The sun was just starting to go down when Shinji carefully carried a large platter of goodies out to the back verandah and set it in the middle of the table, carefully checking everything was just right. Dinner, plates, chopsticks, glasses, bottle of wine, candles, mozzie coils…It was all laid out delicately on a dark [...]

Shinji rushed up the path from the lake where he’d been paddling all morning by the pier, a smile clear on his face, hair loose and streaming out behind him in wet, sticky strands. He rushed into the cabin, kicking off his shoes and dropping his towel, spotting Rien in the kitchen and running into [...]

Toshio had left Shinji pretty much alone for awhile, letting him get over himself, and it was Rien he most needed to work on anyway, so he’d talked with him a few more times and had gathered from a number of things that Rien said that Shinji was probably actually doing fairly well, and he [...]

“You are not to walk on it,” the doctor told Kippei sternly as he fastened a brace around Kippei’s ankle in place of the cast that had just been removed. “You can use crutches instead of the chair but you must not walk on it for another couple of weeks.” He knew Kippei’s type, always [...]