The first snowball to hit the window and trigger the defensive jutsu, Genma chalked up to random, probably drunken shinobi playing find-the-traps with ANBU's windows. It was a game he'd played himself, after all, when he'd been a little younger. Before he joined ANBU. He ignored it.

The second one he attributed to the sort of testing any curious person would do to see if it would happen again. He pulled the blankets up around his ears, buried his head under the pillow so as not to see the flashes of lightning, and tried to go back to sleep.

The third, fourth, and fifth snowballs, laced with chakra and obviously skillfully thrown, got him out of bed. It was probably someone who knew him. Maybe Aoba. Maybe Seijuro. Maybe... There were too many possibilities. He wrapped his blankets around his bare shoulders like a cape, stumbled over to the window, deactivated the trap, and flung the window open just in time for a fresh snowball to come whizzing at him, trailing a glowing tail like a displaced comet fallen from the heavens. He dodged left, felt ice and chakra graze his right cheekbone, and stuck his head out the window.

"Aoba, if that's you--"

Another icy sphere, blazing blue-white, sped his way. Genma caught it, shuddered at the sting in his palm, and hurled it back.

"What the hell do you want?"

There was the melodious voice of his favorite annoying medic. Yanagi didn't bother to answer, he just ducked the re-flung snowball, shrugged so his guitar swung down in front of his chest, and then strummed a chord. He'd spent years building up his ability to sing over the din of a crowd, the babble of conversations, the clink and crash of glasses wielded by the drunk. He had a really good set of lungs, which he put to use now.

If he were lucky, he'd wake up some other people, too.

He'd finally settled on a song within a song, within a song. Mostly because there were some particular phrases he'd liked in everything he'd tried, and this way he could switch genres at will. He wasn't more than two lines in when Genma started hissing at him to shut up. Now that was a win! But obviously Genma wasn't listening, so Yanagi sang louder.

Genma, however, wasn't going to be drowned out. "I should have left you poisoned," he called down. "Would you shut up and come inside before I freeze to death hanging out my window? You're gonna wake up every poor bastard on this side of the building!"

Yanagi stopped strumming, splaying one hand over his heart. "You wound me, Genma. You really do."

There was noise in the apartment below Genma's. Before that window could open and something more dangerous than words could come flying down, Yanagi slung his guitar around behind him and jumped for the wall, chakra-climbing it rapidly. He hooked a hand in Genma's window and hopped onto the sill, smiling brightly. Genma's face was pale in the moonlight, his hair disheveled. Beyond him, the futon was rumpled and obviously recently vacated. There were clothes on the bed, spilling down onto the floor, and more dirty clothes in a hamper. The snowball was sitting on a stack of papers, with a glossy magazine on top -- a magazine with lurid print and half naked people on the cover. Yanagi's eyebrows rose and he smirked at Genma, noting the dark green boxers, blanket, and nothing else. "Little light reading material before bed?"

"What?" Genma's eyes tracked Yanagi's gaze, to his table. "Oh shit! You bastard, that was new," he said, reaching for his porn. The melting snowball had already curled the cover into a wrinkled mess, but what lay underneath was worse. Much worse. What lay underneath, with snow melt turning its precisely inked kanji to blurred watercolor, was Genma's latest, and as-yet-unfinished, mission report.

"Dammit, Yanagi!" Yes, that was his name, Genma thought with something like surprise. Not that he was going to forget the musician he'd saved from poisoning that easily, but it had been a month and a half, and they'd only met the once on that mission, Unless you counted the time Yanagi threw him over a waterfall last August. That didn't really count as meeting in Genma's book.

"Shut the window. It's cold," he snapped, and turned on the ceiling light. The porn was recoverable, as long as you didn't care about the first ten pages or so. The mission report--not so much. He grabbed a discarded t-shirt from the laundry and sopped at the water. "Shit! Look at this. I was gonna turn that in in the morning, asshole."

"Well, see, that's what you get for not taking the snowball like a man," Yanagi said blithely. He slid into the apartment and looked around with shameless curiosity, pausing at the bookshelf crammed to overflowing with books. Yanagi tipped his head and started skimming titles, finally pulling one out and brandishing it. The cover read, "The Sexual Practices of Eastern Aborigines." It had more pictures than text. He waved it around. "Research?"

Genma was still mopping up water, and shot him an annoyed look. Yanagi laughed and sauntered toward the bed. "Relax. Turn it in late. Tell them you got caught up debriefing an Intel agent." He flopped down on the futon and set his guitar to one side. "Troublesome creatures, those Intel agents. You never know when one is gonna pop in and demand therapy. Not," he corrected quickly, "that I need therapy."

"Maybe I could arrange it so you will need it," Genma said darkly. He threw the wet shirt onto the pile of dirty laundry with an exasperated sigh, and sat on the edge of the futon. "And yeah, that's research. Eros, remember? Although you were out of it enough I'm kind of surprised you remember me at all."

He gave Yanagi a critical look. Healthy, was his first conclusion. Yanagi's skin was tanned with a ruddy blush from the cold, his eyes alight and lively. He had a good two or three day's growth of stubble, and he looked a little unwashed. But his posture was full of energy, his voice strong.

"Glad to see you survived, anyway," Genma said. "You look a hell of a lot better than the last time I saw you, but what the hell, are you trying to catch pneumonia or something?" He gestured at Yanagi's clothes -- a clingy white thermal shirt, close-fitting jeans so worn there was skin showing at the knees, and the cuffs at Yanagi's booted ankles were a fringe of frayed threads. The only concession to the weather was the long blue scarf draped rakishly around Yanagi's neck.

Genma yawned, scrubbed his hands over his face, and shook his head. "So now that you've woken me up to be your therapist, you want some tea?"

Yanagi flipped through the sex book, paused at an image, pulled the book away and twirled it to see if it made any more sense, and then -- slightly horrified -- he set it aside. "Tea. Sure. Tea sounds very..." He searched for a word, and finally settled on, "respectable." He reached down to take off his boots, then stood and set them by the door. While he was there, he opened it and peered out into the hall.

It looked like a hall. Hey, he knew this corner. A little bit farther was his door. He should really put something on his door, to say it was occupied. Then maybe everyone would think he'd died on a mission rather than that the apartment was empty, and then he could startle them by occasionally changing the door decorations. That'd be hilarious.

Except this was ANBU, and most likely no one would notice. He withdrew into Genma's apartment again, closing and locking the door, and shoved his cold hands in his back pockets. "Gods, you look like you've been living here for-fucking-ever." And yet, Yanagi knew Genma hadn't. He went back to the window and closed it, finally, then paused at a collection of knick-knacks, picking them up and examining them. He set them down and made a full circle where he stood. This apartment, like all the others, was a little studio. There wasn't much you couldn't see at first glance.

Genma stood in the kitchen, still wearing boxers and a blanket. Yanagi wandered over and leaned on the half-counter. "You look good. Compared to last time. You looked blurry last time." Yanagi grinned. "Or maybe that was me." There was no blur now; the blanket hung open, showing sharply defined muscles, the faintest trail of hair vanishing below the waistband of his boxers. His eyes had that sleepy, hazy look, and picked up the gold light from above, making them practically gleam. Weird, that Yanagi hadn't remembered he had strangely pale eyes.

Yanagi tapped one finger on the counter, realized what he was doing, and curled his fingers under his palm. He was fine. He was great. He'd spent most of the day in a debriefing room, and hadn't left until late. Late enough not to notice much of the carnage as he wound through the village to his father's house. Not much.

His handler had asked where he was going to go that night. He'd told her to his family home. And he'd gone home. To get his guitar, and now he was here, but he'd gone home. His dad would tell them where he was, if they wanted to keep tabs on him. But it was fine. He was fine.

"Got anything stronger than tea? Like, you know. Anything alcoholic?" His fingers tapped out a rhythm again.

Genma said nothing when Yanagi opened his door and peered into the hall. Checking your exits was second nature to pretty much every ninja above a genin's rank. The fact that Yanagi actually opened the door and peered down the hallway was interesting, but he seemed satisfied by whatever he'd sighted, since he locked the door again and appeared to give it no further thought.

It was Yanagi's eyes on him that made Genma suddenly aware of the chill in the room. The ghosts. Of his barely-clothed self. And of the gnawing hunger for something behind Yanagi's smile. He reached up into the cabinet above the sink and pulled down a half-filled bottle of honey-colored liquor. "So," he said, all casual ease, "did you just get back in town from your mission? Is this the first time you've been back since I saw you in Grass?"

Yanagi nodded and shrugged all in one motion. The tapping changed slightly, a drumroll with fingertips, and he pushed away from the sink with a final mock symbol-crash of palms against tile. "Got back this morning. Spent fuckin' hours in debrief..." He began to wander again, shoving his thumbs into his beltloops. He paused in front of a fire-scarred shrine, tipping his head first one way and then the other. It was interesting what you could learn about people from poking through their stuff. Yanagi leaned closer to get a look at the artwork under the scorch marks. It smelled a bit like smoke, still, despite the little gold plate of tangerines.

What had Genma said? He'd had family die in the battle with the Fox. This shrine had a new little twist of rice straw rope, indicating a sacred space. Dedication, tangerines -- Genma believed this stuff.

Yanagi felt eyes on his back, and glanced over his shoulder. Genma stood in the kitchen watching him warily, no longer pouring drinks or fussing with glasses. Yanagi stepped away from the corner, his thumbs still hooked in his beltloops. He tipped his head back toward the shrine. "Does it help?"

Genma took a deep breath, feeling his ribs expand, his lungs fill. He stared at his shrine, home to the gods of his household. At the offerings of evergreens and salt, sake and rice. And the tangerines. Haruko had loved tangerines. His held breath escaped in a slow hiss.

"I don't know," he said honestly. "Ask me again in a few months." He poured out two shots, tipped one back, refilled the glass, and brought the other over to Yanagi. Standing next to him, regarding the shrine, and the memorial tablets clustered next to it, he sighed again. "Hardest thing was.... Was digging that out. I don't know if the kami are there anymore. Maybe the Fox burned them up, too."

He shrugged and pressed the glass into Yanagi's hand. "Or maybe not. I mean, I'm still here. Probably shouldn't be." He let the blanket slip off his shoulder, revealing the still-red scars the Fox's claws had raked over his shoulder. "That's my baby sister," he said, inclining his head towards a water damaged photograph. "And me, and my big sister. When I was ten. It was in a frame with glass, so it didn't get burned up."

Yanagi pulled his eyes off the marks on Genma's shoulder, the scars angry but fading after so many months, and looked at the picture.

It sat in a plain little frame on the table next to the shrine. He gestured toward it wordlessly, raising both eyebrows in a silent question. Genma nodded, and Yanagi picked the photograph up, studying the young faces.

Weird to think they were all dead. All but Genma, at least. He turned the frame over, as if there might be something else to see, and sipped his drink. It went down smoothly, and he glanced at it. Good stuff.

He handed his glass back to Genma without looking, flicking open the catches on the back of the frame and very, very carefully pulling the photograph out. He looked around a moment, then set the frame on the bed and held the picture up to the light.

The water damage wasn't severe, but it was definitely there. He traced one side with his thumb, gauging the thickness of the photo paper. The background was warped, the ink running together. There were wobbly rings where the paper had stopped soaking up liquid. Their faces were clear, at least.

Genma watched him. He ignored it. Finally, he brought the photo back down and picked up the frame, fitting it all carefully back together. He set it back on the table and took his glass from Genma. "I think we have guys in Intel who could replicate that. It wouldn't be the same -- a copy, not the original -- but... well, they've done it with worse damage on scrolls. I mean, someone gets tossed in a lake and what they were after wasn't sealed..." He sipped again, not looking at Genma, but keeping his eyes on the shrine. He shrugged uncomfortably. Kami and siblings were out of his realm. Water damage he could handle.

He'd rather not think about dead friends and family at all.

"I don't know if you'd care, but I could talk to some people." If he stared at the picture any harder, he was going to bore holes through it. He drank, instead.

Genma couldn't quite make sense of why he'd just stood there and let Yanagi open the frame. Couldn't quite understand what he was thinking now, watching Yanagi stare at the photograph. Three siblings and a cake. Yumiko's short hair was clipped back, her arms folded over a too-big apron. She had frosting on her cheek and was trying not to smile. Genma was looking directly at the camera, grinning for all he was worth and holding a sheathed sword nearly as tall as himself. Haruko was clinging to her big brother's waist, smiling at him and waving her toy rabbit. It had been Genma's birthday when their mother snapped that photograph.

He wondered if he'd ever smile like that again, and mean it, the way he had when he was ten.

"They probably have more important people's picture to worry about than mine," Genma said gruffly, breaking the trance at last. He held up the bottle. "Come on, let's sit on the bed. So you got stuck in an all-day debrief? I got home from a mission night before last. I had debriefs all morning, too. Did you notice they have better coffee for debriefs now that they used to? Or maybe that's just ANBU. ANBU gets better coffee. Also sandwiches. Guess they thought I looked hungry or something." He grinned, a less dazzling version of the photograph's smile.

"You want something to eat?"

Yanagi watched Genma sidelong as the babble wound down. His lips twisted in a humorless little smile. "I'm fine. They expect Intel agents who've been out for a while to be in for a while. In fact, I have another session tomorrow. It takes time to go over months' worth of information, despite the updates I send back. They feed me while I'm there." They fed him, and asked questions, and offered him water, and had a rotating crop of shrinks sitting in the corner, observing his behavior and analyzing every possible meaning every time he so much as farted.

And he wasn't the one who was babbling. He wandered away from Genma, back toward the bookshelf. "How long have you been in ANBU?" He already knew; it had been in the file when he'd looked up Genma's apartment number. But it was a nice, safe, brainless conversation starter, and he didn't really feel ready for more bombs like dead little sisters. Or dead anybody.

He wondered if the village was really as empty as it seemed, or if it was just his imagination.

"Since late November," Genma answered. "There's a lot of new guys like me who joined up after." After what he didn't need to say. There was only one event that November was 'after.' "I told you that when I was saving your ass from poison in December, but I'm not surprised you don't remember. Actually I am surprised you came to find me." The grin suddenly became more real, more alive. Genma shot out a hip and leaned back. "Did you miss me, then, sugarlips?"

Flirting was much more fun than worrying about the dead. His own or Yanagi's.

Yanagi snorted at the name and arched an eyebrow at Genma. "Dearly, Genma-chan. I was pining for you. Really." He gestured to his guitar and smiled. "You said you wanted a song. But when I tried to sing it, you yelled at me and told me to shut up." His hand went back over his chest. "Broke my heart. No song for you." He'd sing it at The Blue Falcon one of these days, when his semi-regulars were around. They'd enjoy it. They weren't very discerning.

His smile faltered. Provided they were alive, and the Falcon was even there. His fingers tapped against his glass, and he shot the rest back. Then he wandered back toward the bar, where the bottle sat uncapped, and poured himself another. "Besides, the time I had with you was practically life-altering. I mean, I lived, right? How many people sleep with an eros agent and say that?" When he turned around, his grin was firmly in place.

"Wait, you actually wrote me a song?" Genma followed Yanagi to the kitchen and refilled his own glass. "Play it. I wanna hear it. I just didn't want you waking up that bastard Matsudaira on the second floor. Or, you know, breaking my window." Not that there had been much danger of that, so long as his jutsu had held. He pursed his lips and glanced towards the seal pasted on the sash. It looked okay.

"And you haven't really slept with this eros agent yet," he said, turning his attention back on his visitor. "Puking and passing out doesn't count. Ever." He winked. Licked his lips. Actually, healthy, Yanagi was quite good looking, if a little off. But who in ANBU wasn't a little off? The tapping had stopped again, once Yanagi had gotten himself another drink. Genma set his shot down, hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers, and drummed his fingers along his groin in an unselfconscious mimicry of Yanagi's nervous habit.

"Feeling lucky at all? Play me the song."

Yanagi grinned, sipping his drink again and taking the unspoken offer to check Genma out. He was eros -- of course he was gorgeous. Though the blanket -- now hooked over his shoulders like a cape -- and boxer combo was interesting.

Yanagi opened his mouth, then closed it and shook his head sadly. "I dunno. I mean, it's a great song, but you did tell me to shut up. Artists are easily breakable. Crushed. I don't know if I could continue on." He tapped his fingers on his glass, this time purposely, with a twinkle in his eye at Genma. "There's really only one solution for broken artists. Flattery of the highest standards. We're talking oozing all over. I don't just play for anyone, Genma-chan, only my adoring--"

He heard the change in his own tone and stopped, trying to pinpoint it. Something... something...

This wasn't his room. Of course it wasn't his room. It was Genma's room. And he wasn't actually a musician, he was a ninja. He gulped back the rest of his drink to give himself time. This was no good. He rattled out a tempo on the glass and set it down, leaning on the counter and tapping out another tune. A lullaby, one he'd absorbed growing up, though his father certainly hadn't sung him lullabies. It was too staccato to be soothing, but it was familiar.

Genma stood nearby. Yanagi eyed him overtly. "Nice boxers. Say please."

In the time it took Yanagi to swallow that shot, everything changed. Genma could almost hear the sound of iron doors clanging down, as Yanagi shuttered off some part of himself. Shed it like a snake peeling out of its skin. The nervous tapping was back, more agitated this time, more deliberate. Even Yanagi's voice changed, going cold and hard edged. Matter of fact, as if he were trying to play a tough guy role.

Yanagi was deep cover, Genma remembered. Everything was a role for him.

And Genma had no idea at all what to do, whether this Yanagi or the other one was the real one, whether he was even safe. Of course he was safe, he told himself. Yanagi was roughly his size, a little heavier in build. But they were in Genma's room. Genma's weapons were stored there, some in plain sight, some hidden away where Genma could get them quickly.

And Yanagi was just back from a mission. Maybe he was chakra depleted, maybe a little. Genma'd had a full day to recover his own reserves. He shrugged the blanket off, throwing it over the bed so that it draped over the edge, hiding what was underneath. It felt counterintuitive, but he didn't want Yanagi spotting his katana and using it against him.

He knew nothing about this man. Nothing at all.

Except that he had been willing to sacrifice everything to keep from blowing his cover. And he'd been, somehow, against Genma's expectations going in to that mission, likable.

"Come on, Nagi-chan, please? I mean, you were an awesome musician when you were poisoned off your ass and halfway to dying. I want to hear the real Kaneko Yanagi in a private performance. I did save your ass and make you stop puking, after all. Can't I at least get one song?"

He hoped it would work. Prayed it would work. And prayed that Yanagi wasn't as broken as he suddenly seemed.

Yanagi chuckled, relaxing slightly. "I'm ashamed to admit that I actually do feel flattered. Wow, that's just... that's some flattery, there." He dipped his finger in his glass and traced lines on the tile sink, upward streaks for higher notes, downward for lower. If he hadn't known better, he'd have said Genma was truly relaxed and excited. But he knew how he'd sounded a minute ago, knew that the pause between words had been too long, that his tone had changed too much, that his father would have looked at him sharply and asked if he was still himself.

Once, he'd flippantly asked which self, and his father had called his handler, who'd stayed with him for twenty-four hours. Mostly lecturing him on how not to terrify people and cause psych evaluation paperwork.

All of which meant that Genma had to have noticed something, and was acting like he hadn't. Which was either really good or really bad -- and Yanagi was guessing bad, since Genma didn't know him well enough to overlook moments like that.

"Sorry," he mumbled, still tracing music on the tile. "It's easy to slip into--" he shrugged, not sure how to explain it without saying, 'other personalities,' which generally freaked people out, "--and if you've done it for a while you find yourself speaking in the wrong cadences and then it all sort of slides for a second."

He turned and gave Genma a wry smile. "You shouldn't let in field intel ops you don't know. I mean, we get vetted pretty thoroughly before they let us out -- part of the reason for the full day debrief -- and if they're at all worried we're invited to stay with... well, it varies from agent to agent. Handlers, ANBU friends, other Intel. Whoever can handle it for a night or two. And you can't refuse that sort of invitation, unless you'd rather spend the night downstairs or in psych." He shrugged, picking up his glass and moving again. The visual music dried invisibly behind him. He peered at Genma's shelves, studiously not looking at Genma himself. "I can head out, though, if you're tired. Or I could play you that song. I mean, that was some pretty good flattery."

The first Yanagi was back. The one Genma remembered from that garret apartment in Grass. The one who'd shown up tonight with a guitar, and studied Genma's shrine, and offered to get his ruined photograph fixed. Genma let out a breath, though he didn't drop his guard. It was familiar. Very familiar, the story Yanagi told him, about invitations to stay with a babysitter, and the consequences of refusal.

"It's like that for some eros missions, too," Genma said. He sat on the bed. Not a threat. Left enough room for Yanagi to sit beside him if he chose. But positioned himself so that if Yanagi lost it, Genma could reach that katana in a hurry.

"Especially the longer term ones," he continued. "And the ones where your target is a sick bastard. I've spent a few nights with a handler watching me take about thirty showers in a row and reporting how much of my dinner I ended up puking back up." He laughed. Light but not.

"Come on, play me the song. You don't want to get a reputation as a tease, do you?"

Yanagi glanced at Genma and chuckled, relaxing marginally. "Heaven forbid people think that. Next they'll be saying I'm two-faced." He faked a realization. "Oh. Wait..."

With a grin, he downed the last of his drink and settled on the end of the futon, reaching over to pick up his guitar. He looped the strap over his shoulder to get it out of the way, and rested the instrument across his knee. Then he hesitated. Playing for one person was different than playing for an audience, and he felt suddenly self-conscious. The only other time he'd done it was when he was a kid, or when he'd produced some sappy drivel for whatever girl he was trying to get into bed. The only girls he met and seduced on the road tended to be groupies, and music was a big part of that.

Weird, then, to be playing for someone he actually liked. Without wanting to get him into bed.

Not that Yanagi would protest, of course, if they ended up there, but...

He cleared his throat and strummed, checking that his guitar was still in tune. It had been in tune when he'd arrived, and he couldn't imagine it changing that quickly, but he checked anyway, trying to shake the prickly feeling across the nape of his neck.

Maybe he should stand up. Put some space between them. Yeah, that'd work.

He stood, now glad he'd put the strap around his shoulder, and strummed again. Much better.

Now, how did it start again? Oh, yeah. Sitting in a bar, having a pint, listening to a minstrel. A song within a song within a song. It was fun.

As Yanagi played, they both relaxed. It was a catchy tune, with a good, singable chorus. Wryly humorous without being sappy. Kind of crazily convoluted, so that at first Genma couldn't tell what was going on, but the deeper into it Yanagi got, the more it became clear that at the heart of the song, it was about a heroic, good-looking ninja who stepped in just in time to save the day. A song about a guy listening to a musician singing a song about a song, but that inner song, that was Genma's song.

Genma felt himself flush. He'd gotten sappy love letters and bad poetry before, but nothing like this. Nothing that made him sound like maybe he really was just that good. Yanagi didn't look at him much. Just a glance now and again to be sure Genma was paying attention, and then Yanagi's eyes would blink away, to stare down at the guitar, or across the room at some point above Genma's head.

Genma didn't take his eyes off Yanagi for a second. But what at first had been wary monitoring soon became rapt, appreciative attention. When Yanagi strummed the last chord, Genma was smiling in genuine pleasure.

"Dude, you wrote that song for me?" He laughed, brushing his hair back from his face. "I mean. Wow. OK, wow. Seriously. No one's ever written me a song or made me feel like, like I don't know... Like a hero." He grinned and blushed, ducking his head down. Eros tricks maybe, but this time they came from the heart. "Thanks. That's really..." He groped for a word. "That's.... Wow, damn, I don't even know what to say. That's awesome."

Yanagi grinned, puffing up slightly. "Well, y'know, music affects peoples' emotions, so it's easier to make you sound like a hero." He grinned and shrugged, settling down on the end of the bed, the guitar still across his knees. If nothing else, it gave his hands something to do.

He picked out a lazy tune, not really paying attention to what he was doing. "Usually if I'm making up songs, it's something to get drunks laughing. I mean, I can play almost anything if I have a chance to hear it, but I tend to be in bars a lot, so..." The tune slowed even more. A twangy sort of noise, vaguely folksy. He was pleased with himself, his song, and Genma's reaction. It was different than playing for an audience. Very different.

"Most people who indulge me either want something to laugh at, or it's a woman, and it's not indulging so much as... seduction via guitar." He snorted, while the strumming leveled out into the familiar bars of a ballad. He flattened his hand across the strings, and the sudden silence was almost overwhelming. "And you play -- what was it you played? The lyra, or something like that?" He grinned. "Does that even work in eros?"

"Biwa," Genma said with a laugh. "And no way do I play it on eros missions. I think that would kind of be the opposite of seduction. Although I gotta say, if you ever want to seduce me with your guitar..." He winked, relieved. The original Yanagi was back. The one he thought was the real one. The one he was starting to like.

"I still can't believe you actually wrote me a song. Or that you remembered about my biwa. I mean, I played because... I don't know. My little sister was the musical one, but she couldn't play much because her hands were crippled, so she begged me to learn. You know. So I did." Genma glanced at the memorial tablets across the room. Three and a half months, and it was already getting to be second nature to talk about his sisters in the past tense.

"I don't have one right now," he added, when he caught Yanagi looking around as if the biwa might be sitting on top of the bookcase or hidden behind the wardrobe. "I mean, I had one, but it got burned up when my house... I mean. So you know, maybe I'll get another one, someday. But don't expect me to have any talent. I'm better at ordinary seduction."

Fingers plucked at guitar strings thoughtfully, unconscious of the bubbling music that was produced. "I bet you're fantastic at ordinary seduction," he said with a bright grin. "But that's a little like saying I'm good at fibbing. Hang on." He set the guitar aside and popped up, trotting out Genma's door and down the hall. His door was at the very end, around the corner. He tried the handle, already knowing it was locked. The key had to be at his dad's place. It certainly wasn't in his pockets.

Genma had followed him out into the hall and was standing, looking cautious again.

"Hey, you got a lock pick set on you? I left mine in my other pants..."

"Uhhh, yeah. But whose place is that?" Genma asked warily. "I think it might be vacant, actually, but if someone lives there and traps his door..." He didn't need to spell out the possible consequences.

He also wasn't entirely sure what was going on with Yanagi, who was acting like a ninja, but a relaxed, happy one. Not stuck in a musician persona, not imitating some cliched idea of a hard-assed killer.

He watched for that nervous tick of drumming fingers, but Yanagi seemed calm, smiling at Genma like it was the most normal thing in the world to ask for lockpicks to break into some stranger's apartment.