared to leave for the second shift: "Hey, I'm taking some dirty clothes down to the Laundromat." And he picked up a few stuffed laundry bags. "You want me to take some of your stuff, too?"

"No, that's fine," Kento replied.

"Really? What about all those clothes piled up on your bedroom floor?"

"Those are clean."

"Then why aren't they in drawers?"

"Cos I don't wanna fold 'em."

"So you throw them on the floor?" Sage inquired haughtily. "You'd rather wear wrinkled, stale clothes than take the time to fold them?"

"I don't wear 'em like that," Kento defended himself. "I spray water on 'em and pop them in the microwave for a few seconds. Takes the wrinkles right out. And if you throw in a couple orange peels you get this really fresh scent like a new car." He beamed.

Sage stared at him as if he had gone completely insane. "That's absolutely disgusting, Kento."

"Yeah, well, screw you." He glanced at his watch. "Crap. I've gotta run if I wanna get to work on time. I'm outta here." He grabbed his shoulder pack and trotted to the door. He put his hand on the knob, paused and looked over his shoulder. "And don't touch anything in here while I'm gone, capisca?"

"Si, Godfather," Sage muttered.

Kento nodded and the door closed behind him. Sage waited until he heard the footsteps disappear and looked around the apartment. "This shit isn't going to happen as long as I'm here. Something has to change right now," he stated, shouldering the huge sack of dirty laundry. "And it's going to start as soon as I get back."

* * *

And it did, indeed. Totally disregarding his job scouting for the rest of the day, Sage bounced between the apartment and the laundromat, the grocery store, the local shopping mart, and the curb where he ended up filling eight whole garbage cans with either useless junk or rotting refuse from Kento's flat. He cleaned the whole place inside out with a fine-toothed comb and left not a single corner unattended to.

When he had finished at 9:37 that night, Sage was exhausted. He barely managed to drag himself into the shower, rinse off the dust and grime from his archaeological excavation of the bowels of Kento's room, and collapse on his futon to sleep for a few days.

Kento trudged wearily through the door of his apartment at exactly 12:07 AM and didn't even bother to turn the lights on, tossing his coat on the nearest piece of furniture before stumbling over the second nearest piece of furniture, ricocheting off of the third nearest piece of furniture, barking his shins on the fourth nearest piece of furniture before stumbling back and cracking what he thought were three of his toes off on that second piece of furniture; he then grabbed his aching foot and fell backwards onto the third nearest piece of furniture -which happened to be the frail and shaky coffee table- and broke one of the legs off.

As he sat on the floor in the dark with a broken coffee table leg at his side, head spinning and back hurting and the three crunched toes of his foot screaming, he couldn't help but mutter out loud: "When in the fuck did I get so much furniture?"

But it was late enough and Kento was tired enough that he really didn't care about anything else besides going to bed. After the pain resided and he had propped the leg back up underneath the coffee table for a temporary support, he picked himself up and limped down the hall to his room. The thought didn't even occur to him that the furniture had been rearranged at all.

He entered his bedroom lazily and clicked on the lights, then stopped in his tracks and stared for a while, thinking he must have somehow walked into Sage's room or something; he could actually see the floor. It was wood, a nice rich color of wood, too. It was shiny and clean, as if it had just been swept and polished. It was like a new floor. Kento realized he had never known what a nice floor was underneath all his dirty laundry.

After the initial shock faded away, his eyes drifted to his bed. Neatly made. Covers tucked under the pillows and folded over the tops. He strode to the bed and threw back the sheets, all three of them. There was a mattress cover, clean. Looked as if it had been bleached and ironed. It was the whitest piece of cloth Kento had ever seen in months. And his pillows, they had cases on them and were fluffed up. Everything had been washed and smoothed with precision.

Kento became aware of his entire room and felt dizzy: his cassette tapes that once covered the whole surface of his desk were now neatly organised and all in their cases. CDs were all in their tower in the corner, organized alphabetically. His MAD magazines were stacked on his bookshelf, which had been dusted and reorganized into perfect order.

Kento threw his closet door open and gasped. He never realized it was so big. His shoes were no longer scattered on the floor. There was no junk piled up the wall. His clothes looked like they'd been cleaned and starched and they smelled of those dryer sheets that Sage had bought. His closet smelled like Sage. The blond's telltale scent had permeated even Kento's sacred dresser where he kept his boxers and underwear and all his lucky socks and ratty, pit-stained wife beaters and yellowed shirts.

He pulled open the drawers and stared inside. Sage had washed his lucky socks. And his shirts. And his tanks and jogs and crusty whitie tighties . . . He had ruined them all. They were completely worthless. Years of lovely, lucky filth and grime were now washed away.

Kento couldn't think straight. He was at a complete and total loss. He wanted to hug and strangle Sage at the same time. But right now . . . He glanced over at his bed. His bed. A bed he couldn't believe was actually his. It looked like something out of a furniture commercial or off the cover of interior home design--he walked toward it and stared at it for the longest time. Pillows that fluffy, sheets that clean, that wonderful Sage-ish scent that was suddenly the greatest smell in the world . . .

Kento let himself fall onto the bed face-first, and the next second he was on cloud nine, seventh heaven, taking a tour of dreamland. Tomorrow he was going to kick Sage's ass for touching his stuff but for tonight . . . he was going to saw some logs like an over-caffeinated lumberjack.

* * *

It was very quiet and peaceful at the apartment that night, its two occupants sleeping like the dead on crack. The morning was surprisingly peaceful as well: since Kento didn't have to work until later that night he ended up sleeping until lunchtime and waking up to find Sage gone.

So Kento dragged himself reluctantly from his bed –and the best night's sleep he thought he'd had in years- and examined the drastically altered premises of his abode in the daylight. Every room was immaculate and could pass the white glove inspection, and all of the useless junk that Kento had been too lazy to discard was gone.

The kitchen was mind staggering. There was actually food in the cabinets and in the fridge, which suddenly seemed to be working better than it had been. The freezer was actually cold enough to keep ice cubes in a solid state once more, and Kento began to think twice about giving Sage a piece of his mind. Of course, when he saw that the only thing available to drink was bottled water and much of the edibles were what he would regard as "health food" (being anything not marked by the Frito-Lay or Hostess logos), he reconsidered that thought and settled on at least a stout session of verbal abuse.

After eating nearly an entire box of cereal for lunch, watching TV for a few hours and then dragging himself into the shower, Kento dressed in some of his freshly laundered clothes –perhaps a little too clean for comfort- and left for work.

Later that evening when he returned, Sage was waiting for him in the living room with the accusations ready: "When did you break the coffee table?" And he held up the severed leg of the aforementioned third nearest piece of furniture. "Was it last night?"

Kento feigned shock and tossed his knapsack on the sofa. "Sage! You broke my table, didn't you!?"

The blond narrowed his eye and gave his roommate a look that all but said aloud: go to hell I'm not buying it. Kento saw the look and tried to shrug helplessly. "You should tell me when you move the furniture. I nearly killed myself last night."

" . . . Kento, there's this great invention that you've probably never heard about, and it's called electricity. We use it for lighting rooms and even alien tools known as vacuum cleaners."

"Your sarcasm is like a sharp stick in my testicles," he couldn't help but say with a superior grin. Then he actually looked at Sage, and what he was wearing. "Aw, damn, dude. Whaddija spill all over your pants? It looks like piss from an infected urinary tract."

Sage's nostrils flared in his attempt to remain composed. "I was drinking a cup of flaming. Hot. Tea. In the living room here," he said between clenched teeth. "When suddenly the table upon which my cup had been resting at the time gave way because of this." He held up the dismembered limb. "I would very much like to skewer your testicles with a sharp stick for being indirectly responsible for my infertility."

"What?"

"When that screaming hot tea fell into my lap, it boiled my sperm alive."

Kento erupted with laughter, making Sage even angrier than before. "It's not funny!" he cried. "I could feel them dying! I heard them scream! My genitals look like the shellfish in the fry vat at Red Lobster!"

Kento was bent over with his arms wrapped around his waist, face red from roaring with laughter and gasping for breath. "Oh my God! Oh my God! Stop! I'm going to have a heart attack!"

"And I hope you do!" Sage screamed. "I want justice! An eye for an eye!"

"And a nad for a nad!" the larger young man panted between guffaws. "Why don't you kick me in the balls!" He abruptly stopped and went serious. "Seriously. Don't do it. I'll kill you."

"Don't worry. My foot would never forgive me."

"You suck, ya know that?" Kento said cheerfully, walking toward the kitchen.

"Oh, I know," Sage sneered, crossing his arms. "That's why while you were at work, I took the liberty of mending all the holes in your pants. All ten pairs."

Kento stopped in his steps and slowly turned around. "You did . . . what?"

"I'm quite spry with a needle and thread," the young man commented airily. "After all, my mother taught me how to mend the rips in all those hand-me-down dresses I got from my sister. Oh, but don't worry. I used the finest red-checkered tablecloths they had to offer. Quite fashionable really, especially in the knees where most of the holes were. I couldn't find matching thread so I just used bright yellow instead." He smiled brightly. "It looks much better than that grunge look you were going for. Now you give off the aura of a happy circus clown. I'm certain you'll enjoy them greatly."

All during this speech, Kento's eyes had increased in size by inches and his face had gone through an entire spectrum of colors. With one large, dark eyebrow twitching dangerously, he strode over to Sage and whispered, "You. Did. What?"

The golden haired lad brushed passed him indifferently and picked up a home owners catalogue from the kitchen counter. "Stop making such a big fuss. I'm only kidding."

Kento sighed.

"About being a good seamstress."

Kento's face vaulted.

"Yeah, I can't sew for shit. But the patches should be easy to remove . . . with some clipping shears or a lit match."

"Alright, that does it," Kento stated, pointing a finger at Sage. "You are never to do my laundry again. EVER. Don't touch my personal stuff. You know what you did? You totally ruined my lucky socks and underwear. You invaded my privacy and took my things without asking and cleaned them! Would you like me to do that to something of yours?"

Lavender-blue eyes went dewy and soft, blinking sweetly. "But schnookums, my stuff isn't crawling with roaches."

"What if I went and took your precious pantaloons and tied them to the back of my moped and rode through wet cement and freshly paved asphalt, huh!?"

"You don't even have a moped!" Sage snapped.

"Well if I did, I'd sure as hell be doing that right now!"

"Those underwear were becoming a health hazard, Kento. You're lucky I didn't throw them in the garbage."

"I wish you would have!" he shouted. "At least then I could go dig them out of the bins before garbage day!"

"You're insane!"

"And then they'd be even luckier cos they faced certain destruction-" He jabbed a finger towards the Big Bag Datier. "-but were rescued by me! Don't you appreciate anything?"

"Don't you talk to me about appreciation!" Sage snarled. "I appreciate decent things, clean things, things that haven't been sitting on the floor of your closet and breeding life at such an advanced rate of evolution that in another month they'd be formulating twelfth dimension mathematics!"

"You don't understand!"

"I do understand! You would be happy living as a complete slob if you could! You're twenty years old, Kento! I shouldn't have to be your mommy and do your laundry for you, or clean your room and do the dishes-"

"And God knows I never asked you to!"

"-but you're a grown adult now and you should be able to at least take care of yourself. Your days living like a disgusting teenager are over. It's time to get with the program and take some responsibility. The way you live now will reflect the way you live the rest of your life and I hope to God you make some changes soon before you catch tuberculosis or the Black Death!"

"Ha!" Kento laughed scornfully. "Who needs a disease when I've got you around, huh?"

Sage fairly tossed his catalog to the floor and turned around to face Kento with one hand on his hip. "Alright, look," he stated angrily. "Since you're obviously never going to live down the fact that I cleaned your filthy clothes when your own mother wouldn't, you could at least tell me what I need to do in order to get your pissy little grudge off of my shoulders."

"Grudge? What grudge?" Kento snapped. "I don't hold grudges. I'm just fucking mad is all-"

"And what do you want me to do about that?!" Sage yelled loudly. "Get on my hands and knees and beg for forgiveness?"

"Actually, yeah."

"Over my dead body, Kento! Get a clue, will you? This is the real world here, and you need to put up or shut up because real life is full of shit like this and you can't go around hating people for trying to do you favors!"

Kento went quiet for a moment before slowly striding over to Sage and leaning close to his face. "Put up or shut up, right?"

Sage nodded.

"I'll do it if you will. That means no more of your bitching about my mess or how I live in it, got it? No more whining and complaining about my apartment, cos you sure as hell don't have to be here right now if you don't want to."

"I'm here because I have no other choice," came a soft reply, and for a moment, Kento's expression relaxed into one of melancholy sadness.

"Me too," he said, and stepped away.

And the conversation was dropped at that.

* * *

They didn't talk to each other for a while afterwards. Routine ensued with frightening normality: Kento went to work while Sage looked for work and they each came home at night feeling somehow unfulfilled. Kento was very tempted to put in a request for working the graveyard shift just so he wouldn't have to be near Sage any longer than the few moments each day that they actually saw each other, but the fact was that he worked during the day at the record store and there was no way in hell he was going to forgo sleeping time just to stay away from his obnoxious tenant.

Sitting in the same room together was difficult, and sharing a bathroom was unbearable. Sage would have liked to go through Kento's personal belongings to find Ryo's number as he was the only one still in town, but he didn't want to catch any lip from Kento about touching his stuff and he certainly didn't want to leave without teaching him a lesson.

This daily enduro spent with each other became a sort of contest of wills. Each day the two bunkmates challenged each other in either subliminal or palpable ways and only one emerged as the victor. However, the defeated would always rise to his feet and strike out again, trying to even the score. It was like The Clash of the Twenty-Something Titans. It slowly became the whole reason Sage stayed with Kento, and the only reason Kento didn't throw Sage out in the streets. They had to see who won the final battle and who would be forced to change his ways.

Oftentimes these encounters competing for dominance of the household became quite violent and aggressive, depending on who had a worser day than the other. Take for instance the brief but savage confrontation that occurred when Kento walked into the living room one evening to find Sage seated comfortably in the recliner reserved for the man of the house . . . or at least the owner.

The blond was watching TV when Kento walked up and leaned on the back of the recliner coolly and said, "You do know that's my chair you're sitting in, right?"

"I didn't see your name on it," Sage replied, not even breaking his gaze from the television.

"Get your scrawny, skinny ass up outta my chair, heifer. NOW."

"My scrawny, skinny ass is staying right here."

Kento set his jaw, stooped down behind the recliner, and with a grunt of exertion, neatly lifted the entire thing –Sage and all- off of the floor.

"Woah!" the young man shrieked, digging his fingers into the arms to steady himself. "Put me down! How are you doing that!? Stop it!"

But before he could put up any more protest, Kento tipped the chair forward and Sage's bottom slid out from underneath him, sending him crashing down onto the floor and banging his ribs against the coffee table. With his seat vacated, Kento primly set the chair back on the floor and plopped down comfortably in it, one leg draped over the arm casually.

Sage glared at him in shock and anger before stuttering, "Y-you appalling bastard!"

Kento grinned and rolled his eyes, putting a finger to his forehead. "Chalk one more point for Hardrock."

"That's funny. I thought you needed a brain to keep a mental note of things."

"Go fuck yourself, Datier."

"Would you like to help me?" Sage shot back with a poisonous smirk. "I could always use an extra hand."

Kento's eyebrows arched high up onto his forehead and he said simply, "Get the hell out of here."

"Damn . . . idiotic . . . lousy . . ." came the grumbles and utterings as the defeated young man pulled himself to his feet and stomped back to his bedroom, slamming the door loudly.

Kento sighed happily in triumph and stretched his arms upward, grinning and folding them behind his head as he changed the channel to Gilligan's Island. Suddenly, a great racket came blasting from behind Sage's door in the form of one Billy Ray Cyrus garbling out the lyrics to "Achy Breaky Heart". Kento shot bolt upright out of his chair and on his feet, and was pounding down the hall to the room at the end, face twisted into an expression of implacable loathing. He didn't even knock--he just slammed the door open and stood in the threshold like some dark, wrathful god.

Sage, lying on his stomach, sprawled out on the bed, glanced up casually and shot Kento a smug look before going back to reading his magazine… while wearing industrial strength earplugs.

"DON'T TELL MUH HEART, MUH ACHY BREAKY HEART!" Billy Ray's voice came from the radio, set on ultra bass and the volume knob turned all the way to the right, under the big, bold, red letters labeled max. Kento could feel his internal organs vibrating with each beat. "I JUST DON'T THANK HE'D UNDERSTA-EEND! AND IF YOU TELL MUH HEART, MUH ACHY BREAKY-"

"Turn this fucking shit off NOW, Datier!" he attempted to roar over the deafening twang of country music. Sage ignored him easily; the earplugs were doing wonders for his nerves already. "Sage!" Kento screamed again. "I said turn it off, mother fucker! I'll break that whole fucking stereo! . . . Wait a second. That looks like my stereo. You son of a-!"

The blond lifted his head just in time to see a shadow fall over his body before Kento came crashing down onto him, something –a spring or a beam- popping incredibly loudly as the combined weight of the two rowdy roommates slammed down on the thin mattress.

Kento instantly pinned Sage down on his stomach and tried to twist his arm behind his back, but the slender lad kicked his long legs out and pounded both of his heels into the larger lad's back with such a force that it knocked him forward and down. Kento's nose hit the back of Sage's head so hard that the earplugs went flying out like corks from champagne bottles, and there was a dull pop before blood was suddenly everywhere, and Sage was shouting blue hell from the pain of the blow.

There came the bellow of what could have been a very large, irate grizzly bear before Sage was body-slammed completely off the bed and onto the floor, where he rolled backwards and knocked his head against the dresser so hard that for a few moments all he could see was stars. The stereo atop the dresser wobbled precariously, cassette tapes raining down all around Sage, but the obnoxious Billy Ray song kept playing.

Sage felt something warm and wet on the side of his head and rubbed a hand over it, pulling it back to see it streaked with crimson. He looked up from his hand and saw Kento standing on his feet, hands, shirt, jeans all covered with blood and looking like an insane Jack Nicholson from The Shining.

"Kento, you're bleeding."

There was a pause as his roommate thundered, "NO SHIT, SAGEY!"

"Don't call me Sagey," Sage said darkly.

"Sagey Sagey Sagey Sagey," Kento taunted.

"You are acting ridiculous."

"You look ridiculous."

"Says the moron with blood gushing out of his face, saying 'Sagey Sagey Sagey' over and over again."

"You're about as funny as having hemorrhoids on your balls."

"And you're as ugly as those hemorrhoids on your balls!"

"Hey," Kento growled. "I don't have hemorrhoids on my balls. I was talking about your balls."

"Well, your grammar is so atrocious I'll bet there are gorillas that can speak better sentences than you!"

Kento's lips tightened and his face went from pink to scarlet to purple in a matter of seconds. When Sage saw that vein in his forehead twitching, he sprang to his feet just as there was a window-shattering scream of: "SAAAAAAAAGE!" and Kento came barreling toward his roommate in a perfect fury. The blond was off like a shot, certain that if Kento caught him he would assuredly be put into the emergency room.

The two young men plowed through the apartment, chased each other around the kitchen table, knocked over a few of the potted plants and upset the fish tank, scattered magazines and newspapers and TV guides off of the coffee table (which was still broken, by the way) before nearly ripping the apartment door off the hinges when they stampeded through it. Kento chased Sage down four flights of stairs, out back behind the apartment complex where they both tripped over garbage cans and broke the gate on the chain link fence. Then they trampled through the apartment building again, engaged in an elevator race that lasted nearly twenty five minutes and were just restarting lap two down the fire escapes when they both crashed into the landlord who was just on her way out for the evening.

It would have been disastrous if it weren't for Sage's quick thinking . . . Well, that and his incredible ass-kissing courtesy, his good looks, undeniable charm and suave nature that instantly had the landlord almost apologizing to them for not watching where she was going. Kento gaped during the whole thing, for Mrs. Hara was a notorious witch with a heart made of ice and stone--but she actually smiled at him and commented to Kento as she left that it would do him good to learn something from that angelic young man.

"Man, how did you do that?" he whispered to Sage when Mrs. Hara was out of earshot.

Courtesy incarnate shrugged lightly. "I just told her what she wanted to hear. You can sense it in people if you really try. It's what courtesy is all about; connecting with people and obliging them with a humble attitude."

Kento shook his head in wonder. "I've never seen Hara smile before in all the time I've been living here. Whatever you did, it was amazing."

Sage looked at him for a moment and then smiled. "I'm surprised she didn't say anything about the blood all over you."

Kento blinked as if he had forgotten and looked down at his shirt. ". . . Whoa. I totally forgot about that."

Sage looked about uneasily. "Well, ah, if we go back to the apartment and get your clothes under some cold water, I can get those stains right out with a little bit of laundry detergent powder-" A large hand suddenly smacked the blond across his face, cutting off his sentence abruptly; his cheek stung from the blow and turned pink, and he glared at Kento angrily.

"That was for making me bleed," the dark haired young man uttered.

"Hmph. Well," Sage said haughtily. "That was certainly no slap. I've felt sneezes with more force than-"

A second strike came and planted itself on the other cheek, leaving Sage with a hand-shaped red print on either side of his face. His eyes stung with tears and he sniveled, "That hurt!"

Kento shrugged. "The one mark threw your face off-balance, so I gave you another one to match."

* * *

After the escapade of Sage Datier the Demon-Landlord-Charmer, Kento began to see his oft-annoying and yet irresistibly whimsical roommate in a whole new light . . . Or maybe it was just the fact that Sage had gone around and replaced all the blown light bulbs in the apartment a few days before. Either way, the sturdy, gruff Ronin began to develop what could have been a single shred of respect for Sage, which contributed much for prolonging his stay.

However, Sage's cleaning habits became at times something that even an obsessive-compulsive mother of six that was strung out on caffeine would not be able to keep up with; his response to any sort of clutter or mess was urgent, immediate action: he would literally drop whatever he was doing and solemnly deal with the offending scene until it was no more. Part of his "a clean house is a pure spirit" mantra he lived by.

Kento didn't know how Sage managed to stay mentally fit, unless he had already lost his mind years ago, which Kento imagined trimming miniature plants as a hobby would do to somebody. When he looked at his friend, Kento couldn't help but see the most hopeless, pathetic girly-man he had ever known, and not saying that to Sage's face took a hell of a lot of will power, especially when the blond was being overly persnickety and griping about Kento's piquant for slovenly living.

But Sage had no real hobbies outside of kendo and trimming trees, which was probably the reason for his fixation upon cleanliness; he had nothing else to do. His idea of a roaring fun time was playing that obnoxious shakuhachi of his that drove Kento crazy, and drinking tea with two teaspoons of sugar instead of one. He relaxed by hours of silent meditation or performing strange yoga-like stretches that he had once told a dubious Kento helped him form a better circulation of positive chi in his being. Kento promptly called him a fucking lunatic and left him alone for fear of weirdness being contagious. And aside from that, Sage's life was dull as dishwater.

Kento began to pity Sage when he saw him reading the latest issue of Humble Living: Interior Decorating for the Spiritual Guru and took it upon himself to show Sage the benefits of abandoning responsibility and taking time out to enjoy life.

"You know what your problem is, Sage?" he asked, snatching the magazine out of his hands and tossing it to the floor, where the blond twitched, anxious to pick it up. "Forget about the magazine. You can pick it up and count the pages later. Okay, are you listening to me? Good. Alright . . . Look, Sage. You're always putting every little thing before yourself, and that's not healthy. You're not selfish enough, and that's an undeniable human trait that keeps us all alive. It's like an instinct for self-preservation. You've got to learn the benefits of 'me time'."

"What's 'me time'?" Sage inquired.

Kento stared. "Jesus, do I really have to explain it? Okay, you see that mess in the kitchen?" He pointed to the cluttered counter top.

"What?" Sage cried, turning around in panic. "There's a mess in there? I've got to-"

"LEAVE IT THERE. Forget all about it. It can wait. Dress in some jogs and a favorite beat up, worn out shirt."

"I don't think I have one of those-"

"Then you can borrow one of mine, now let me finish: forget about your hair. Don't bother combing it or putting mousse in it. You're not trying to impress anyone, so chill out. Grab a couple pillows and blankets, make a nest on the sofa, pop in a Tales From the Crypt marathon and order Chinese takeout."

"So basically you're telling me to be irresponsible and lazy, right?"

"No, no, no, no. I like to think of it as," Kento cocked his head to one side and shrugged. "Necessary unproductivity."

"Wow. I'm impressed. Two big words in a row."

"Shut the hell up."

"Make me."

"You're getting better," Kento grinned, and Sage made an angry face. "Don't worry. I don't think it's terminal. There might just be a cure for your selfless courtesy, Sagey."

"Don't call me Sagey," the blond glowered.

"Okay, heifer."

Sage narrowed one lavender eye and set his jaw. "You know what, Kento? I never realized what a STARK, UNBELIEVABLE difference there is between you and I."

Kento locked his hands behind his head and rolled his eyes. "Thank God."

"In fact, I took the liberty of writing down a list of our differences."

"You what?"

Sage pulled a neatly folded piece of paper from his back pocket and opened it, clearing his throat. "Ahem. I am a mannered, tempered, courteous, cleanly, socially refined, humble person whom enjoys bathing on a regular basis, following the rules, smelling nice and keeping a clean home." He paused and glared at Kento. "While YOU, on the other hand, are a crude, slovenly, morally-debased-"

Kento's jaw dropped.

"-rude, unclean, unkempt, unskilled-"

Eyes flew wide open in disbelief.

"-hot tempered, arrogant, ill-mannered, foulest of foul creatures who delights in anarchy and chaos and wallows gleefully in his own revolting filth-"

A fist flew out and caught Sage right in the mouth, sending the blond reeling completely out of his seat on the sofa, rolling down onto the floor and crawling dizzily to his feet. Kento rubbed his smarting fist. "You deserved that and you know it."

When at last Sage oriented himself, he reached up and gingerly touched his bleeding lip, glaring at Kento with a stunned expression. "You dumb bastard!" he cried before launching himself at the larger lad, sending them both sprawling onto the couch and tipping it over backwards, where it bumped the end table and sent a vase crashing to the floor. "That really hurt!" Sage screamed.

A rain of blows fell down upon Kento's sturdy forearms as he used them to block his face from harm. He didn't even bother trying to fight back; he knew from the moment his knuckles impacted Sage's kisser that he was going to get whatever he deserved, which was, for the moment, not exactly up to par. Sage wasn't even using his full strength, and Kento saw why: he was using most of it to hold back the violent tears in danger of being released.

"You mother fucker!" he was choking, blood running down his chin. "Why'd you have to do that, you dumb fuck! Why'd you have to hit me so hard!?" The blows got weaker and weaker until they finally stopped altogether, and Sage was left weeping silently on top of Kento on an overturned couch.

Kento couldn't restrain his sarcastic mouth from commenting, "I hope you aren't going to do this every time you get hit in a kendo match."

Puffy red eyes looked up and seemed to smile for a split second, then Sage gave a weak strike to Kento's ribs. "Idiot! You don't bleed when you're hit in kendo!"

"Um, I didn't quite understand that last sentence. Your busted lip is making you talk funny."

Sage roared and the violent, reckless assault began again. Kento laughed out loud. "Fuck you!" the blond cried and picked himself off of his foe. "Fuck the hell out of you, Kento Rei Fuan!"

"Anytime, baby!"

And then Sage stormed off angrily to tend his wounds, but more so, his wounded pride.

Kento sat up and his grin faded slowly when he realized that this was the first time he had ever intentionally struck Sage. Why, the only occasion he had ever fought him was-

An involuntary flashback slowly crept into Kento's mind, and memories he had been trying so hard to forget for so many years came flooding back to him. Their first fight against Talpa. They'd been kids back then. They had been looking for Rowen after Talpa had scattered them across the land, and Dais had created an illusion where Sage appeared as the enemy, and Kento as the same. The two had fought each other savagely, but only Sage had the strength and wisdom to see through the façade of Dais' illusion and throw down his sword.

But Kento . . . All he could think about was fighting, and by the time he had realized he'd been tricked, Sage was one step away from legally dead. He had nearly killed Sage. But he didn't know . . .

I didn't know. Kento rested his forehead in his hand, rubbing as if the memory were causing a painful ache. And because I didn't know, I nearly killed him . . . and he wouldn't be here now. No laughing, no cleaning, no listening to that damn shaku- whatchamajigger keeping me awake. He wouldn't be here.

Kento absently rubbed his chest, feeling that same emptiness he had felt when he had gathered his unconscious and half-dead companion into his arms and let tears –the tears of a stone- fall. And words came whispering back to him and found their way upon Kento's lips, the same ones he had spoken so long ago: "I've gotta look before I leap . . . I owe it to ya."

The guilt from that incident had haunted him for weeks, making his life nearly unbearable. As the memory receded from his mind, Kento swallowed down the knot in his throat and heaved a burdened sigh. Then he picked himself up and went to find Sage.

* * *

The blond was in the bathroom, leaning over the sink, cleaning his bloody mouth while his stain-covered shirt lay in a shapeless heap on the toilet lid; Kento appeared in the doorway, his stance meek and apologetic. Sage saw the reflection and muttered stoically, "Nice job you did. I certainly won't be opening my mouth properly for a week."

"Sorry," Kento mumbled softly, stepping into the bathroom. "Here, let me take a look . . ."

"Like hell, you gloating bastard," came the vicious reply, followed by the turning of one cold, bare shoulder outward.

"Dammit, Sage. I'm trying to help."

"Yeah, well, you've done enough for one night."

"Listen." He took his friend by the shoulders and turned him around. "I'm the oldest of five siblings-"

"Eldest."

"-and I know how to doctor up busted kids all the time."

"You bust up your siblings?"

Kento grinned. "Only if they deserve it. C'mon, lemme have a look there."

Sage stood still with his eyes to the ceiling as Kento gently touched Sage's lips and turned his head toward the light with a strange gentleness that contradicted the violence of the wound that he himself had inflicted on his roommate.

"Yow. Definitely not my best work," he commented, wincing. "But the skin broke mostly on the outside so you won't have to swish with salt all the time. The human mouth is really filled with all sorts of germs and . . . stuff . . ."

He trailed off, running his thumb gently along Sage's bottom lip in contemplative examination. Judging by the size of the wound, it was hard to imagine so much blood came from something so small; it looked as if the Sage's lower left canine had caught his lip when Kento's fist impacted, ripping the soft inner flesh of his mouth in a tiny slit that arched over the curve of his lip. It would probably be more annoying to bear than painful.

"Gotta washcloth?"

"Yeah, right here," Sage said, handing the warm, damp rag to him.

"You were using hot water?"

"Yeah. Sterilize the-"

"You should use cold. Warmth increases blood flow. Makes it bleed more."

"Well, pardon me, Doctor Quinn," the swordsman replied tartly, rolling his eyes. But Kento wasn't listening, busy soaking the cloth in ice cold water and wringing it out.

"Okay. Be still." He applied the rag to Sage's lip. "Hold it there."

"Alright." The cold cloth felt better than the hot one, Sage realized. Much better.

"Where's your toothpaste?"

"Huh?"

"Toothpaste."

"In the drawer."

Kento pulled out a tube of Crest and squeezed a dollop onto his finger, turning to Sage and looking him right in the eyes. For a moment, Sage felt himself staring back and unable to tear his eyes away. The expression on Kento's face, thick brows knitted in concern and dark bangs falling against his eyelashes, the corners of his mouth turned downward in seriousness . . . In his eyes, the way he looked so concerned, so sorry, so willing to make amends . . . All of these elements combined made him shimmer with beautiful splendor for a fraction of a second, and in that fraction everything was fought, forgiven and forgotten.

Kento smeared the toothpaste across Sage's lip quite suddenly and pulled away, becoming clear to them both how close together they had been standing; why, Sage was practically leaning backwards over the counter top. And at the realization of this, nothing could be done to cover the identical waves of crimson on both their faces.

"Uh, leave it on there for a while," Kento mumbled, averting his eyes and putting a healthy distance between them. "It protects the cut while letting it air out. It dries up after a while and gets crusty, then you just brush it off and it kinda leaves a nice, clean scab so it . . . can heal faster."

"Thanks," Sage murmured.

"Um . . ." The young man turned murky blue eyes to his comrade briefly and shrugged. "Yeah. Whatever, ya know."

An awkward silence fell between them but before Kento could turn to leave, Sage's voice timidly spoke up: "Um . . . Remember that time in the kitchen," he said uneasily. "When I said I couldn't leave here because I had no other choice, and you said the same thing . . . Well, you never told why."

"Why what?"

"Why you have no other choice but to be here."

Kento sighed heavily and stared at the sink faucet behind Sage, not saying anything for a long while his audience waited patiently. Finally, he spoke: "When I told my folks that I didn't want to be a part of the family business anymore they got real mad at me and gave me this huge lecture about family tradition and how grateful I should be for having such a 'wonderful' job. We shouted back and forth for a few days before I finally just got sick of it and told them I was moving out. That . . . Man, that really set them off. Can't remember the last time I fought so bad with my folks. Anyway, they told me I didn't have to move out because they were kicking me out."

"Oh my God," Sage murmured, eyes going wide. "That's awful."

"I know. But I was so mad . . . I packed up my things and stayed with Cye for about a week until I got my job and my own flat. This all happened a couple months ago. I haven't seen or talked to my parents since."

Kento was startled by a warm, gentle hand on his arm, and he looked up to see Sage leaning over, visible lavender eye filled with concern and his golden brows knitted into a fretful arch. "You need to talk to them, Kento," came the equally gentle voice. "Fate has a strange way of making us realize how foolish it is to hold grudges against the people who gave us life. And sometimes fate can be cruel in those measures."

"What do you mean?"

The blond took a deep breath. "What if your parents were coming home this evening and some crazy person ran a red light? What if they were in a terrible accident and both died? How would you feel?"

Kento's lips parted slowly at his friend's words, face becoming agitated. "I . . . I don't know what I'd . . . I wouldn't be able to live with myself if . . ."

"It could happen," Sage said. "So you see how important it is to forgive? How we shouldn't hold grudges for so long because something will happen to make us regret it?"

Kento was dead silent for about two whole minutes. Then he came back to reality and hustled out of the lavatory, saying, "I've gotta call Mom." And he dashed to the phone in the living room.

Sage reached down and picked his shirt up off the lid of the toilet, listened momentarily to the faint button tones being pushed and Kento saying: "Hello? Rinny? . . . Naw duh, it's the Boogeyman. Of course it's your brother. Is mom or dad around? I've really gotta talk to them . . . I don't care if they're asleep, wake 'em up. This is really important . . ." And as Sage left the bathroom and walked down the hall to his room, he couldn't conceal the bright smile shining warmly through.

* * *

Naturally, these times of brief connection and learning between each other were few and far between; still, it did not mean that those lessons went unlearned, for later that same week Kento spotted Sage lounging comfortably in front of the television. When asked what he had done that day, Sage replied smoothly, "Nothing. I took the day off."

And it was times like those that Kento actually regretted his eager endorsement of relaxation.

Time seemed to pass without their realization. June turned to July and July slowly began to fade into August. Sage showed no signs of progress in getting a job, and the both of them were beginning to worry about his longer-than-intended stay becoming something much more unappealing . . . And permanent. Although Kento's apartment could easily accommodate two people, it was just one person too many for Kento, especially when that person was Sage. For all the times they'd helped each other, for all the times they'd cried and bled and come to each other's aid, it meant nothing when faced with the task of living under the same roof together. All of it was forgotten in one misdemeanor or one smart-mouthed comment. Herein lay the true test of friendship, right in that very apartment. There's a saying: that which does not kill me only makes me stronger; if they could survive living together, they could surely survive anything.

A clock seemed to be ticking down, becoming louder the longer Sage stayed with Kento. It was the clock of a time bomb set to go off at any moment, and as the arguments over petty matters began to increase, so did the chances of triggering that bomb and unleashing all hell across the land (i.e. that cataclysmic, apocalyptic calamity mentioned at the beginning of this story).

Well, it was only a matter of time before a fight over the TV remote control -perhaps the most prized, sacred and coveted object in the entire apartment- took place, and it turned out that such a simple thing like that was the flick of the switch that set the timer to zero.

The scene: the living room.

The time: 9:19 PM.

The cast: Sage Datier, perfectionist neatnik, dressed casually in faded, comfortable jeans and a button shirt, lying on the sofa and alternating between the television and the classifieds. Kento Rei Fuan, lounge lizard extraordinaire, clad in jogs and a tank, seated upon his naugahyde throne, watching TV.

Action.

"Hey, heifer. Throw me the remote."

Sage scowled and looked over at the coffee table where the remote sat, far beyond Kento's arm reach and even farther beyond Sage's. "Hey, horse dick. Get it yourself," the blond retorted.

Kento griped lazily, "Just sit up, pick it up and toss it to me."

"Just sit up, pick it up and kiss my ass."

"What the fuck is your problem, man? You don't have to be all bitchy with me."

"You're my problem, 'man'," Sage snapped viciously, tossing his newspaper to the side and glaring at Kento. "I'm trying to find a job so that I can get the hell out of here, and I don't have time to do that when I spend the entire day cleaning up after you like a maid. You leave a trail of garbage behind you wherever you go. It's like it oozes from your very pores. You are disgusting!"

Kento balked, "Well, Jesus Christ, dude! Don't take your bad day out on me!"

"You're right! You're absolutely right, Kento! I take out everything of yours already, including the trash!"

"Shit, did I miss my turn again?"

"For the fifth time in a row," Sage glowered.

"Oops."

"Oops? What about sorry?"

"Ha. You think I'm sorry for not taking the trash out? You're crazy."

Sage gritted his teeth and let his blood boil silently for a few moments as his rage festered like an ingrown hair before sitting up and grabbing the remote from the coffee table.

"Thank you," Kento sighed in relief.

"If you think you're getting this remote now, you've got another thing coming." And Sage flipped the channel to The Golden Girls and crossed his arms over his chest, protectively hiding the prized object.

Kento popped upright like bread from a toaster and snarled, "There is no. Fucking. Way that we're watching this shit, Sagey. Now gimme that remote before I break your arms."

"Make me." And Sage promptly lifted the belt of his jeans and stuck the remote down into the crotch of his pants, then flashed a victorious grin at Kento. "If you want it, come and get it."

There was a moment's pause where everything was absolutely still, and Sage saw that homicidal gleam in his roommate's eyes; at the same instant, the both of them jumped out of their seats and took off. Sage crashed into the coffee table and broke another leg off of it and Kento overturned the sofa, making Ms. Oonishi down below bang on the ceiling with her cane. It did nothing to quell the din or the unrestrained brawling:

Kento had Sage in a half nelson when the slender young man used his free arm to sock Kento right in the gut--Kento let go and Sage tried to make his getaway, but he wasn't fast enough. Kento did a swan dive, grabbed Sage's legs, and they both hit the floor. The whole time the two of them were screeching profanities like angry banshees.

Somehow or another, Kento managed to pin Sage to the floor… only backwards: he sat on Sage's chest, facing away from him, and tried to hold down the legs that were swinging and kicking dangerously close to his face. "Gimme the remote, bitch!" he yelled.

"Get your huge ass off of me! You're breaking my ribs!"

"GIMME THE REMOTE!"

"Apologise for punching me first!"

Sage's arms were pinned to his side by Kento's massive form atop of him, so the he decided to use his legs to try to put the larger Ronin in a headlock. Kento beat back the offending legs and finally managed to pin them behind his arms, putting the backs of Sage's knees resting on Kento's shoulders. Had anyone walked in on them at the moment they would have thought it was some undiscovered homosexual karma sutra position, but with the two parties screaming, swearing and struggling, it was more likely to be discerned as a scene from a pro-wrestling ring, sans the folding metal chairs used to whale opponents upside the melon.

Kento, to mince words, was blinding furious. "Sage, I swear, I will sit on your face and fart as hard as I can if you don't fucking gimme the damned remote!"

"Bastard-!" Sage screamed. "You're giving me a hernia!"

"I WILL do it, Sage! And it'll knock you out!" Kento fumbled with the button of Sage's jeans, intent on reaching in and yanking out either the remote or a very integral part of the squirming lad's masculinity.

Sage panicked and screamed, "RRRRAAAAAAPE!" Then he tried to dig Kento's eyes out with his purple-socked toes.

The Ronin of Hardrock roared, "I swear to Jesus, I'll gnaw your freakin' hand off and use it for an ashtray! After I fart in your mouth!" And Kento probably would have done it too, had not Sage done something first: the blond leaned up, stared at Kento's jogging pants-clad rear end, took a breath, closed his eyes . . . and sank his teeth into the soft flesh as hard as he could.

"Aaaaa-AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" came the thunderous scream of pain from Kento, who was off of Sage in a flash with a hand over the cheek of his bitten buttock, looking more shocked at what had just happened than anything else. He glared at the Sage with something between awe and subdued rage as the golden-haired young man sat up sorely on his elbows.

"Did you just bite my ass, dude?"

Sage made a sour face and smacked his lips. "Yeah. You wouldn't get off of me. Now my mouth is infested with your butt cooties."

"You bit my ass, Sage?" he asked again.

"Yes, Kento. I bit your ass because you were asking for it."

"I was…" he faltered, blinking rapidly in disbelief. "I was asking for it? Do you know how many germs live in the human mouth?"

"Since when do you care about germs?" Sage retorted evilly. "Every single germ on this planet originated from THIS apartment!"

"You could give me rabies or ass herpes or-or crabs-"

"I'D LIKE TO KNOW JUST WHAT I COULD GIVE YOU THAT YOU DON'T ALREADY HAVE!"

And then, it was like one of those eerie moments in the school cafeteria where everything fell silent for no reason and all conversations ceased, and everyone looked around oddly, wondering what happened. The refrigerator stopped humming and the air conditioning shut off for the night, leaving a chilling dead pause after the ferocity of Sage's last word that rang momentarily throughout the apartment.

"You know what?" Sage murmured. "I get the feeling that things will never work out between us. Know why? Because people with differences like ours cannot coexist in the same environment. So you know what I think? Maybe it'd be better if I left."

"Yeah, it will be better when you leave."

"Fine! I'll leave now if that's what you want!" he cried, standing up and stomping back to his room.

"I don't give a fuck," Kento shrugged. "Go on and leave. See if I care."

"I'm packing my bags right now!" Sage called.

"Tch. Yeah right," he muttered. "You don't have the guts."

* * *

Eleven minutes later, Sage and his suitcases neatly slammed the apartment door in Kento's face. He could be heard dragging his luggage down the stairs loudly, thunk thunk thunking until he was out of earshot. Kento stared at the door numbly. "I can't believe it," he said to himself. "The crazy heifer left me."

He ran to the window that faced the street and peered out through the light drizzle in time to see Sage's form, silhouetted by the glowing streetlamp, lope clumsily away with his belongings. Kento swiftly unbolted the window, threw it open, leaned out and screamed, "You'll be back in fifteen minutes, Sage! And when you are, I'll take you back just so I can throw your ass out again!"

He didn't turn around or even acknowledge that he'd heard Kento's words. He just kept walking onward. "Yeah, go on!" Kento shouted, a small, uneasy tremor in his voice. "Good riddance! No more bitching! Woo hoo! I'm free! So long, sucker! If I said it was a pleasure I'd be lying! Ha ha!" He stuck his head back inside for a few moments, then thrust it back out again. "AND DON'T COME BACK!"

The window slammed shut with a final bang that echoed out in the street as the rain began to fall harder. He didn't bother cleaning up the mess that their fighting had caused; he slumped down into his chair and suddenly realised that Sage had walked out with the remote still in his pants.

Kento slapped his forehead with his palm. "GOD! DAMMIT! How could I forge- fuck it. Fuck it, I'll just buy a new one." And he settled himself before he also realised that the station was still on The Golden Girls. "SON OF A BITCH!" And he had to get out of his seat and walk the three metres across the room to change the channel.

Fifteen minutes passed. Sage hadn't come back yet. Kento watched TV and fidgeted anxiously, eyes constantly sliding over to watch the door every now and then. He turned up the volume, hoping it would drown out his thoughts.

Another fifteen minutes passed. Still no sign of Sage. Kento fixed a snack, being bitterly reminded about how Sage had called in a repairman to fix the refrigerator. It was working perfectly now. What made it worse was the fact that all of Sage's bottled waters were still on the top shelf of the fridge, along with his tofu bologna and leftover Caribbean Pumpkin Soup that he'd gotten the recipe for out of Martha Stewart Living. And the dehydrated pumpkin chips in the cabinet, and the little Ziploc baggie of pumpkin seeds-

"Sage and his fuckin' pumpkins," Kento muttered. "Wonder if there's such a thing as a jackass-o-lantern. Huh huh." He laughed at his own joke for a few moments before returning to his moody brooding again.

He went back to the living room and listened to the downpour hitting the windowpanes for a while, munching on some Chex Mix and trying to pay attention to The A-Team. Another fifteen minutes passed. No Sage. It grew late. The rain continued to fall. Kento dozed between commercials for about an hour, and when he finally looked at the clock it was already 11:50. Deciding to call it a night, he shut off the TV and trudged down the hall to his room.

He collapsed onto his bed and slept fitfully, tossing and turning; what little sleep he got was riddled with bad dreams that made a worried knot form in his chest. After a few hours, Kento awoke drenched in sweat with his shirt sticking to his back. He glanced over at his bedside clock and swept a pair of boxers from its face.

3:38 AM

Sage must surely be back by now--rain could still be heard falling on the eaves outside, and no one could stay out there on a night like tonight. Kento sighed and sat up, regretting falling asleep in his clothes. He would go check Sage's room. The dumb blond was probably curled up in bed, fast asleep, with all his suitcases lying on the floor… Kento could just picture it.

He got up and walked to the bathroom, peeled off his shirt and doused himself with cool water. He couldn't remember any of the nightmares, but he knew that they'd had something to do with Sage. Kento toweled himself off and walked softly to the door at the end of the hall, Sage's room. He gently eased the door open and peered inside. It was dark. He clicked on the lights.

The bed was made, but no one was in it. Sage had not come back. Kento suddenly felt as if he had been driving down a familiar road and instantly become lost, unable to recognise things that he knew he had seen before. The room was utterly sterile, as if the blond had never even been there. The only thing that told of his presence were three little bonsai trees sitting lonesomely on the window sill, as if watching the streams of rainwater flow smoothly down the glass panes.

Kento's heart began to pound quickly. What if Sage was out there in the streets? Something horrible could have happened to him. All those unpleasant thoughts, those liable nightmares, came rushing into Kento's mind: he could have wandered onto the bad side of town and gotten mugged. No, wait. Kento lived on the bad side of town already. Still, he could have gotten shot or stabbed and could be lying in an alley somewhere, bleeding to death. He could have been beaten, raped (Kento didn't doubt that-Sage was pretty enough) or he could have been murdered and chopped into pieces, kidnapped and sold to the porn film industry, he could have been dissected alive and had his organs sold to drug dealers for crack money. He could have been hit by a taxi-

What if your parents were coming home this evening and some crazy person ran a red light? What if they were in a terrible accident and both died? How would you feel?

Sage's words, Sage's voice. Kento felt his heart clench in pain.

I . . . I don't know what I'd . . . I wouldn't be able to live with myself if . . .

Kento felt his eyes begin to burn fiercely, and his vision suddenly became blurred.

It could happen. So you see how important it is to forgive? How we shouldn't hold grudges for so long because something will happen to make us regret it?

"Goddammit," Kento uttered, leaving the room and going straight to the telephone. He had already punched in Cye's number before he realised that his best friend wouldn't be home until next week. Sage couldn't be there. He phoned Rowen and got no answer. Wasn't he on vacation with his dad? Some sort of geek convention? Kento didn't bother questioning any further and dialed Mia's number. She always had a soft spot in her heart for Sage. Maybe he went to her place.

That cad, Kento thought sulkily. He probably planned this whole thing out just so he could get some. I never knew he had a thing for older chicks . . . Or chicks in general.

He got Mia's answering machine and left a hurried message before dialing up Ryo's apartment. It rang eight times until a scratchy, sleepy voice answered, "Whut."

Kento sighed in relief. "Ryo! Thank God. It's Kento. Were you asleep?"

"Nah. I was just . . . lyin' in bed with the lights out n' my eyes closed."

"Listen, I'm sorry to wake you up but is Sage over there?"

"Sage? Huh. Why woodee be?"

"Did he call you at all? Ask for a place to crash?"

"He was inna crash?" came the groggy reply. "Izzee alright?"

"No, no. He didn't call you?"

"Gawd, how serious a crasherwee talkin' about? I doubt he'd be callin' me ifee wasn't alright-"

"Dammit, Ryo, you dumbass. Listen to me. IS SAGE AT YOUR FLAT?"

"Nah, I don't havva flat. I don't even havva car. Is he in the pit crew now?"

"Ryo. Are you in bed?"

"Yyyeah."

"Roll over. Is anyone there?"

Kento heard the sound of squeaking springs. "No. Why? Should there be anybody?"

"Never mind."

"I'm a very lonesome man."

"Go back to sleep, Ryo."

"Okay. G'night."

And they rang off. Kento put down the phone and told himself to stay calm. Sage was probably at a motel or something, but he didn't see how. Sage had no money. He was probably over at Mia's, having one hell of a slumber party. Wait a minute. Mia was living on campus that summer in a teacher's dorm. Sage didn't have the phone number to that place or even knowledge about how to get there. And even if he did, he wouldn't be allowed in. It was an all-female dorm section. Unless Sage dressed in drag to slip by security-

"God! That's fucking ridiculous!" Kento said aloud. He had to wake up--Sage was a Ronin Warrior, he reminded himself, and he could handle anything that came at him. He was probably just fine. Nothing to worry about. He'd be back in the morning, right as rain.

A low rumble of thunder outside made Kento begin to worry again. The knot in his chest became tighter. Drink some hot tea, he told himself. No. That's what Sage would say. Drink a beer. Yeah, that's what I'd say. So Kento walked to the fridge and stared into it for about five minutes, then decided he didn't feel like having a beer and began to pace circles about the living room like a neurotic chain smoker.

After about five minutes, Kento didn't know whether he wanted to smoke a cup of beer or drink a cigarette to calm himself down. He finally tossed himself on the sofa and was reminded of how the sofa was the blond's favorite lounging spot, jumped up and sat down in his own chair and was reminded of how he had picked it up and dumped Sage out of it that one time, then he decided to sit on the floor and he stared at the coffee table that both he and Sage had broken the legs off of, and leaped from the floor with an exasperated cry and stomped into the kitchen.

That whole room was Sage personified: the little potted plants in the window, the beer can-free fish tank that had so disgusted Sage, the working refrigerator with those nauseatingly cute little angel magnets all over it, the clean countertops, the stacks of classified ads and interior decorating magazines on the kitchen table. Even the clothes that Kento wore, the lucky boxers that Sage had ruined, the jogs that had been freshly laundered that day, the shirt- well, Kento had left his shirt in the bathroom. But still, that was a shirt Sage hated because it was covered with stains and Kento loved it that way.

Everything that Kento had once claimed as all his own now held the memories of the one person whom he could never get along with. Every single piece of Kento's earthly possessions had become infected with a virus called Sage Datier. Kento grimaced and clenched his teeth, putting a hand to his forehead and leaning against the countertop. So this was how it was going to be. After Sage had messed up Kento's entire life, he was going to leave him with all the memories, those figurative fingerprints, saturated into everything the violet-eyed young man had touched. Out of sight, into mind. That was how it was.

And then, it was as if a fog had lifted from Kento's eyes and he suddenly saw things more clearly than he had ever seen them. All the time Sage was living with him, Sage had tried to get along. But I was stubborn. I didn't want to change and I didn't want him to change me. I was unhappy with my life and I wanted to stay that way. I didn't want anyone new in my life . . .

And when Sage had done his laundry and unknowingly ruined Kento's lucky clothes, it was all that Kento could think about. He saw only the faults of Sage's attempts to help him. He didn't see all the good that the caring young man had brought to that trashed-out, gloomy apartment. Selective vision, he thought morosely. I am such an asshole.

"God, I am such an asshole!" he repeated aloud, slapping his hands to his forehead in dismay. He ran his hands through his thick, dark hair and held his bangs back off his forehead, tears stinging his eyes. "Goddammit, Kento, you stupid fuck," he muttered to himself, voice trembling. "How could you be such a retard?"

Everything about Sage that annoyed him he suddenly found dear and precious, like the way he watered the plants at the same time every morning and talked to them, the way he put little flower pots and bonsai trees in the window to make the apartment more like a home, the way the neighbors had suddenly grown to enjoy their company and mean old Ms. Oonishi downstairs would chat to Sage like she was his grandmother. He even melted the landlord's heart, and Kento didn't even think it was possible for landlords to have hearts.

It was a certain magic that glowed in Sage's being, that pure and untamed power of righteous, undying courtesy that made everyone who met him love him. And Sage was so modestly indifferent to this power, and so humble and so forgiving and so beautiful in his soul that next to him, Kento felt like a graceless ogre, a big bumbling, slovenly buffoon.

He could see it now. Sage was the light in this dark, dingy hellhole. He was the warm, loving halo that cast its aura on the surface of the hardest, most stubborn stone that was determined to keep itself cold and isolated and unbreakable.

Kento felt as if that hard rock, that personification of himself, was slowly beginning to melt . . . And he really didn't care. All he cared about was finding Sage, getting him back, bringing him home where he was safe. Sage was out there somewhere, in the middle of the night, in the rain and all alone, and he wasn't coming home. Home? Was his home with Kento?

I want it to be. It's not home without Sage. I can't come back to this awful place alone. He's got to be there with me to brighten things again, to make things happy, to show me . . . to show me what it's like to really, truly live. When Sage was here, he made living bearable… and now he's gone, and it's like being on my own for the first time all over again.

And then the moral struck home like a kick in the head: appreciate what you have today because it might be gone tomorrow.

Kento rushed to his bedroom where he grabbed a shirt, pulled on some jeans and his shoes, grabbed the umbrella hanging on the rack by the door and slammed it behind him, stepping out a few moments later into the rainy streets to find Sage Datier, whom he couldn't live with and he couldn't live without.

* * *

Kento checked every all-night motel and hotel within a five-mile radius, to no avail. None of them had booked a room for S. Datier. Then Kento spent nearly twenty bucks on cab fares to check every single place that his companion could have gone: bars, night clubs, bus depots, train depots, airports, the train station, the metro, the YMCA (and then spent the next thirty minutes trying to get the song out of his head), the park, the hospital, a couple of the notorious male brothels, the relief shelter . . . And at 4:52 in the morning, he still hadn't located Sage.

Maybe he decided to walk home, Kento thought. But Sendai was a hell of a long walk, especially in the rain and with suitcases. Maybe he hitched a ride- Kento's stomach lurched. Oh God, what if he got picked up by a trucker? Sweet Jesus, he could be huddled in the stall of some truck stop bathroom, about to be gang banged by a mob of fat hairy guys with tattoos that say "Mack Truck Daddy"-

Kento thought he was going to retch his guts out on the sidewalk right there just thinking about it, that most horrible thought that had entered his mind all night. Sage was too delicate. He would never survive something like that. He was too courteous. Cruel people would take advantage of that, and then Sage would never be the-

"Stop it, Rei Fuan," Kento ordered. "Sage can take care of himself. He doesn't need you." But I need him . . . He put on his tough guy visage and decided to walk home since he had already spent his last bit of change on transportation.

The rain had reduced itself to a heavy drizzle, and Kento opted to use his umbrella as a cane to lean on since passing automobiles had already splashed him to dripping wet. He was also exhausted mentally and physically from his quest and a cane or a pair of crutches sounded like a really good idea at the time. So, miserable and fatigued, he trudged his way back toward his apartment with slow, heavy steps.

If that car hadn't have splashed muck all over him and made Kento look up to swear at the driver, he probably would have never seen the lonely silhouette sitting on the bench at the bus stop. Kento blinked and squinted his eyes to make out a dark figure huddled on the bench with a suitcase on either side of him, head down and golden hair hanging in shining wet tendrils, catching the light from the street lamp and making a glowing halo around his head. Haloes that seemed to follow him everywhere; it was Sage, and Kento felt his heart leap into his throat.

"Sage!" he cried, and the figure stirred and looked up. Kento jogged to the bus stop with sopping wet shoes slapping on the concrete. Before he could reach him, Sage's bitter voice said, "I knew you'd come back for the remote." He looked up at Kento, rain –or tears?- dripping from his eyelashes and flowing down his pale, expressionless face. He held the TV remote control out to a stunned Kento, its buttons wet and shiny. "Well, here it is."

Kento stared at him for a few seconds before taking the remote from Sage's hand, turning around and tossing it as hard as he could down the street where it hit the asphalt and broke into pieces. Kento faced Sage's dubious eyes and muttered, "Fuck the remote." He fell to his knees before the blond and wrapped his arms around Sage's waist. "I came back for you." He sighed and closed his eyes tightly, which suddenly began to sting again. "I'm so glad you're okay."

Sage was alarmed –if not scared totally out of his wits- by his former enemy's behavior and tried to pry him off. "Kento, what's the matter with you? Get off of me."

"I won't," came the defiant reply. "Not until you come back. I need you, Sage, please. I'm sorry for the way I treated you. I was ungrateful, I see that now."

"Now? After all the fighting and arguments and bloodshed, you see it only now?" Sage scoffed. "You really are dense, aren't you?"

"Like a rock," Kento said jokingly, voice muffled by Sage's shirt. "Please, you've gotta forgive me. I can't go back to the apartment with this on my conscience-"

"Wow, you actually have one of those?"

"-Sage! For God's sake, please!" Kento never thought he would ever live to hear himself groveling so pathetically . . . while hanging onto another guy, much less. "Listen, I know I fucked up a lot but I learned my lesson! You taught it to me! I gotta be grateful for the people I know, even if they don't like me 'cause they could die tomorrow and I'd never be able to get over it! You showed me that, and that's why I came looking for you!"

Sage listened solemnly, staring down at Kento's soaked hair and trembling shoulders, and he felt his demeanor soften at the heartfelt words.

"I was worried," Kento murmured. "I was so scared that something happened to you. I went crazy. I called everybody, I looked all over town for you . . . You shouldn't be out here at this time 'a night. You could get hurt."

"You're forgetting who I am."

"The person you're talking about is Sage of the Halo." Kento looked up into violet eyes. "The person I'm talking about is Sage Datier, who I care about more than our differences that separate us, who I respect and admire and . . . and love . . ." He trailed off, looking away bashfully.

Sage sighed and wriggled out of Kento's grip, standing to his feet and crossing his arms, gazing away. "You know how unalike we are. We're complete opposites."

"That's why we need each other." Kento stood to his feet. "Fate delivered you to my doorstep, and it wants us to learn something from each other."

"Since when do you believe in fate, Kento?"

"Since I met you." He paused. "Please come home, Sage."

"Home? Home?" Sage laughed haughtily. "You think my home is that crummy, cramped dump with a roommate who can't stand me? Get real, Kento. My home is in Sendai and it always was."

"No," came the reply, and the blond looked up, staring at Kento's hurt expression as rain dripped from his dark, limp hair. "Home isn't a place," he said. "It's a feeling. It's where your heart is. And . . ." He looked at the ground and then back up at Sage. "-and you wanna know something funny? I think . . . I think that you left your heart sitting on my windowsill, in a . . . a little ceramic bowl with the yellow sunflowers painted on it. The one with the blue background, with butterflies flying around . . ."

Sage turned around slowly and gazed at Kento, who shuffled his feet in the rain self-consciously. "It's filled with that special dirt you got from the plant nursery, the real rich black kind with the white flecks in it. And-and you said you were going to plant a tulip or something in it but it was it too small for the bulb and so you decided to grow a hyacinth instead."

"You . . ." Sage narrowed his eyes. "You remember me saying that. I thought I was talking to myself."

"You were. We rocks are very good listeners, even though we're stubborn and hard to move." Kento smiled hopefully at his companion. "Will you come home now?"

Sage looked down the empty street morosely. "I don't know," he whispered.

"Heifer," Kento said roughly, his dark blue eyes moist and pitiable. "Don't make me sing. I'll do it, ya know. I'll do anything."

"You sing? I'll believe it when I-"

"YOUUU DON'T RE-A-LIZE HOW MUCH I NEED YOU!" the screech cut through the rainy night air. "WE FIIIIGHT AND SCREAM SOMETIMES BUT I CAN'T LEAVE YOU!"

Sage smirked. "Nice improvization. Where's the love?"

Kento howled to the blond with his arms spread wide, "PLEASE COME ON BACK TO MEEE! I'M LONELY AS CAN BE-EEE! I NEED YOU!"

Sage covered his smile with his hand and hoped that no one else could see or hear this.

"SAAAID YOU HAD A THING OR TWO TO TELL ME! HOWWWW WAS I TO KNOW YOU WOULD UPSET ME!"

"When will you stop singing?"

"When you agree to come home. I DIDN'T RE-A-LIIIIZE! AS I LOOKED IN YOUR EYES- er, EYE! YOU TOLD ME!"

"Will you stop it!" Sage swatted Kento across the top of the head, unable to stop smiling. "You're going to wake up the-"

"OH YES, YOU TOLD ME! YOU WON'T DO MY LAUNDRY ANYMORE!"

Sage exploded with laughter.

"THAT'S WHEN IT HURT ME, AND FEELING LIKE THIS, I JUST CAN'T GO ON ANYMORE!"

"The Beatles would kill you for this."

"May I have this dance?"

"No!" he protested, but Kento had grabbed his wrist and latched an arm around Sage's waist, and the poor lad was dragged down the sidewalk, laughing and embarrassed though there was nobody in sight, as Kento attempted to bust a move without crushing anyone's feet, particularly his own. "Pleeeease remember how I feel about you," he sang, a little bit softer but still grinning stupidly. "I could never really live without you."

Sage blinked shyly and smirked. "You dumb, crazy . . ."

"Please come on back and seee just what you mean to me-eee, I need you."

"If you stop singing, I'll do-"

"Sh. I'm having a gay moment," Kento said, pulling Sage very close and holding his hand gently as they slipped into a mock waltz. "So come on back and seee just what you mean to me-eee, I need you." He dipped Sage slightly and pulled him back up. "I need you . . ."

"I need you," Sage finished.

Kento sang the last guitar riff while gazing up at the sky. When his gaze returned to earth and to Sage, he blushed and stepped back, arm sliding reluctantly from around Sage's slender waist. "Well, you get the idea," he said gruffly.

"And people think I'm a fruitcake," Sage smirked.

Kento slung his arm around his friend's neck and pulled him close as they started to make their way back to the apartment. "Well, you are a fruitcake. And a heifer. But you're my heifer, so it doesn't matter."

"Aww." Sage leaned his head against Kento's, golden blond mixing with dark indigo. "That was the sweetest insult I ever heard."

"I'm passive-aggressive."

"Ha. Yeah, right. Where's that passiveness?"

"Up my assiveness."

"That was corny."

"Like I care." Kento grinned. "Now come on. Let's go home."

Epilogue

Only a few days had passed since their big fight and make-up when one afternoon Sage burst excitedly through the apartment door and ran into the kitchen, hoping to catch Kento before he left for work. Kento was guzzling a bottle of water from his roommate's private stash but Sage didn't even reprimand him for it; he literally threw himself into Kento's arms, causing him to spill water all over the place.

"Guess what!" he exclaimed, face beaming with pride.

"Uh oh."

"What?"

"I just had one of those feelings," Kento replied with a strange expression. "Anyway, you were saying?"

"Guess what!"

"I don't fuckin' know what. You could be talking about anything for all I know."

Sage pulled away crossed his arms. "You're a real kick in the nuts, you know that?"

Kento shrugged. "Will you just tell me already?"

"I got a job!"

"Wow, Sage, that's great!" Kento said, giving the slender young man a friendly hug. "Where?"

"That's the great part! See, I figured that since we had gotten over our differences-"

"For the most part," Kento interrupted.

"-right. Well, I figured that it would be great if we got to spend more time together."

Kento's demeanor immediately went stale and he let go of Sage, an expression of intense anxiety creeping onto his face. ". . . What?"

Sage grinned happily. "I got a job working at the record store!"

Silence.

"The record store?"

Sage nodded.

"The record store?"

Nod.

"My record store?"

Nod.

"The . . . my . . . Houshasei record store?"

Nod.

"'Scuse me." Kento whispered and walked calmly to the kitchen window, wrestled it open, stuck his head and shoulders out of it and screamed at the top of his lungs:

"FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"

Every dog in the neighbourhood took up the cry, and people could be heard shouting in the distance. Sage stared with wide eyes and his roommate just as calmly pulled his head back inside, closed the window, latched it, turned around, walked to Sage, took his hand and said in a heartfelt whisper, "That's wonderful news, Sage."

"I know, isn't it?" the blond gushed.

"Yeah. Just gimme a minute to go drown myself in the toilet."

"Be sure you clean it when you're done."

"Okay."

The End.