On the night before the Ceremony of the Summoning that would call the Phoenix God down from the heavens to Konan's aid, they closed the imperial baths to all but the Suzaku Shichisei.

Or so Tasuki was told by the bath attendant who took his boots at the entrance (Tasuki having refused all other assistance except an offer of towels), an old woman who looked as if her wrinkles had been steamed into her over the course of decades. He asked her why, briefly worried - "This isn't some rule I missed, right?" - and she'd assured him that no, it was tradition. Ritual. Tasuki had spent a grand total of two weeks in the Imperial Palace, and already he'd realized that 'tradition' was a big item in the house. Him, all he wanted was a bath.

It was the first time that he'd ventured down. His experience of the palace had so far limited itself to log-esque slumber after days of canvassing the countryside, getting wasted in the banquet hall in the company of his fellow seishi, and intimate acquaintance with the ceiling of his room while laid up after still more intimate acquaintance with the business end of a pair of nunchucks (damn that Tamahome!). There had been basins of warm water, and giggly maids. He badly wanted a proper bath. Tasuki had only a vague idea of what meeting his putative god face-to-face entailed, but he intuited that you'd want to be clean for it. Look at the gauntlet of purification rituals Miaka had to run...

Of course, Miaka was accompanied for them by a bevy of ladies-in-waiting, and as soon as Tasuki got into the baths he could see why. They had tiled the walls with marble down there, set mosaics of colored glass in the floor and alcoves overflowing with fresh flowers - but none of that really served to disguise the system of underground springs that everything had been built around, and the palace built over. The place was a maze of high-ceiling chambers and irrationally-placed passages. Glorified mountain caves if you asked him, and about as confusing. It did help that there was no one to bump elbows against while he was undressing and soaping up - or to offer sarcastic commentary while he made the round of the first few rooms, looking for rinse water that wasn't there. He finally figured it out by accident, unleashing a spray from hidden nozzles that made him yelp. A far cry from piling into some rocky pool with the boys up on Mt. Leikaku. It was a few more minutes before - towel in hand - he padded his way around a number of painted rice-paper screens, drawn by the rippling patterns of light on the ceiling he knew were water-reflections.

"Man, what these digs've gotta of--"

He turned the last corner and stopped in his tracks.

Everything was really white, he would realize upon a second look. White columns of fluted marble, white steam rising from the pool set deep in the ground, white tiled steps. But shades of rose silk filtered the candlelight from the wall sconces, casting an incarnate tint on all the surroundings. In that illumination even marble wore a blush. Rose too the see-through curtains trailing from the columns, sheerest color that intensified to scarlet at the borders, so that he thought he was gazing into the honeyed heart of a great peony or dahlia. White and rose the limbs of the girl that stood knee-deep in the water, arms lifted behind her head to hold back her tumbling violet hair. Naked except for the hair cascading over those upraised arms. A girl. He thought it was a girl for the first second, anyway, and the sight made his heart leap into his throat.

He must have made some sound, because Nuriko turned, pinning him with a wide-eyed lavender gaze. "Oh, it's you," he said finally. "Well, come in then, Tasuki-kun." And moved ahead of him, wading into the pool.

Tasuki breathed again and stepped out of the shadows. He splashed into the water, sighing at the heat, and sank down onto the underwater ledge that ran along the side of the basin. It was seven-sided, too - pretty damn cute.

Suzaku be thanked Nuriko wasn't pissed. He didn't think he could take a pounding at this time of night.

Not that Nuriko had any good reason to be pissed. After all, he was a guy. Sort of. Pretty much. He figured.

But that was the weird thing...

"Guess Tasuki-kun had the same idea as me, ne?"

Nuriko, breaking the silence from the far side of the pool. Tasuki blinked, then shrugged.

"I dunno," he said. "Tradition?"

"Hai..." A soft laugh. "Tradition. I'll bet I've known about it longer, though. You have no idea what it's like having to sneak down here in the dead of night to avoid the rest of the harem..." The court seishi stretched lazily, tossing his head so his hair fell about him and drifted in the water. The gesture feminine as so many of his movements were. Tasuki swallowed hard.

It was mostly fat merchants they'd robbed along the Leikaku road, that and the occasional traveler naïve enough to walk the highway looking like money. But there had been one lady, a bride traveling from North Konan down to Eiyou, back when Kouji and he had been kids. Girl not much older than Reirei, but rich. They'd taken her gold and her bales of silk, plucked the very jade rings from her fingers, left her nothing but her veil and her virtue (as one of the bandits had put it over amused cackles). The old captain hadn't let any of them touch her - not even her servant-girls. It turned out the family sent mercenaries into the mountains after them anyway, and they had to fight them off. After that the old captain swore off robbing bridal trains altogether. But Tasuki remembered the lady's white arms, the way the little bells on her veil tinkled and spun, and over the years he'd sometimes wondered if she'd turned out happy. Bundled off to a husband that way, and now no dowry and all...?

Tasuki had grown up with the bandits, up on that mountain. He couldn't remember not knowing what men did with women. And what men did with men, because it happened often enough. Insofar as he thought of it at all, though, he thought of it as something... different. Probably because of Kouji, with whom it had been friendly competition, one-two-three-first-to-the-post-wins. They'd figured out the way their bodies worked together. And if there was a bit of touching here and there to help the game along, still that was what it remained, basically: a game.

Nuriko. Different yet again.

He'd thought the violet-haired shichisei was a girl, at first. A lady just as Hotohori was a pretty young nobleman, and as it turned out he was more wrong about the one than about the other (though exactly how noble had come as a shock). He'd accepted his mistake readily enough: after all, Nuriko bashed him into walls on average twice a day, and matched him drink for drink in the evenings. But standing like that in the water with his hair loose about him, slender and glowing through the rising steam, he still looked like a girl to Tasuki. Looked like the lady he'd always remembered, because she'd been so different. And all the time Tasuki knew he was as much a guy underneath as Tasuki himself.

Or Kouji.

It drove him nuts.

"Why are you staring at me?"

He blinked, jerked back to a present of marble and steam. "Wha--?"

"Staring, baka." Nuriko mock-glared back at him, rosebud lips pursed. "Are you drifting off? You'll overheat if you fall asleep in here, sitting with your little washcloth like an ojiisan in the mountain springs."

"Ojiisan?!" Tasuki was mortally insulted but found no counter above mud-slinging. "Well, what the hell d'ya want me t'do in the freakin' bath, girly-boy? I haven't got hair that gets sucked into the drains if I sit still!"

"Oh, we can think of something..."

Tasuki opened his mouth, suspicious of Nuriko's mischievious tone - and the other seishi dived. Tasuki caught a flash of perfectly turned ankle going under before a spout of water came on with unexpected violence an inch from the small of his back.

"Ow!"

It wasn't just him, either. Nuriko had obviously flicked some kind of switch, because hot water was jetting from each of the septagon's walls, turning the quietly steaming bath into a fair approximation of a bubbling geyser. Unnerved, Tasuki waded out toward the center of the pool.

"Hell, Nuriko, what di--"

He'd failed to realize that said pool center was a good foot and a half deeper than the edge. From one step to the next the tiling was simply not there, and he went under with a violent splash. White-hot panic flared; he tried to breathe and snorted a noseful of water. K'so--

It only lasted a moment, however, before impossibly strong hands caught and lifted him and dragged him back to the relative safety of the pool rim. Tasuki coughed, spluttered and tried to pull together. Damn, but he hated water--

He looked up at a purple, tangly mass.

"You okay?" it said.

"AAAARRRGGHHHH! He's got no FACE!"

"No face...?" Nuriko pushed his wet hair behind his ears. "You're so weird, Tasuki-kun," he said in a voice squeaky with suppressed laughter, "Hon-tou ni." Then he leaned forward and kissed him.

It was the fleetingest of kisses, obviously not meant as anything more than a prank, but it felt like being hit by lightning wearing copper boots in a rainstorm. Nuriko's lips were as soft and sweet as they looked; Tasuki instinctively tried to follow as he pulled away, but in vain.

Screw that. You only lived once.

He slid his arms around Nuriko and pulled the other seishi hard against him, capturing that tantalizing mouth with his own. He could feel Nuriko's surprise in the line of his body, and steeled himself for some sort of physical remonstration - but then the lips beneath his opened, inviting access by Tasuki's probing tongue. Nuriko relaxed completely against him as their kiss deepened, and Tasuki tasted flowers - but flowers didn't taste like anything, did they? Some perfume he was thinking of. He broke contact only after a long moment, nipping at the other boy's mouth.

"Tasuki," Nuriko said breathlessly. Flushed, and perhaps not just from the hot water. Tasuki nibbled at the strands of hair plastered against his wet cheeks. "I--"

Tasuki rasped his tongue along the curve of one delicate ear, and whatever Nuriko had been about to say went the way of the ancient mikos. "Hey," he said, and the voice in his ears didn't even sound like his own. He shifted his grip, hands slipping caressingly over skin slick with water. Downward. "No fair teasin' if yer not gonna follow up, Nuriko-chan. We're all buddies here, right...?"

Nuriko gave a hiss of indrawn breath as Tasuki found and cupped the velvet-hot hardness between his legs. Tasuki grinned, face buried against the other seishi's shoulder. It wasn't as if he could coerce Nuriko into anything. "C'mon. Jus' for company's sake..."

The other seishi made a throaty sound that might have begun as a laugh, but amended it to a moan as Tasuki's hand moved, stroking. "You'll... scrub my back if I scrub yours...?"

"Shit, if you wanna put it like that--" Nuriko laughed again, for real this time, and sort of pushed back against him. Hip to hip and thigh to thigh, like he was trying to climb into the lap of someone still standing. Fine, not a lady, but he could deal with that. Tasuki cupped the back of his head for another kiss, twisting his fingers in the wet hair for leverage. Groaned into Nuriko's mouth as slender fingers found his own ready length, their tongues twining together so that the sound could just as well have come from the other boy's throat as his.

He could feel Nuriko, he realized, felt the other seishi's trepidation and mischief and desire - and knew beyond thought that Suzaku's arcane mark was glowing on his arm. "Nuriko-chan--"

And Nuriko froze. Just like that.

After a second or two it occurred to Tasuki to turn around.

"Oh, don't stop," Hotohori said over the sound of churning water. He pushed away from the column against which he'd been leaning, and smiled faintly. "Not on my account." Bizarrely enough, he sounded almost as if he meant it.

Tasuki gaped. Recognition factor was low: Hotohori had his hair down just as Nuriko did, a small pitcher of wine in one hand, and was dressed - Tasuki applied the word with some reservation - in a short, sash-belted tunic that looked like something Tasuki had seen slave-boys wear, only in a more expensive fabric. Well, of course they were in the baths--

He still had one arm around Nuriko, and the other boy was trembling. "Hotohori-sama," he said.

Crap. There was that.

No use crying over spilt beer, though. Tasuki grinned up, trying to ignore his body's insistence that he pick up again where he'd left off. "Yo, Ho-ri-sama," he said. "Taking in the free show, huh?"

Hotohori's lips curved. "I was," he corrected, stepping closer to the edge of the pool. "You were... broadcasting. But then, I suppose I should have expected it. The tradition, after all."

Tasuki blinked. "The tra--"

"I'm sorry to have interrupted you. Though in truth, you probably shouldn't continue in there." Hotohori had a cup in his other hand, and proceeded to fill it with wine, all the while speaking. "Risk of heat exhaustion, you know, with strenuous activity... would you like a drink? It's been cooled."

This last was addressed to Nuriko, strangely enough. There was a pause: Tasuki couldn't read the gaze they exchanged, but he shivered, sensing a shift in atmosphere.

He'd never gotten down to his satisfaction where matters stood between Miaka and Tamahome and Hotohori and Nuriko. For some reason he'd always gotten accused of gross insensitivity whenever he'd tried to broach the subject, and he figured the last minute or so had done nothing for the cause. It certainly did nothing for his comprehension. He was getting lightheaded with the pool's heat; the way Hotohori stood over them gave him - he realized abruptly - an intriguing angle, and his gaze trailed up over the long golden length of his emperor's legs before he caught himself, just at the junction where the flimsy tunic shadowed the top of his thighs. Nothing under it, far as he could tell.

Pluck Suzaku bare, the law of the land would have his head on a pole.

Not that Tasuki hadn't been defying the law of the land since he was eleven.

Nuriko stirred, and Tasuki thought he would answer, but he waded forward instead toward the edge of the pool. Hotohori knelt to bring him within reach - and it was something about the way he moved that clued Tasuki in first. Just a little too deliberate. A little too hasty, the way he set a hand down on the marble to balance himself, reaching out...

Holding out the wine cup. It was a chalice actually, of an odd, three-footed design Tasuki couldn't remember having seen before. Nuriko raised a hand - and Hotohori recinded the offer abruptly, lifting the cup above Nuriko's reach for all as if he were playing a practical joke, but his shuttered expression did not change. He didn't even break his gaze from Nuriko's face.

There was a long silence. Tasuki had followed Nuriko's movement, unwilling to let the violet-haired seishi's slender waist slip from his hands. He slid his palms over the angle of Nuriko's hips, wanting to touch. Anyone but himself... he didn't know what was happening, but it made him ache.

Nuriko seemed to understand, though. He lowered his hand back into the water - Tasuki felt fingers tangling around his own - lifted his face, a little. Tasuki watched in fascination as Hotohori lowered the cup, tilting the rim against Nuriko's parted lips. Watched the movement of Nuriko's throat as he drank, and those lowered lashes, obedient... His hands moved, slipping around and between Nuriko's thighs, unseen beneath the foaming water.

A bit of wine dripped from the corner of Nuriko's mouth. Crimson against the warmth of flesh in the rose-filtered penumbra.

Hotohori smiled again. He bent his head to lap the spill away, his tongue flickering against the other seishi's skin. Nuriko made the tiniest of sounds - and those fluttering fingers were encouraging Tasuki underwater, hurrying the stroking of his hands. They were so close now that he could feel Hotohori's breath shiver moistly across - his skin? Nuriko's? It was like sinking into an erotic dream, and no waking in sight.

But how--

A tilt of the head; heavy tresses slipping over one shoulder. The red brand of Suzaku glowed on Hotohori's graceful throat, and Tasuki found that he wanted to kiss it. "Tasuki-kun. Why don't we continue this somewhere... a little less awkward? There are rooms..."

"Ah...?" Hotohori's hand cupped around Nuriko's nape now, caressing. Did he mean the other seishi, or--

Tasuki met his Emperor's eyes, blinking, and just as sudden understood. Pupils so dilated the irises were mere circles of lambent gold around the black… wine, or something else again? Something in the wine. He hid it well, Tasuki thought hazily.

Or then again, maybe he didn't...

With the small section of his brain that was still up to such travails, Tasuki wondered how Kouji would have reacted. Kouji, he decided, would have co-opted both sides of the conversation and made them agree that they were wasting their time with all this beating about the bush.

So he said so.

Tasuki remembered being warned that he would Never Get Anywhere In Life. Often. It was his mother's favorite subject whenever he played hooky from goat-herding or firewood-gathering or walking three miles into town to scratch characters in the dirt with a half dozen other brats his own age - though Tasuki had never understood how those activities would Get Him Somewhere, anyway? So he'd run off to the bandits. It suited his temperament better, and had the added benefit of allowing him to live down to his mother and sisters' low expectations of his potential.

He wondered whether having the Emperor go down on him counted as Getting Somewhere In Life.

Of course, he suspected he was wondering too much - especially since Nuriko was draped all over him from behind at the same time, licking at his neck and playing with his nipples and generally making hay out of Tasuki's resolve to last. There was no point in trying, really, but he'd looked down once and couldn't look away. Honey-brown hair tumbling down over his thighs, and that beautiful mouth wrapped around his cock... Tasuki could have drunk in the sight forever. It wasn't just that it felt good, but he looked so... as if he were...

Hotohori purred, shifting position to take him deeper, and Tasuki shut his eyes quickly. He tangled one hand in the silky veil of the other seishi's hair. Four Gods alive, you could like doing that apparently... Without knowing why, he lifted his free arm and drew it over his mouth, scraping the sharp edge of his teeth across Suzaku's mark. He felt Nuriko gasp more than he heard him, warm breath against his ear and hands tightening for a moment against his chest.

Could they feel him too?

He knew he had to think about that, but he couldn't do it. He wasn't even sure where he was. The place was all blood-red draperies and smelt like expensive incense, and he knew the floor was soft because they were on it, never actually made their way onto the furniture--

"Tasuki-kun," Nuriko murmured.

"Uhn...?" Nuriko's hand slid down his abdomen, around his hipbone and... under. Tasuki cursed roughly as the other boy pressed two fingers into him.

"Fuck! What the--"

It was sudden. He heard Hotohori make a sound of surprise, and then his world flew to dazzling splinters.

When sight returned he was nearly flat on his back - and Hotohori was still sprawled down there, the side of his face brushing Tasuki's thigh. When he caught Tasuki's gaze he brushed the back of his hand over his lips, and smiled.

Tasuki decided to let the whole Emperor thing be. The concept was too abstract to handle at the moment.

And they were all buddies anyway, right?

A whisper of movement, and a curtain of sweet-scented violet swung over his eyes. Nuriko leant over him to kiss Hotohori. Mouths met and melded and parted with a soft wet sound, only to meet again. Hotohori sat up, pulling Nuriko into his lap.

Tasuki watched their love-play with the hazy impression that he'd been locked into the back of Hsiao Lang's Confectionary Bazaar - pure candy. Nuriko's eyes slid closed and he sighed as Hotohori kissed a trail down the line of his throat to his collarbone. Further down yet. The violet-haired seishi made the most kawaii sound as Hotohori reached one small rosy nipple, running his tongue over it then suckling. His hands caressed Hotohori's shoulders, parting the already-awry silken tunic. Hotohori let it slip away with an shrug. Breath urgent, he pulled Nuriko closer, sliding his grip down the back of Nuriko's thighs.

Satiation was all very well and good, but Tasuki was at an age where such states were evanescent. He caught a glimpse of alabaster flesh where Nuriko's still-damp hair cascaded over his pert behind as he knelt, rocking his hips against Hotohori languidly, and it tantalized him to touch. Maybe more. Whatever trick Nuriko had played on him just now--

Nuriko squeaked in surprise as Hotohori pulled his knees up, and they tumbled over Tasuki. There was a moment of confused, breathless laughter; then Tasuki found Nuriko's slim backside pressed against him full-length, and hair in his mouth. Hotohori draped himself over them, legs tangled langourously around Nuriko's. Damn, whatever had been in that wine, it was pacing them better than Tasuki was doing.

"Oi, Nuriko-chan, what the hell was that?" He ran a finger between Nuriko's buttocks, experimentally, and felt the other boy shiver in his arms. He pushed back against Tasuki, inviting. Gods.

Nuriko's voice was breathy when he spoke. "Don't you know, Tasuki-kun?"

"Saa--" Well, of course he knew, but - yet another difference. He'd never gotten that far with Kouji, and had always assumed there was an element of goodwill gesture involved. Nothing like that startled moment of sensation that had brought him to completion.

Could he make... them... come like that?

His loins tightened again at the thought.

"You're so otokorashii," Hotohori murmured.

"That a compliment comin' from you guys?" Hotohori's lips twitched and he lowered his head, nipping at the crimson willow-character over Nuriko's heart. The effect was immediate: Nuriko moaned, arching, and Tasuki's eyes widened at the sensation that shot through his own body. Nothing that touch could reproduce: this came from inside him, infusing his blood like the liquid fire of his shinen. He had a raging hard-on within seconds.

What the--?

Hotohori pushed himself up on one elbow, tracing a hand over Nuriko's thigh. "Do you want to show him, Nuri-chan?"

Tasuki felt the answer before Nuriko said a word, and swallowed. He must be going mad.

A good sort of mad, mind.

"It's not really very difficult at all," Hotohori noted huskily, "So long as you go slow..."

They had moved up to the bed, because there was one after all: an impressive affair that stood low on a dais in the middle of the room, overflowing with downy pillows and crimson silk sheets whose phoenix-embroidered edges trailed over the plush rugs of the same color. Tasuki wondered fleetingly what use it was upkeeping an imperial bedchamber in the labyrinthine bowels of the baths in the first place, then figured he was being piddling. The use they were putting it to was just fine.

Nuriko sprawled on his stomach in a tangle of white limbs and violet hair, half-supported by Tasuki. He bit his lip at Hotohori's words, making a low sound. Tasuki knew without looking that he was very hard indeed - as was Tasuki himself.

Nuriko was facing him. He couldn't see much of what was happening, but he stared all the same, fascinated by Hotohori's subtle movements. There'd been some question of a salve, just now; he could still smell the herbal fragrance, over the musk and sweat of their combined bodies. "Kimochi ii?"

"Yes, Hotohori-sama," Nuriko whispered. Hotohori moved closer, Nuriko's legs parting compliantly at a touch.

"And like this?"

Nuriko wrapped his arms around Tasuki's neck, bracing himself almost desperately. Hotohori pulled away then, and Nuriko mewed in frustration.

Hotohori bent over him, dark gold locks falling over Nuriko's upturned face, running his tongue over the edge of a rosy ear. The words dropped like honey. "Say it."

"Hotohori-sama..." Nuriko's voice was unsteady with desire. "Please..."

"Please what?" But the hand that tilted Nuriko's head back for another melting kiss was tender. "Hmm?"

Nuriko's lashes fluttered closed. "Please, inside me," he breathed. "Atashi ni irete kure... ne..."

"Good boy..." Tasuki watched Hotohori's swordsman hands slide beneath Nuriko's waist, canting his hips higher into a pleasing position. His golden eyes were hooded as he pressed up against Nuriko and began to push.

Nuriko made a strangled noise; his arms tightened. Tasuki bit his lip against the sudden burn of lust in his loins and buried his face against the side of Nuriko's throat, licking, tasting salt and sweet flesh. Reached down to wrap his hand around the other's erection, pumping him firmly. Nuriko moaned, moving with him. So pretty he was. So special, to be together like this...

And then there were only Nuriko's sharp little cries, and a rhythm that matched the ragged pounding of Tasuki's heart. He could sense the mounting excitement in the bodies of his fellow seishi, and it drove him mad with arousal. The thought of taking Nuriko this way, of... Hotohori was breathing harder as well, practically propelling Nuriko into Tasuki's lap with each short, ramming movement. Nuriko pressed back against Hotohori's demanding thrusts, his back arched, and forward against the quickening friction of Tasuki's hand. Faster; harder. Tasuki felt the energy spike in his body an instant before Nuriko tossed his head back, screaming in release.

"Ah... Aaaahhhhnnn..."

Hot stickiness flooded over Tasuki's hand. He growled and caught Nuriko's mouth in a bruising kiss, forcing his tongue deep as the other seishi crumpled to his side. His hand found his own aching length, not caring that Nuriko's seed was wet against his flesh.

A low gasp greeted his action, and suddenly Hotohori was moving to straddle his lap, sweat-slick skin gliding against his. Tasuki barely registered the change of partners. He reached up and gripped Hotohori's hips, slamming up into him with one rough thrust.

Suzaku's light, it felt like the fire.

Hotohori threw his head back, making a throaty pleasured sound. He braced himself against the mattress and moved lasciviously, up slowly, bearing down hard. Again. Tasuki caught at him, gritting out an obscenity, and Hotohori laughed breathlessly. The sound went straight to a part of Tasuki's brain that had nothing to do with conscious thought, and everything to do with basic instinct. Like the fire... He tumbled Hotohori onto his back, pushing his legs apart.

He was tight and slick, burning hot, perfect. Tasuki pulled out partway and slid in again, bracing himself on his arms, the friction shooting fiery through his nerves. Hotohori let him, rocking his hips up to meet him compliantly. On the third stroke he tightened down, and any semblance of coherency fled from Tasuki's mind. He pushed Hotohori's knees higher and took him with deep, hard thrusts.

It didn't take long before Hotohori climaxed, arching up against Tasuki and sighing his name. Tasuki grunted and drove in deep, sinking his teeth into the glowing mark that had flared on Hotohori's throat with that moment of pleasure, using the flood of sensation to spur himself to completion.

"Uh... Gods..."

It was sweet. Oh, Suzaku, was it ever sweet. He shook, coming deep inside Hotohori, so intense it was like heat lightning.

A few more languid strokes, and he folded onto Hotohori with a groan.

The next moment he was aware of a muffled exclamation, somewhere in the general direction of the doorway.

Tasuki rolled over and peered up, trying to readjust. Chiriko stood silhouetted by the steam outside, a bath towel wrapped around his waist. Tasuki had never seen anyone blush so red in his entire seventeen years of life.

"Tasuki-san - Nu-Nuriko-san--"

Hotohori pushed up on his elbows.

"Heika-sama - oh Gods, I - I mean - I didn't... Chichiri said you were down here taking a bath, said it was traditional, so I thought--" Chiriko's voice died away altogether, and returned in a strangled squeak. "That is - that - gomen o kudasai!"

And he ran.

Hotohori sighed. "Strange," he murmured vaguely. "You'd have thought he'd be able to feel it. Maybe he's just young."

Tasuki closed his jaw with an effort, opened it again, then decided that sticking with speechlessness was his best bet after all. He could deal with Chiriko tomorrow, when he would have a better grasp of... everything. He flopped back onto the pillows away from the wet spot, basking in the afterglow of sex and feeling Nuriko curl up in the crook of his arm. Hotohori pressed up against him from the other side.

"That traditional too, the funny business you doped the booze with?" he inquired in the end, fuzzily. Sleepiness was starting to set in.

Hotohori's soft chuckle answered him. "Funny business?"

"Yeah, like in the wine, man. What you put--"

"It was just wine, Tasuki." Nuriko nuzzled a little closer, murmuring something unintelligible. "Go to sleep. We have a long day tomorrow."

"Wha--" Tasuki groaned. No, this was too much. He didn't get it in the least. But Hotohori's arm was warm draped over his waist and Nuriko's hair smelled sweet, and it didn't matter. Not much. Not an emergency. He could figure it out tomorrow.

"Chichiri said...?"

"Go to sleep, Tasuki-kun."

He slept.

"Owatta no da..."

Chichiri knotted the last thread of ki into its place in the weave and slumped, rubbing at the back of his head ruefully. Tama-chan blinked up at him from where he curled in repose, just off the edge of Chichiri's prayer mat.

To be sure, he could have had all seven of them line up in the middle of the shrine and focus very hard, but even then the weave wouldn't have been as robust. Chichiri had seen enough of Kutou's tactics to expect countermeasures up to the last moment of the summoning, and possibly from unexpected sources. It would be foolish to assume the enemy had no intelligence of one's own operations. For all he knew, a subtle adjustment in the strength and resonance of the shrine's protection wards would end up making all the difference. And the change had been anything but subtle.

Given Suzaku's very particular jurisdiction in matters of love...

In the end, he'd simply not wanted anyone to be self-conscious. And it had been a good call. Just take Tasuki: Chichiri had seen him draw on enormous reserves in a fight, but he couldn't channel a third of it sitting quietly. Creature of action as he was, it wasn't his thing. But sex was a different question.

It had worked out. Chichiri got to build his wards with the maximum amount of raw ki and minimum amount of bother; all he had to do was set a few discreet spells in the bath complex, on a day when no one but Suzaku shichisei would stumble across them. The others'd end up figuring it out. At least Hotohori must have realized that the chamber they were presently reposing in lay directly under Suzaku's shrine.

They'd figure it out. Eventually.

He sighed, glancing down at the small white cat. "I could do with a bath no da."

Tama meowed.

The End

Notes:
Chiriko's still Amiboshi at this point, if you remember, and so out of the loop so far as the ki connection goes. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you haven't watched far enough to read this story. Oops. :P
Otokorashii: manly, masculine
You don't *really* expect me to translate those little snippets of dialogue between Hotohori and Nuriko, do you? Use your imagination. It's lifted from doujinshi, they say exactly what you'd expect them to say. ^_^;