Life started to develop a soothing rhythm and Shinji let it settle comfortably into place, the steady ease of it helping him adjust to living in general. His absorption in his studies and archery and new friends was so complete that he didn’t notice at first what was going on.

All he knew was that he kept waking up, over and over one night with no warning, from horrendous nightmares of the crash. The sort of dreams he hadn’t had for months. The kind that had him waking choking on a silent scream, sweating madly and terrified.

Rien and Kippei woke sometimes but Shinji felt caught in a loop and finally had to crawl out of bed and go to get a glass of water. It was only then, while standing in the kitchen and staring absently at the calendar, that he realised why. And then all he could do was stare, a strange smile on his face, blinking back tears.

Disturbed by Shinji climbing out of bed, Rien got up and followed him when he didn’t come back right away, grabbing an extra blanket and taking it out to drape around Shinji’s shoulders, hugging him from behind and kissing his hair.

“What’s wrong, princess?”

“Just bad dreams,” Shinji whispered, but that wasn’t it, really. He smiled wider, looking up at Rien with a hint of awe on his face as he pointed at the calendar.

“It’s been a year. I woke up a year ago. A few hours ago.”

“So you did,” Rien observed, studying the date with interest and hugging Shinji close, rocking him gently back and forth. “Been a long year, hm? Come a long way, haven’t we.” He chuckled softly at the memory of where they had been a year ago, all three afraid they couldn’t keep the ones they loved the most, and kissed Shinji’s hair again, stroking it back.

“Love you, beautiful. I’m glad you’re mine,” he noted softly.

“My head feels funny…sort of stuck on a loop, going over the crash and stuff. It’s kinda weird. But…it feels good. I’m not alone when I wake up, and I feel good. Everything’s so…good.”

Rien chuckled softly, picking him up and kissing him and taking him back to bed. “Good,” he agreed. “We think so too, ain’t we, Ki?”

Kippei was sitting up in bed, looking sleepy and worried and confused. “Where’d you go?” he mumbled, rubbing his face with his hands. “Shinji okay?”

“Think so,” Rien told him amusedly, dumping Shinji in his lap, blanket and all, and tumbling down beside them. “We’re all good,” he murmured, touching Shinji’s cheek and smiling warmly at him.

“It’s been a year, Ki…I woke up a year ago. And you and Ri were right…it was all okay, and I didn’t die. And it’s good now. Everything’s so good.” He hugged Kippei hard, loving him more than ever before, impossibly so.

“Sorry if I made you worry, just couldn’t sleep and didn’t know why, then I saw the calendar.” He was still smiling brightly.

Kippei hugged him back, kissing him and smiling too. “It has been a year now, hasn’t it,” he mused. It was kind of amazing when he thought about it, how far they had come and how hard they had worked at it, but Shinji was right. They had made it, and it was good. It was all very, very good.

“We should celebrate,” he murmured. “Take Yuni and go on a picnic or something.”

“Hell yeah!” Shinji agreed, but he didn’t bother to move, comfortable where he was. Besides, it was still the early hours of the morning. But he definitely didn’t feel like sleeping.

“Hey…we could go sit in the spa for a while.” They could go naked because Hyun-ki was still asleep. It had been a while since they had some time to themselves.

Rien was all for nakedness of any kind. “That is a fantastic idea,” he agreed, giving Shinji a smacking kiss and scrambling up to find a few towels to take out with them. “You, are a genius.”

Chuckling affectionately, Kippei shook his head and helped Shinji out of the blanket Rien had wrapped him up in.

“C’mon then,” he said, “let’s go.”

“Yes!” Shinji hopped up and hurried out the back, folding his pyjamas and putting them on the table before climbing into the spa, checking the temperature and turning the heat up a little. He fished through the spa storage and found a bottle of muscat, grinning as he held it up for Rien.

“Just a little bit each to celebrate?”

Rien laughed delightedly as he climbed in, nodding his agreement. “Absolutely,” he said, fishing around for the glasses as well and holding them for Shinji to pour.

Kippei followed them more slowly, stopping to check on Yuni and make sure she was still sleeping soundly before he came out to join them.

Shinji was waiting with a glass in hand for him, passing it over when Kippei climbed in, then reaching up to clink their glasses together.

“To being awake. It’s a good feeling.”

“Amen,” Rien agreed, holding up his glass in a silent toast as well and drinking deeply, sighing comfortably as he relaxed in the hot water.

Kippei hummed contentedly as he also took a drink, smiling faintly at the delight still transparent in Shinji’s expression, and feeling completely warm inside.

“Hey Shinji,” he murmured. “We made it.” Not the way they’d always dreamed they would, but in every way that counted. And now they had a Rien, too. Small price to pay in the long run, he was pretty sure.

Shinji just smiled, full strength grinning at Kippei because damn straight they had. He actually thought they had failed, in a way, because they definitely weren’t tennis stars and really, almost every dream they had shared had not come true, but they were still together and they had an amazing family and a cute little unit and garden and amazing spa and really, there was not a thing he could think to complain about save three years he didn’t really need to remember. It was over and done with, he’d made it and it was damn good. He slid in against Kippei, kissing his cheek and still grinning like a fool.

“You promised I’d be okay.” And he was.

Rien watched them silently and hoped like mad he wasn’t going to have to leave again soon, and when he did that nothing serious would happen. He wasn’t so arrogant as to think he would never get hurt – hell, he definitely had before. But he could hope that nothing serious would happen before he finally quit for good – it would have to be soon, he was sure of that.

“We’ll be okay,” he stated, nodding firmly as if that might make it more true.

Shinji nodded in agreement, they were totally going to be fine. He sipped his muscat, humming in pleasure at the soft, sticky texture of it, like syrup sliding down his throat. He felt incredibly good, but a little off, though he figured that was understandable. He was euphoric in the realization he had made it a year…it almost felt like his birthday, now. But he felt uneasy and on edge, as if expecting a train to come out of nowhere and plow him over again.

“Ki…hold on, just for a little bit?”

Casting him a slightly worried glance, Kippei shifted from where he had his arm draped around Shinji’s shoulders and pulled him into his lap instead, tucking him in close and kissing his temple.

“Better?” he asked.

Rien pouted a little because he wasn’t getting cuddles and came over to snuggle in on Kippei’s other side, grinning at Shinji because he looked so damn cute sitting there surrounded by Kippei.

“Better,” Shinji agreed, though he took one look at the look on Rien’s face and rolled his eyes, knowing exactly what was going on in that fool head of his.

“I am not cute. Don’t you dare say it.”

Amused, Rien took another drink of his muscat and looked innocent. “It’s so sexy when you givin’ orders, princess,” he told Shinji in a husky voice, leaning over to lick his cheek. The rather imperious, demanding note in Shinji’s voice just kind of did things to him.

Kippei laughed at him, raising his own drink for a lingering sip and humming in appreciation as it slid over his tongue. Shinji had the best ideas.

A dark blush crept over Shinji’s cheeks and he stayed petulantly silent, not wanting to give Rien any more ideas than he apparently already had. Seriously, the guy was just weird sometimes! Orders were sexy, sure, if they were coming from Kippei. And well, sometimes Rien, only Shinji preferred Rien when he was in one of his goofy playful moods, sort of like an oversized puppy really, not that he was ever going to put that into words! And well, Yuni was cute when she demanded stuff, but only because it was so rare and a sign of how comfortable she was with them.

“You’re a dork,” he settled on instead, sticking his tongue out at Rien.

Rien smirked at him, hoping that someday Shinji might be a little more comfortable with the idea, because it was damn sexy, no matter what Shinji said.

“If you say so,” he answered smartly, reaching over to refill his glass and looking inquiringly at them to see if they wanted more too.

“Hmm…hell yeah. Not like I can’t just sleep all day if I need to sleep it off,” Shinji laughed softly, very much aware he would do no such thing. Somehow the idea of sleeping today didn’t appeal at all. It made him quiet, just thinking to himself as he watched Rien refill his glass for him.

“It was…nice. Waking up and having you there, breathing and clinging and the bed was warm. It was so much better.” Than waking up alone in the dark unable to move with nothing but the heart monitor and breathing apparatus for company.

Kippei let Rien top off his glass too, stroking Shinji’s hair back and kissing his temple in apology, knowing too well what he had left unspoken.

Sighing, Rien set the bottle aside and cradled his glass in his hands as he took another sip.

“It’s hard,” he noted softly, “sleepin’ alone when I’m workin’ somewhere.” He always missed them most when he had to go to sleep in a lonely bed by himself, wondering if they were alright and missing him too.

“Mm…but, it’s weird, don’t you think? I missed having people there, in bed with me, and the bed being warm, and someone breathing near me. I missed all those things, but I lived at home before and I didn’t have those things. It’s like I missed them before I had them. Like I knew what I was missing or something.” Or like Rien had promised it would be okay if he just woke up, and Shinji had actually listened, only to find it wasn’t okay at all. Weird.

“I dunno, Shin,” Kippei sighed, rubbing his back gently, bare skin warm and slick under his hand. “Wish we’d been there for you.” Wished impossible things, really, which did no good to anybody.

“But I’m glad we’re here now,” he added softly. All three of them.

“Yeah,” Shinji agreed, because Kippei took things way too seriously. Shinji wanted to call his dad later and just talk about it, like they had sometimes back in the hospital before he got released. Just to have someone who understood the way he thought and was willing to follow his eccentric trains of thought and still be the voice of reason. He always liked those phone calls home.

“Being here is the best,” he agreed softly.

Rien sat comfortably leaning against them in the hot water, feeling it sink deep into his bones as the muscat warmed his stomach from the inside, musing silently for a few minutes. Shinji was right, things were really good now.

“Need to get your brace fixed yet,” he reminded Shinji after a minute. “Lemme know when you got time off work an’ school, I’ll take you in to get it fitted.”

Excited all over again by the prospect, Shinji contemplated it a little nervously.

“Uh…can Yuni come? I mean, the guy’s not like some psycho assassin or something is he? She’d be okay? Or should we let Mum take her for the day?”

He paused, letting what he had just said sink in and then blinking owlishly at the both of them, because he didn’t mean his own mother, he meant Kimiko.

Rien blinked back at him for a second, not entirely sure what he’d meant, but answering automatically.

“Mmm it’d prob’ly be better if she didn’t come, she’ll get bored, it might take awhile.”

Kippei was looking curiously at Shinji, sure from his expression what he’d meant and finding it odd and yet…not.

“Kimi will be glad to take her,” he pointed out mildly, not quite sure if Shinji was upset or just feeling weird.

Just feeling weird was definitely the thing, but Shinji couldn’t help feeling like he was betraying his real mother. She was crazy, sure, but she had meant well and it had all just been overwhelming love. But Kimiko loved him, and treated him like a normal person, and she accepted all the decisions he made. She was what mothers were supposed to be, and he adored her all the more for it. Besides, she was cute and silly like Rien. Hell, she’d even conspired with him to get laid that one time.

“Yeah…well, I have time on Thursday afternoon, after lunch?”

“That should work,” Rien agreed, flashing him a bright grin. It was always fun for him, finding new ways to spoil them, and making sure Shinji had perfectly custom made archery equipment was only one of them. This time, at least, he wouldn’t have to be as sneaky.

“So Yuni can’t come? That means he really is a creepy old assassin type guy?” Shinji wasn’t sure that was a good idea, but he was also sure Rien wouldn’t take him anywhere he wouldn’t be safe. It was still creepy and he just sat there, staring at Rien a little dumbly.

Rien looked amused. “Told you, he’s just mmm…a contractor. Does a lot of work for us but he ain’t an agent. It’d be okay, maybe, if she came along, but she’d get bored an’ it ain’t really the kinda place for kids. Don’t think he’d like it,” he admitted, because while the man did excellent work he was not a people person, and Rien couldn’t imagine him being anything other than twitchy and uncomfortable around children.

Shinji laughed at that, well able to imagine Hyun-ki getting bored and the small agitated looks she would give them as a result, and some guy who wasn’t used to kids and the looks he would pull. It just amused him now, when he should have been just as disturbed by kids.

“Our lives are funny.”

“That they are,” Rien agreed, completely amused by that fact. Their lives were certainly interesting these days, in ways none of them could have ever expected or predicted.

Kippei snorted softly, reaching over to pull Rien’s hair and ruffle it messily. “Thanks mostly to you,” he noted dryly, amused mainly because of all the things that made their lives so odd and often hilarious, nearly all of them were because of Rien.

“Thanks completely to you,” Shinji snorted. “Bringing home kids and cool parents, and introducing us to weird sports and stuff…” Everything Rien brought into their house was good. They might take offence to it at first, but in the end it was always good.

“Never get hurt,” Shinji scolded him softly. It would kill him if Rien got hurt.

“Don’t plan on it,” Rien assured him, but he knew it wasn’t something he could promise. It only made him more determined than ever to quit as soon as he possibly could. Not that quitting would be easy, but the alternatives were worse.

Shinji eyed him shrewdly, very much aware that wasn’t a promise, and that it wasn’t something Rien could promise. It just made him sigh and hold out his glass for another top up. Muscat wasn’t something you were supposed to drink a lot of, but he loved the taste and he could get drunk at four in the morning if he damn well wanted to. Wasn’t that was university students did?

“Love you, superdork.”

Laughing, Rien stuck his tongue out at him but obligingly topped off his glass again, refilling his own while he was at it.

Kippei shook his head at both of them, raising an eyebrow at Shinji. “What time do you have class tomorrow? Don’t complain to me if you have a hangover,” he said mildly, though the truth was he would baby him until he felt better like he always did, and Shinji knew it.

“I only have two classes and they’re really easy. I already did the three assignments so really I’m just waiting for the test!” Shinji complained. If he was honest, University was boring and way too slow. He liked hanging out with the new friends he had made, but that was really all he was doing. He was contemplating talking to the head of Science and asking if he could take more units next semester. Or maybe just skip a few altogether. Or compress them, or something!

Kippei snorted, amused but a little envious of how easily Shinji was sailing through all his courses. It had never been that easy for him, and even though most of his classwork consisted of reading, he still had to do essays on the covered material and it was the bane of his existence.

“Well, I guess you don’t have to worry then.” Shinji could easily just take the day off and stay home if he wanted to anyway, Rien and Yuni would be delighted.

Shinji grinned, seeing the amusement on Kippei’s face and liking it. There was something about being back at school with Kippei that was just fun. Just what he wanted and needed and there was a future attached to them being there; one that was easy for Shinji to see and soothed all his fears about having no goal for his life.

“I wanna go for archery though. Would suck to lose because I was hungover.”

Rien laughed. “Ren will have your head if you did,” he pointed out, still laughing. He had been coming to watch Shinji’s practices with Yuni as often as could be arranged, and he’d gotten rather fond of Shinji’s archery captain – the guy was weird as all hell, but amusing. It was funny as hell to watch the way he managed his team.

“He would…scary weirdo,” Shinji mumbled, though really he loved Ren. He was nothing like Kippei, which meant Shinji could accept him as a Captain. But he worked as an archery Captain, and he knew the team really well…freakishly well. Shinji thought he was a little too curious and nosey but that was fine when you had nothing to hide.

“So…I was thinking…that, if Doc Hanataki says its okay…we could go to Taiwan? Just, for a little holiday? See how it goes? It’s a short plane trip, and none of us have been…I think?” He had no idea if Rien had been or not, but it wasn’t huge on crime so he doubted it.

Rien blinked at him, a little startled. They had talked about taking a holiday sometime, but he hadn’t expected that it would be anytime soon – thrilled as he was that Shinji was even considering it, he knew Shinji was still nervous about any form of transportation in general, and a plane didn’t really sound like a good idea…but if Shinji wanted to try it, he didn’t suppose there was any harm in letting him.

“Are you cleared to fly already?” Kippei asked him, surprised. It had been a year, after all, but he hadn’t thought the doctors had approved that yet.

“No? I mean, I haven’t asked. I called Naota and he said I should go in for a check up anyway, and that I could ask about it.” He shrugged, having many of the same doubts as Rien about the whole thing. But he wanted to try, wanted the sorts of memories he imagined Rien and Kippei had the few times they had mentioned Milan. That time things had changed for them. Shinji wanted memories like that, or thought he did.

“But, Taiwan’s a good start, right? I mean, it’s really pretty and they have lots of resorts and things, and it’s just a few hours on the plane and stuff.”

“Sounds good to me,” Rien agreed, shrugging. Shinji was right, it wasn’t far and as a holiday it would be an interesting place to go.

Kippei sighed a little, worried but not wanting to dampen their enthusiasm. “If the doctor says it’s fine, then it’s okay with me,” he agreed finally, but he was still going to worry.

Shinji looked up at him and just smiled sadly, knowing he had done nothing at all to give Kippei any sort of confidence that Shinji could handle it. But that was all the more reason to go. Shinji had to get better at this; Akira was right, he couldn’t be this dependant on them, it wasn’t right.

“I want memories like yours. Like Milan and stuff.”

Kippei blinked at him, completely baffled. “Like…Milan?” he asked finally, having no idea what Shinji was referring to. He’d certainly never been to Milan, and he had no clue what kind of memories Shinji was talking about.

Beside him Rien went still, staring at Shinji in confusion and shivering a little, feeling cold in spite of the heat of the water.

“What…kind of memories, exactly?” he asked, and his voice sounded odd even to himself.

“I dunno, you’ve mentioned it a few times. You said…things changed in Milan, that you fell in love there, or something…” He looked from one to the other and realised they had no idea what he was talking about, blushing furiously as a result.

“After,” Rien muttered in a strangled voice. “Things changed…after.” Sort of.

“Shinji,” Kippei said slowly, not entirely sure how he’d managed to get this idea in the first place, “I’ve never been to Milan.” He shot a worried look at Rien, who was still tense and trying not to shiver.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” Rien managed after a minute, sliding further down in the water with his eyes closed. “I’m fine.”

Kippei snorted, taking both his glass and Rien’s and setting them aside, kissing Shinji’s temple as he nudged him off his lap, getting up to reach for the nearby towels and draping one over Rien’s head.

“Come on,” he sighed, tugging on Shinji’s hand and pushing Rien’s shoulder until he moved. “Let’s go back to bed.”

“You…what?” Shinji blinked at them both, because they had said after Milan, and he realised they had never said ‘while we were in Milan’. Which meant Milan had been a mission, and by the sounds of it the memories it brought up weren’t the sort Shinji had assumed at all. He felt immediately guilty, and completely lost, so he just let Kippei tug him back inside and down the hallway and crawled into bed, feeling almost as lost as Rien looked.

“You…you’ve never been to Milan? They have tennis there, so I just thought…”

Kippei shook his head. “No, it wasn’t – I wasn’t there, for that one.” He pushed Rien down in the middle of the bed and crawled in on the other side, reaching across to tug Shinji closer so they could cuddle him between them.

Sighing a little, feeling like he should insist a little harder that he was okay but not really wanting to, Rien buried his face against Kippei’s chest and relaxed into their arms, feeling the warmth finally seeping back in.

“Was just a bad mission, Shin,” he mumbled tiredly. “Nothing special, ‘cept Ki felt sorry for me when I got back.” Or something, he wasn’t entirely sure what had caused Kippei’s attitude to suddenly – or so it seemed to him – soften and come close to loving, or at least gentle, right then, but he’d been too grateful to question it, and after that, it hadn’t mattered.

Shinji stared at both of them, looking at the way Rien instinctively leaned in for Kippei’s support and he sighed heavily, pinching Rien’s bum.

“It’s never ‘just’ a bad mission, idiot. Bad is bad, its never just…” He sighed, rubbing his head and trying to find the right words. “I thought you were there for tennis, and you guys, I dunno…fell in love, or something.”

Rien snorted softly – he would have laughed, but he was afraid it might come out rather hysterical.

“I dunno how you come up with that,” he noted wryly. “I ain’t even thought he really loved me at all, till you woke up an’ he…didn’t leave.” He’d been as stunned as anyone else – including Kippei himself, apparently – that Kippei hadn’t immediately broken up with him when he finally had Shinji back.

“It wasn’t like that,” Kippei agreed softly, stroking Rien’s wild tangle of hair and giving Shinji a wry smile. “He was just…pretty messed up, when he came back, and I…” He shrugged, not entirely sure how to put into words what he’d felt or why he’d wanted to comfort with unexpected tenderness when he hadn’t realised that his feelings were slowly changing.

“I didn’t know why, then,” he admitted, “but I didn’t want to just ignore it or treat him the way I usually did. I wanted to…help, somehow, give him something he needed that was gentler than – our usual forms of communication,” he finished dryly, aware that Shinji didn’t really understand that either, but not feeling up to explaining it.

“I didn’t just suddenly fall in love with him then, didn’t know that I had until after you woke up, but…maybe it was when I started to.”

Rien was silent, more than happy for Kippei to do the explaining, and hoping Shinji didn’t ask exactly what had made the mission ‘bad’. Kippei had never asked, and he would just as soon not tell either one of them in any detail. For one thing, it would mean he would have to think about it again.

Shinji stared at both of them, and really didn’t know what to think. There was a lot not being said, or being said in a roundabout manner and he struggled not to accuse them outright of lying, because they weren’t. But they were hiding things and it annoyed him, and he had trouble with it for a few minutes before he forced himself to relax and think about it seriously.

“…What was the mission?” He asked finally, in a very quiet voice, knowing Rien wouldn’t want to talk about it, but needing him to take it seriously. He couldn’t understand if he didn’t know what they were talking about.

Kippei looked down uneasily as Rien tensed up again, and gave Shinji a troubled look over the top of his head. The little that Rien had told him had made him pretty sure he didn’t want details, and he really doubted that Shinji did either, but after all their issues with secrets it was hard to say.

Shivering, Rien finally shook his head, trying to find some kind of words but not even knowing where to start, and definitely not wanting to say everything out loud in any case.

“I can’t,” he said finally, pulling away and sitting up, running his fingers through his hair and squeezing his eyes shut. “I just…I. Can’t talk about this right now, or. I don’t know. I could try to write it for you, but.” He shook his head again, wishing he could shake out the memories and climbing off the bed to get dressed, finding a pair of jeans and a tshirt and a hoodie and pulling them on, hugging himself and feeling marginally less freaked out now that he wasn’t naked.

“I’m sorry, Shinji,” he said in a soft, unsteady voice. “Ki can…tell you what he knows, but I just. I need. Some time, okay.” He shivered again, feeling miserable and wishing he could give Shinji what he wanted but not really wanting to relive those memories again, like ever.

Shinji just stared, mind boggling, because he had never seen Rien – Rien of all people! go and put clothes on to feel better. Rien loved being naked, and it was usually Shinji running off to get dressed. Seeing the role reversal slammed home just how hard it must be for Rien, and just how bad the mission must have been. He pulled into himself, biting his lower lip as he thought about it some more, trying to get his own thoughts straight as well before he sighed and flopped over onto the pillows, hugging Kiri tight.

“It doesn’t matter, probably better if I don’t know. I just…I mean, you’ve told me before that it was bad, and I guess I just figured Kippei was there, actually in Milan because you said you used him as a cover sometimes and I knew there was tennis there as well. Actually, I don’t know why I came to that conclusion at all, I guess it was pretty stupid, but I know how Kippei gets when someone’s that upset and I just put them together that way. Was stupid of me…” And not usually a mistake he made, except that it was Kippei and Rien and he wasn’t exactly rational when it came to them.

Kippei smiled faintly and pulled him close to cuddle him, kissing his hair. There were so many things Shinji didn’t know, didn’t understand about the time before he’d woken up, but they were hard things to explain when Shinji really had no concept of them at all.

“Can I…” Rien was still standing beside the bed, fidgeting restlessly from foot to foot. “I kind of, want to go for a walk an’ just…clear m’head a bit, kay? Not like, runnin’ away or anythin’…” He looked anxiously at Shinji, not wanting him to take it the wrong way but just needing to get out and move for awhile.

“Was gonna ask if you wanted to go for a walk,” Shinji laughed softly, because it was what he always wanted. “You want company? Kippei could go, and I can stay with Yuni…or whatever?” He wasn’t sure what Rien wanted, but knew Kippei would be better at not asking every fool question that popped into his head. Shinji had a million questions and was struggling not to ask them.

“Nah, it’s okay,” Rien answered, looking relieved. “I’ll just, um, I’ll be back soon,” he assured them, and Kippei waved him away.

“Go, go, take your phone and go to the park and swing or something,” he ordered. He knew Rien didn’t really want company, would rather work things out in his head by himself.

Rien gave them both a grateful look and did as he was told, making sure he had his phone before he headed out to grab his shoes and leave the house as quietly as possible, not wanting to wake Yuni.

“Well, that was exciting,” Kippei said wryly, giving Shinji a rueful smile after Rien had gone. “Wanna come sit in front of the fire and drink hot chocolate with me?”

“God, yes,” Shinji gasped, grateful that Kippei knew him so well, knew what they all needed and hoping Kippei needed the same and not something he couldn’e give. He crawled out of bed and grabbed some clothes of his own; comfortable track pants and one of his archery team shirts, pulling them on quickly and hurrying out to the kitchen, dumping Kiri on the couch on his way before he put the kettle on. It felt good just to have something to do, even just making hot chocolate.

Kippei chuckled as he followed, getting dressed similarly before he followed Shinji out to the kitchen, giving him a brief hug and kiss before he went to build a small fire, and find a couple of blankets they could sit on the couch and snuggle in. He knew Shinji still had a lot of questions, and he thought it was probably a good idea if he explained as much as he could, but there was no reason they couldn’t be cozy and warm at the same time.

He grinned as Shinji brought in the hot chocolate, reaching for one of them and holding up the blanket so Shinji could slip in under it beside him.

“C’mere, you,” he said affectionately, pleased with how well Shinji had handled their emotional disturbance tonight and wanting to cuddle him to make up for it.

“I love you,” Shinji blurted out as soon as he was settled in against Kippei’s side, and then he was silent, not really sure why he’d said it. Then he sighed as he thought about it, because he really was insane.

“I don’t…I don’t know the you who was here when I wasn’t. I don’t. Rien talks about it, and it’s not you.” And he didn’t really want to know that Kippei, because he would have to accept responsibility on some level for why that Kippei existed.

Kippei sighed. “I was…kind of insane then,” he admitted. “I guess it wasn’t really me, or it was me without you, because you’re all the best parts of me anyway. I’m not really…that good of a person, Shinji. I’m not very nice when I don’t have you…keeping me. I wasn’t very nice before I met you, and I wasn’t very nice while you were gone, and it doesn’t say much for me but that’s the way it is. I need you, or I’m not me, or at least I’m not the me I want to be.”

Shinji shivered, wondering what he would be like without Kippei and not really able to imagine it, but that was the whole point. It was funny, in a way, and yet not. But it was just the way they were, and it wasn’t like everyone didn’t know it.

“It’s okay. We need each other, that’s not a bad thing. It just…it means I don’t really get it. Even when you explain things to me, they don’t make sense and my head jumps to other conclusions sometimes, like the Milan thing, because the other options just don’t seem possible. I don’t know that you…I don’t know that Rien. I like the ones I know now.”

Kippei hugged him and kissed the top of his head. “I know,” he murmured. “I wish we could explain it better, just so… you don’t make those kind of assumptions and we end up all confused and stuff.  I’m just not very good at talking about – well, anything,” he admitted sheepishly.

“But if you want to ask me stuff, I’ll try to tell you as much as I know, okay? About what happened, I mean.”

“I dunno…I just, what makes a bad mission, or a good mission? If he had to sleep with people I woulda thought that would make them all bad. I don’t really see how a mission could be good at all! And why was this one so much worse than all the others? I don’t…I feel stupid because I don’t know anything.”

Kippei sighed, trying to think where to start, how to explain something so unexplainable to Shinji, who had never had any experience of sex other than in a close, loving relationship, and couldn’t imagine anything else, much less enjoying it.

“When I met him,” he said finally, “I didn’t really know what he did. I figured it out kind of gradually, from little things mostly and the weird schedule and just…I don’t know. We never really talked about things, not any kind of things, but especially that. I asked him once if he was…I don’t remember how I put it, and he didn’t really say yes so much as he didn’t deny it, but I gathered that he made a living at seducing people or sleeping with them for money or something like that, along with some kind of espionage or undercover something or other, and that was good enough for me – I didn’t know if it was the government or the mafia or some corporate thing or even the police, and I…”

He hesistated, shrugging a little, but if he didn’t tell Shinji the truth as he felt it, if Shinji felt he was leaving things out or fudging on the details, it would only make things worse.

“I didn’t really care at that point,” he sighed. “It wasn’t like…you and me. He was like, a nuisance that wouldn’t go away and I was mad at him for a long time, even after I started caring about him, and I didn’t think that I really wanted to know stuff like where he’d been or come from, what he did when he wasn’t bothering me, whatever. He just kind of…wriggled his way into my life and wouldn’t go away, but I kept trying to push him out or at least, keep him at arm’s length or something.”

He was probably going a lot farther back than he needed to, here, but Shinji also didn’t understand why it had been so unexpected for Rien when this had happened and Kippei had reacted the way he did, taking care of him – which Shinji just thought was normal, but it had never been normal for him and Rien before that, not really after it either, and Kippei thought it might help if he tried to explain it as best he could, not that he really thought he was doing a good job of it.

It made no sense to Shinji, that Kippei and that situation and not wanting to know every little thing. But he understood one thing, and that was the need to be left alone. That small but all consuming little madness that screamed at you to retreat and push everything away, because then maybe you wouldn’t remember that everything had changed and you wouldn’t have to deal with it. That Shinji understood perfectly. It made him sad and he curled in against Kippei’s side, sipping his hot chocolate and wishing he had anything at all to say, but this was Kippei and Rien, and he had no part in it other than sleeping like the dead.

“You really never…” He shook his head because he already knew the answer. “It wasn’t like with me.” And that was the only experience of anything Shinji had. “You really didn’t care? That he slept with other people? For money?”

“I didn’t really…think about it much, but I guess…mostly, yeah, I didn’t care. By the time I had enough feelings for him that I might have cared, I already had guessed enough about it to know that he was working, somehow, that the results of what he was doing were fairly important and that was just…part of it. It was a job, and I didn’t really feel like I had any right to object anyway.”

Not that any of that made a whole lot of sense, to someone with Shinji’s experience. Kippei sighed again and took another drink of his hot chocolate, resting his cheek against Shinji’s hair and staring into the fire.

“We never…not until you woke up, we never said anything like, love or any kind of committment or anything. He started calling himself my boyfriend at some point and I just kind of let him so it just…went on from there, but we were both, I guess, pretending it was just a casual thing. Nothing serious. At least, I was, and I think he did because he knew I needed it that way.” Because whenever he had to face any clear evidence to the contrary, like say, their first anniversary, he’d had some kind of breakdown and Rien would have to pick up the pieces.

Shinji was quiet for a long time, because he understood, mostly, but he couldn’t understand. It wasn’t something he would ever know, or experience, not something he could likely ever face. The decisions Kippei had made, or not made, were unique to him, and Rien…well, he was weird enough for just about anything and being confused by his decisions didn’t surprise Shinji at all. But it hurt his pride a little that there was something he really couldn’t properly grasp.

“I get what you’re saying. But I don’t understand…it’s not in me. None of that…none of the things that brought you together or helped you make those decisions or anything…they’re not in me.”

Kippei chuckled a little, half a snort. “That’s a good thing, believe me. I just want you to know that… Rien doesn’t understand either, what it was like for us. He’s never had the kind of thing we had before, not with anyone, and this we have now, with the three of us, it’s different too.” He bit his lip, trying to think of a good way to put it.

“You and Rien are both on opposite sides of…kind of a wall of perception that you can’t really cross. You can explain it to each other, or you can try, but he’s never going to really understand where you’re coming from, anymore than you understand what I’m telling you now. Even when you know, you can’t really know it, the difference that makes some of the things so incomprehensible to you. And your view of it, the way you imagined it would be instead, makes just as little sense to him. It was never like that for us, before you, and he mostly associates the way I am now with you. It would never occur to him to think that I could have been the way I am now with him, if you had never existed,” Kippei noted a bit sadly.

“And that’s maybe true, because I can’t imagine being who I am now if I never had you. You’re so much a part of me and you’ve been for so long that I don’t even know who I’d be or could have been if I’d never had you. Really I don’t want to know that, either.”

That made perfect sense and Shinji grinned, finishing off his cup and putting it aside so he could move in closer and kiss Kippei, hot and hungry and filled with the same, old familiar emotion he’d always felt around Kippei. It was true, he and Rien just didn’t get where each other were coming from, but they each understood where they were now and Shinji liked to think that was all that mattered.

“Well…we can still make cool memories in Taiwan, right? With all four of us.”

“You bet,” Kippei agreed, laughing a little as he put his own cup aside and pulled Shinji into his lap, kissing him back with just as much fervent warmth and need. “Love you, Shinji, love you so much. Never want to stop making new memories with you, with all of us, better and better all the time.” He ran his fingers through Shinji’s hair again, over and over, loving the familiar sensation of silken strands rippling and clinging to his fingers like some kind of unearthly beautiful water.

“You know,” he said after a minute, “the kind of memories you were talking about, that you thought we had…really I think the closest any of us have come to that was our honeymoon,” he noted, rather amused by that fact. “That was awesome, but I’m sure we can do better than that. So Taiwan it is.”

“Ah, no way am I telling Yoshi he’s part of the best memories of my life!” Shinji objected, but he was laughing, agreeing completely. No worries, no cares, nothing but them and how much he adored them. It made him smile, remembering all the little things that had made it so special.

“There is no better,” Shinji whispered softly, as though it were a secret. “You, me and Ri…that’s as good as it gets.”