A raindrop for selvage! (1/3)

[stormies]

Title: Dance in the Dark
Pairing(s): Matsumoto Jun/Sakurai Sho
Genres: AU - Romance with science fiction and adventure-ish elements
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Museum curator Sakurai Sho is desperate to complete a cherished collection. Matsumoto Jun is new in town and looking for a little excitement. One night they meet at an auction that will change both of their lives in ways they never expected.
Warning(s): NC-17 content involving Sho. Who had to go and announce he got married halfway through me writing this, congratulations! Anyhow, I was stubborn and kept mostly to my original ~sexy outline~ so you’ve been warned LOL! Also includes references to an accident that severely injured a main character in the past and still impacts him in the present.
Author's notes: Hello dearest cutselvage, this story is for you. Your sign-up noted that a Final Fantasy 9 crossover would be extremely welcome. Well, this story includes an auction house of sorts, Zodiac coins, and a lot of references to FF9 characters and locations, but is it a genuine FF9 crossover? Signs point to no.

However, I was heavily inspired by the game’s city of Treno, which lives in a state of perpetual darkness. I thought, “how do I make that work without magic?” and decided that the city where most of this story takes place would be located on the “always dark” side of a tidally-locked planet. Please don’t think too hard about the science here. A planet like this can totally sustain life if you just *believe* it does for the sake of an Arashi AU.

One final note, I absolutely adore Ohno Satoshi with every fiber of my being, and I swear to you that he does appear in this story. He just spends most of it on a ~natsuyasumi~, much like the one he’s enjoying in real life. I hope this will capture enough FF9 spirit to make you smile. I had a wonderful time writing it <3



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.aries.
the ram

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He wouldn’t be able to relax until the diary pages were back in the vault.

They’d paid a handsome sum as always, simply to ensure the pages had been on display for their meeting, but Sho always worried that one of them would drink a little too much, get the foolish idea that they wanted to touch the paper. Feel closer to the man who’d scribbled the words down. They had no idea what the oils or dirt on their hands could do to paper that was eight hundred years old.

Everyone on this planet seemed to have their peculiar hobbies and interests. Most cities Starside had outlawed the Zodiac Cult, if only because it hadn’t been so long ago that Emperor Masahiko had been the cult’s biggest adherent. The city shogunates didn’t want anyone getting any ideas that they ought to seize power and start an empire too, not after the leaders of those cities had worked so hard to split the damned thing apart after centuries of misrule. The concepts of the Zodiac had consumed Emperor Masahiko’s entire life, so surely anyone else who dabbled in it might be just as susceptible.

Anyone who bothered to take an interest in the history of their planet knew that the Zodiac would never go away. But as Sho had learned over the years, most people didn’t really think too deeply about history. They weren’t interested in what the past could say about the here and now. People were more concerned with their day to day lives, or perhaps the success or happiness awaiting them in the future. Why dwell on something that had happened long before? History and its preservation was just the Sakurai family’s peculiar hobby and interest.

As for the Zodiac Cult, it had survived the Emperor’s murder, just as it had survived the overthrow of the Watanabe dynasty centuries earlier in favor of the Hironomiya line, Masahiko’s ancestors. Many belief systems had traveled along with the people who’d come to their planet from Earth, but the Zodiac was one that somehow managed to persist, even if people didn’t understand or care about its origins. For centuries, marriages had been brokered based on the birth signs and resulting compatibility of the bride and groom. Business deals were often hammered out under fire signs if they wished for rapid growth, earth signs if they preferred stability. Blaming one’s birth sign for bad manners, bad habits, bad choices was still common. No matter how far society advanced, it was easy sometimes to lean back on superstition.

The people who’d come here had been from a country or region known as “Japan,” but apparently the Zodiac had come from another culture. The names of the signs had made it here in their original forms, the words looking and sounding very different from the language of Japan that had also come along for the ride. The diary pages on display in the museum tonight and the writings of the contemporaries who’d commented on them attributed it all to a single person - to Orunitia Eiko, who’d been half-Japanese and had arrived on one of the last ships to come from Earth.

She’d inherited an interest in the Zodiac from a parent or grandparent who’d been born outside of Japan. The travelers who’d been assigned to the Garnet system’s single habitable planet hadn’t been scientists or doctors or specialists of any kind. They’d been average people, farmers. In the earliest days of the new colonies here, life had been very difficult. There had to be someone or something to blame for all the hardship. Some had carried their gods onto the ships with them. Some had carried beliefs in nature. Still others carried no beliefs at all, save for a distinct notion that the universe was out to get them no matter what planet they were on. For Orunitia Eiko, it had simply made sense to adapt the signs and knowledge of the Zodiac here too, though the constellations the signs had been named for weren’t really visible in these skies as they’d been back on Earth.

It was her grandson, Watanabe Kuja, the first Emperor, who had taken his grandmother’s folksy beliefs and made them scripture, made them law. He’d written obsessively about the Zodiac at length in his diaries, his chronicles of his rise to power as he unified the handful of northern settlements that had sprouted up since the first ships had arrived from Japan. He’d been born under the sign of Aries, the Ram, and somehow believed that was enough to justify his actions.

Sho knew all these things, had grown up learning them from his father and grandfather. And so had the members of the New Niigata Brotherhood of the Twelve Signs, who’d traveled here from their namesake city on Starside for their monthly meeting. The members were all wealthy, as one had to be in order to travel to Nightside so frequently even now. They had originally made their agreement with Sho’s grandfather, who’d always been looking for new income streams. Acquisitions had been challenging back in those days before airships, and his grandfather never turned down someone willing to pay to rent out the museum twelve evenings a year.

Tonight was just another of those meetings, and Sho could only sit in his office nervously, watching the Brotherhood drink and carouse. As he was not a member of the Brotherhood, he wasn’t allowed to sit in on the meeting, so all he could do was watch the security monitor feeds on his computer screen. Only seeing, not hearing, lest he discover one of the Brotherhood’s secrets. He cringed every time one of the brothers got up with their wine glass, coming over to stroke his chin and admire the pages Sho had brought out of the museum vault and put on display for their meeting. They liked having Emperor Kuja’s words out while they met, pages that would be burned if discovered back home in New Niigata. Sho prayed anxiously any time one of them lit up a cigarillo, even though he had distinctly warned them that smoke, too, could damage the pages, even with the air recyclers on full blast. Nobody had actually tried touching the diary pages directly tonight, but still, these events were terrible for his blood pressure.

“Why don’t you put the pages under glass, Sho-san?” his doctor had asked him multiple times over the last few years, chiding him for giving himself unneeded stress. “Then all you have to do is deal with fingerprints.”

He couldn’t exactly explain to the doctor that the only reason the Garnetian Museum was still open was because of the income flow from private events like these. The Sakurai family had a reputation to uphold in the city, after all. Acquiring items for the collection in its earliest days had been less…scrupulous. He knew that his own grandparents and the great great greats before them had likely gotten things without payment, had commissioned thieves to snatch things from Starside to build out their initial holdings. Acquiring items more ethically (well, to some extent) was a real strain on the museum budget. The only solution had been to open up the Garnetian Museum to groups outlawed from gathering publicly on Starside like the New Niigata Brotherhood. To weddings. To any private group that would pay him, honestly.

And what these groups liked were opportunities to have history within their grasp, even though they all had to sign contracts stating they wouldn’t actually touch any artifacts Sho put out on display for them. What the groups paid for was to have history out in the open, not hidden in vaults or behind secured glass. They wanted an experience the average public visitor didn’t get. Some, like the Brotherhood, truly valued what the items represented. In their case, Emperor Kuja’s diaries and the origins of the Zodiac Cult. But others were less interested in the historical significance. They just liked having something to brag about. Liked taking a photo of themselves beside a centuries-old vase simply because it was pretty or because their friend or rival didn’t have the means to travel from Starside to see it up close.

Eventually he could bear no more of it, watching the meeting in silence, and instead he got up from his desk, shutting his computer down for the night. The reservation was through midnight, and the clock on the wall noted that was in four minutes anyhow. Sho moved to the mirror on the wall, seeing his tired eyes and rumpled shirt. He did his best to put himself back together after having sequestered himself here for nearly five hours with nothing more than his computer screen and his anxiety. He smirked when he glanced over to the drink cart in the corner of his office. Correction. Nothing more than his computer screen, his anxiety, and what had once been a full bottle of a Junmai Ginjo sake the brothers had presented him as a souvenir from home. There was maybe a quarter left, though he’d intended to save the bottle for another time.

The mirror was early Hironomiya, framed in its original dark cherry wood, but nothing so fancy as to justify a place in the galleries. All it did was highlight the slight redness in his cheeks from his stress drinking. He redid his tie, smoothed his fingers across his dress shirt. Pulling his jacket back on and buttoning it went a long way to making him look important and respectable again. He headed out into the hall, nodding to the half-dozing security guard seated just outside the main gallery. He waited until his watch read 12:03 before knocking promptly at the gallery double doors and entering as he was entitled to do.

The Brotherhood was usually a punctual bunch, if only because the trip from New Niigata was several hours long and the Nightside adjustment was rough no matter what time of year they came for a visit. They all looked happy but very very tired. Their leader, Inohara-san, came over with his arms outstretched and smile big. The Brotherhood had of course brought along their premium beverage for the meeting too.

“Sakurai-san, a pleasure as always to take in a little history!” the man cheered, smelling of alcohol and stale cigarillo smoke. Sho would have to advise the cleaning staff to ensure the gallery’s air recyclers stayed on full blast for at least three days no matter the energy bill.

“Inohara-san, the pleasure as always is mine,” he replied with equal cheer, if only because Sho’s grandfather had told him from a very young age that the patron was always right, no matter how many cigarillos they smoked around old paper.

The man wrapped an arm around his shoulders, tugging him along through the room as the other members of the Brotherhood started to clear the gallery, heading for the exits and the aircabs that would take them to whichever luxury hotel suite was housing them before their flights home in the morning. Sho did his best not to wince as Inohara clutched him tight, brought him over to the displayed pages. “You’d never know what month it is over here,” Inohara teased. “But back home it’s getting warmer. Spring is here once again! Praise be to The Ram.”

The planet took 392 days to circle its sun here, a bit longer than the usual year had apparently been back on Earth. It was Emperor Kuja who’d set up the Garnetian calendar that was still used now, over 800 years later. They’d just entered the days of Aries once more, and so Sho had intentionally set out diary pages for the meeting in which the Emperor rambled on at length about the month of his birth. He’d figured the Brotherhood would get a kick out of it.

“Well, the school year is ending and the new one will start soon after,” Sho pointed out. “It’s not so different here.”

Inohara shook his head, chuckling. “Something only a Nightsider would proclaim.”

He couldn’t really disagree. What did it feel like, Sho had always wondered, to experience four distinct seasons? To feel the sun, a real sun, on your face?

“How much would it cost to buy some of those pages from you, Sakurai-san?” Inohara asked, sheer longing in his voice.

Sho knew that back home Inohara Yoshihiko was an influential man, owner of one of New Niigata’s largest companies. But the law was the law. If he was caught with so much as a scrap of a Watanabe Kuja diary page, he could be thrown in prison. Likely a very nice prison, Sho thought, holding in a smile. But a prison still.

Inohara asked him the same question nearly every month, giddy from his group’s illicit meeting here on the opposite side of the planet. A bit high from his dealings in the dark. There was that old saying - what happened in Torenomachi stayed in Torenomachi. Sho couldn’t allow one of his best-paying patrons to end up in a Starside prison, and so all he could do was smile and laugh.

“A price I don’t think you could afford,” he replied, turning Inohara gently and heading back for the double doors. “I’ll continue to keep an eye on them for you here. And of course, if the Brotherhood ever wished to start holding bi-monthly meetings, why, I’m sure that could be arranged as well…”

Inohara gave Sho’s cheek a little pinch, as though he was a young boy and not a man only six years his junior. “Always the salesman, Sakurai Sho. I wish I could hire you for my company. Or perhaps date you, I haven’t decided yet.”

Sho looked down, laughing as they made it to the door. He never knew how to respond to the man’s teasing. Either way, it was best that old papers like Watanabe Kuja’s diary stayed here in Torenomachi. It was obviously easy to keep them away from direct sunlight, easy to control the humidity.

“Have you already arranged for an aircab?”

“Yes,” came Inohara’s reply. “I’ve started using that company you recommended the last time. Flat rates anywhere in town. I appreciate it, truly. Otherwise it’s like they see a man with a bit of tanned skin, and all bets are off here.”

Sho grinned knowingly. It was always easy to spot a Starside tourist in Torenomachi. For much of the year their skin was “kissed by Queen Garnet,” or so the old folks around here still liked to say. If it was their first visit and they didn’t know a trustworthy local, it was easy to get overcharged for everything. For an aircab. For a hotel. For a bite to eat. Sho did his best to send along warnings to any Starside folks that booked the museum for events, but sometimes they refused to believe that Torenomachi was still the lawless free-for-all they learned about in their schools. Sho would never characterize his home that way, of course. The locals sometimes just liked to see how much they could get away with when someone kissed by Queen Garnet came by to gawk at their dome. And some of Sho’s patrons found that out the hard way.

They headed for the museum exit, and Sho held tight to Inohara’s arm as they left the museum lighting for the night sky, helping him down the stairs. Well, to be fair to Inohara-san, it was always a night sky here in Torenomachi, but Sho had grown up here, was used to the colored tints of the street lamps, the lights attached to buildings throughout the city to keep aircabs from crashing into them. Sho knew the yellows and oranges that signified daytime hours, knew the blues and purples of the evening. Even though Inohara’s group came once a month, their eyes never seemed to fully adjust to how dark it could be in Torenomachi. Intentionally and otherwise.

The shuttling area was only a short walk away. Sakurai family money had ensured that one would be placed as close to the museum as possible to ensure it remained a top Torenomachi cultural destination even after the z-carriages were retired in favor of the faster, more efficient aircabs. Inohara bid him farewell as he stepped into his waiting aircab, and Sho stood curbside, waving goodbye as the aircab door shut with a smooth whoosh, backing away as a little puff of zidanium exhaust coughed out of the aircab’s tailpipe before it rose into the air and headed off into the night. Sho watched with the usual satisfaction as one of the air grates below the aircab parking area sucked the exhaust away, scrubbing the pollution from the air as quickly as it had appeared. If only that degree of cleaning was possible in the museum, but alas, that kind of high-tech filtration system was not in the budget.

He set his hands on his hips, cracking his neck a little as he tilted his head side to side. It had been a long day, but he was relieved that the rest of his evenings this week were free from private events. No artifacts on open display. No heart attacks caused by sticky visitor fingers. But Sho couldn’t go home for the night, not just yet, and he walked back up the steps to the museum’s grand entrance, the security guard letting him in at the door. As the New Niigata Brotherhood of the Twelve Signs had departed, the Garnetian Museum night cleaning crew had arrived through the staff entrance in the rear. They were already lined up outside the double doors, awaiting Sho’s instructions.

“Please start with the other galleries first. I have some things to bring back to the vault, and then you can attack the main gallery. I want the recyclers in there going for at least 72 hours, full blast. I’m sorry if that makes it a chilly experience for anyone while you’re in there tidying up, but I need the cigarillo smoke clear. I’ll check in with Fukushi-kun once I’m heading out for the evening.” He gave everyone a grateful smile. “Thanks as always for your hard work here.”

They nodded in acknowledgment, heading off to work. Sho headed off for a little work of his own, retrieving one of the wheeled carts from the vault and pushing it to the main gallery. He inhaled and exhaled in relief, seeing that none of the pages had been moved from how he’d displayed them. He headed for the washroom, scrubbing his hands clean before returning and gently lifting the pages and moving them to the cart. He pushed the cart back to the vault, looking through the iris scanner and hearing the gentle buzz as the inner locks disengaged. Running a museum largely on one’s own was a lot of work, but it meant that nobody else was getting into the vault without him. Well, unless they gouged out his eyes. Sho didn’t want to think too hard about that possibility.

The vault door closed behind him, and the chill hit him, even through his suit jacket. Sho had spent hours upon hours in this cold, cavernous room as a boy, walking the aisles in search of something new to learn about. The Garnetian Museum largely kept its treasures on display in the galleries, but more sensitive materials or rarer items tended to live back here in the vault, only to be brought out on special occasions or for themed exhibitions Sho could charge a little more for. The temperatures throughout the museum building and display cases were regulated precisely, not so different from the entire city of Torenomachi altogether, but down here there were no aircabs, no masses of human bodies, no skyscrapers and buildings and estates burning up zidanium and adding a few more precious degrees of temperature to the city of perpetual night. He needed to keep it cold in here, if only to preserve the history his family had worked so hard to pull together for decades.

He gave his hands another wash at the nearby sink once he stopped the cart at his work table, where he’d left the rest of the diary pages and the acid-free folders in which he stored them. With clean, steady hands Sho lifted each diary page, examining them for any tears or damage before setting them back in proper order with the others and sealing the folders shut once more. He hefted the file boxes back onto the cart, pushing the materials back to their proper aisle and shelf. He let out a sigh once everything was back in its right place.

“Good night,” he said aloud to the voiceless documents and artifacts, leaving the cart behind and heading for the exit. The vault door sealed shut behind him with a satisfying double beep. The cleaning crew wasn’t allowed within, so tomorrow he’d have to get in there and do some thorough cleaning. But after his long and jittery evening keeping an eye on the Brotherhood, he wasn’t going to worry about it now. He found the leader of the cleaning crew, Fukushi, and gave him some final instructions for the night. The security guard tipped his hat in Sho’s direction as he departed, returning once more to the shuttling area.

A few cabs back from the head of the line he spotted the sleek red personal aircab parked and waiting for him. Sho couldn’t remember in all these years if Ueda had ever been late. He sometimes wondered if his driver had embedded some sort of tracking device in his clothes, if only because he was always exactly where Sho needed him to be. He slipped out of his suit jacket first, flinging it into the cab and onto the seat before ducking inside himself and loosening his tie, luxuriating in the warmth of the heated leather seats. Ueda knew that Sho’s last stop for the night was always the museum vault and that a little temperature change could go a long way.

The aircab door sealed shut, and Sho shut his eyes with a blissful murmured “thank you.” Between the fancy sake and his hours staring at his computer screen, he could probably fall asleep in minutes with the warmth behind and under him.

“Straight home tonight, Aniki?” Ueda asked.

The guy was only a year younger than Sho, had grown up in a more rough and tumble part of town. He wore the suits and leather driving gloves Sho bought for him with pride, but always had some wild hairstyle that left him with a little more personality than most drivers of the Torenomachi rich and famous. This month was a blond mohawk. He’d been a driver for some crime family for years before Sho had offered him more money to drive him to and fro and help out with any odd jobs for the museum or the Sakurai family. Not so exciting as his last job, but still, Ueda tended to address Sho like he was some hotshot syndicate boss. Sho would never admit it to anyone, but he did kind of like it. He had a feeling a loyal guy like Ueda would even take a bullet for him, if the situation ever arose. Sho, of course, hoped it wouldn’t.

“Straight home tonight. Thanks, Ueda-kun.”

It was possible to walk straight home from the museum if he really wanted to. It was only thirty minutes on foot, but the more aircabs that zipped to and fro under the Torenomachi dome, the more exhaust sucking vents were installed, cleaning the air. The city council did everything in their power to keep things aesthetically pleasing, as the tourists had certain expectations when they came for a visit, but it wasn’t as easy to walk some parts of the city as it had been in the days before Sho had been born, in the days before the skyliner and their smaller aircab models had been invented.

It had been five years since his father had retired, since he and Sho’s mother had sold the family estate and moved off to their fancy place in Karuizawa. That dome was only thirty years old, had none of the legacy problems that Torenomachi seemed to run into when it came to consistent temperature control. Sho’s mother was always complaining it was so warm there it was like they’d moved Starside. When they’d moved, Sho had left the apartment complex close to his childhood home in favor of his current residence here at Tower Zero.

His parents had complained about the name when they’d first heard of his big moving plans, not wanting their firstborn son and heir to move into a place that sounded as though it had zero amenities. Zero positive qualities. A Sakurai of Torenomachi didn’t live in “some dump,” as his father had grumbled. But it was far from it. Tower Zero was so named for its conveniences. Fine restaurants, a charming private park and garden for residents only, a private gymnasium, et cetera, et cetera. All “zero steps” from your front door, or so the marketing literature had said. It was, of course, a few more than zero steps from Sho’s penthouse on the fiftieth floor to the private garden, but the elevators were fast, and Sho didn’t mind the walk.

From his balcony he could see the museum in the distance, nestled beside the gates of his alma mater, Keio University, on one side and the Toreno Forest Hotel on the other, its trees and greenery a patch of relative darkness behind it compared to the buildings and street lamps that dotted the rest of Torenomachi’s Eastern Cultural District and the city as a whole. From his balcony he had an unobstructed view through the reinforced dome glass a few hundred feet overhead to the emptiness of night outside. The distant stars and the universe, the vastness of space. But mostly the black of perpetual night. Being from Torenomachi, from Nightside, Sho only knew the sun from imported television programs and movies, not from personal experience. Sho’s view served as a constant reminder of how incredible it was to live here in Torenomachi at all, how hard it had been to build something in The Great Empty.

Ueda parked in the garage beneath Tower Zero, easing the aircab back to the ground in Sho’s designated parking spot. He still preferred to ride his motorcycle home, always worried that someone in his neighborhood would try and jack Sho’s aircab. The solution, obviously, was for Ueda to move to a better neighborhood, as Sho paid him more than enough to do so. But Ueda seemed to prefer the tightly packed apartment blocks he’d come from, no matter how fancy the suit and gloves he wore to work were.

Ueda unlocked and unsealed the doors, coming around needlessly with his hands out for something to take. “Let me get your jacket for you, Aniki.”

Sho laughed softly, holding it in his arms as he got out of the cab, let Ueda lock it up for the night. “I think I can manage this, thanks.”

Ueda was at his heels. “Your mail was delivered seventeen minutes later than usual this afternoon. I put it on your desk and then I went to the Central Post Office to complain…”

Sho tapped the up button when they reached the elevators. “You’re kidding,” he mumbled in disbelief. “That’s not something to go complain about…”

Ueda crossed his arms, expression bitter. “What if you’d been expecting something important, Aniki? They can’t be allowed to disrespect you this way.”

The elevator opened with a gentle chime, and Sho had to hide his laughter. One day Ueda was really going to overstep, and Sho wasn’t looking forward to that conversation. For now, his overzealousness was mostly just cute. “If it arrives a few days late, then I think you might have cause to complain a second time. But for now, let’s hold off on any further nagging of the postal service.”

Sho keyed in the password for his floor, and the computerized voice of the building security acknowledged him warmly. “Welcome home, Sakurai-san.”

The elevator zipped him up to the top of the building. He was one of only two residents here at the very top, and it was rare that he ever saw his neighbor. Kato-kun was a very successful writer, was either buried in his work and not coming out or was going on some promotional tour Starside. He’d grown up over there, had moved to Torenomachi because, as he’d explained to Sho with extreme seriousness one day, he “found the shallowness and artifice of Torenomachi most inspiring.”

Sho keyed in his passcode, his door sliding open and granting him access. The lights came on at his usual preferred 57% for evening hours, slipping out of his shoes and flinging his jacket aside. He smirked when he heard Ueda diligently picking it up behind him, likely digging around in the closet for a hanger so he could bring it for dry cleaning in the morning.

He ought to check and see if there were any chores Ueda could attend to come morning, but Sho wasn’t in the mood for using his brain much more today. He stopped in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that ringed the entire outside of his penthouse. It was what had sealed the deal when the realtor had shown him the place. He could see from one end of the dome to the other.

“Ueda-kun, I’ll go in a little later tomorrow. You don’t need to come by until after 10.”

“You got it, Aniki. Is there anything I can…”

“You can go home and relax,” Sho said, turning away from the glass and seeing Ueda’s frown in reply. “And if you can make it home without complaining to some other city entity in my name first, I’d appreciate it.”

Ueda bowed, departing with Sho’s suit jacket in tow. Sho knew he’d soon be banging on the door of the dry cleaners a few blocks away, demanding they get Sho’s jacket in the queue now instead of come morning, but that wasn’t for Sho to worry about any further tonight.

Sho left a trail of clothes behind as he made it to the desk in his bedroom, where Ueda had neatly set down the mail that had arrived seventeen inexcusable minutes late. He smiled, fingers drifting over the envelopes. Charities looking for money, the usual bills. But at the bottom of the pile he found it, his heart starting to race as he unearthed the green envelope tied with the golden ribbon. Of course, they’d send a digital RSVP tomorrow to make it official, but there was simply nothing that could compare with receiving the usual green and gold in your letter box. Sho was surprised Ueda hadn’t mentioned it, but then again, his driver was in some feud or another with the drivers of some of the other folks who were on the regular invite list. He probably didn’t like the reminder of another visit to Sobu Hall in his future.

He untied the ribbon, sliding the cream-colored card stock from the envelope, seeing the usual obnoxious font inviting one Sakurai Sho to “another unmissable” event. It was scheduled for next Thursday evening, thankfully not overlapping with any engagements at the museum. He found no other hints in the invite text, no secret messages conveyed by the envelope or ribbon. But of course, that was typical. They always preferred to keep things mysterious. Because they knew that no matter what the invite said, Sakurai Sho would be there with money to burn.

It had been nearly two months since the last auction, but Sho knew they kept their dates inconsistent to draw even more attention, even more interest. You never knew when a green envelope with a gold ribbon might arrive at your home, inviting you to come see what was up for bidding this time. Tired as he was from his long night at the museum, Sho set the envelope back down and headed to his closet, passing the racks of suits and shirts to find the portrait of his grandfather that was hung with care above his case of watches and cufflinks.

Sho lifted the painting up and off the wall, setting it down and exposing the display case hidden behind it. He typed in his combination, the metal panel on the wall sliding up to reveal the collection that hadn’t made its way to the Garnetian Museum just yet. The collection that never would, not until he had all of them. Sho supposed that if anyone saw his smile at that particular moment, they might think him half or perhaps fully mad.

Everyone on this planet seemed to have their peculiar hobbies and interests. Sakurai Sho, like his father and grandfather before him, was interested in the history of their planet and its preservation. But that wasn’t all that held his interest. Perhaps ‘obsession’ was the more accurate term.

Staring back at him was a black velvet panel with twelve notches. He’d commissioned it specially, nearly fourteen years ago when he’d purchased the first one. He’d had it rebuilt to better fit the secret hideaway space here when he’d moved to Tower Zero. Six notches on top, six on bottom, each designed to perfectly house one single item. Ten of the notches were already occupied, each holding a single golden coin. Only two notches remained empty. The notch for Virgo, the Maiden and the notch for Pisces, the Fish. Sho crossed his arms, if only to keep from shaking in excitement at the thought of the eleventh one finding its way into next Thursday’s auction.

Had they found Virgo? Had they found Pisces? Or would this auction be nothing special? Sho wouldn’t find out unless he attended.

Was Sakurai Sho in the Zodiac Cult? No, not in the way Inohara Yoshihiko and his Brotherhood were. Not as Watanabe Kuja had been. Instead, Sho considered himself Zodiac…adjacent. Hironomiya Masahiko, the last Emperor of the Sun, had been consumed by the Zodiac. He’d always claimed that a fortune teller had told him as a boy that he would only find glory if he had twelve sons, each son birthed in a different month of the Zodiac. Emperor Masahiko had spent the better part of his adult life ensuring he achieved it.

Nobody knew just how many wives and consorts the Emperor had over the years, but it hadn’t stopped some of the more cheeky manufacturers (mainly those in Nightside cities) from putting “Emperor’s Stamina” drinks and supplements on adult store shelves even now, decades later. It was over a hundred years ago that he’d gotten started on his own little obsession, and nobody really knew what happened to the infant boys who were born in the “wrong” months or to the infant girls who didn’t really matter. Everyone assumed the worst, of course - it was one of the justifications the shogunates had used to overthrow him. But he’d gone in strict order, his first son named for the sign of his birth and for the birth sign of the first Emperor Watanabe Kuja. And that had dictated the naming convention and birth order to come. Hironomiya Aries had been followed by his brother Taurus, by his brother Gemini, and so forth.

Not names that Sho would pick if he ever found himself fathering a son or twelve, but then again, he wasn’t the type of man who declared himself a God Emperor. As part of his twelve son goal, the Emperor had ordered the minting of twelve unique coins, one for each son his long-suffering women produced for him. Each coin was fused with gold melted down from a necklace that had been found on one of the ships from Earth, the Earthen gold melded with standard-but-still-fancy Garnetian gold.

The Emperor had finally gotten son number twelve when his escapades and misrule got him and all of those sons killed, his Empire splitting apart and the cities of Starside declaring their independence for good. It was an odd story, odder still to Sakurai Sho, who couldn’t imagine that something so wild had happened only sixty or so years before he’d been born. The Zodiac coins had been presumed missing and anything associated with Masahiko’s family line was considered cursed or at the very least, in poor taste to keep in your Starside home, lest your local shogunate got curious why you had them. So when said coins started popping up in Torenomachi auctions at bargain prices, a younger, dumber Sakurai Sho had thought “why the hell not collect some of them?”

As time went on, “why the hell not” became a matter of “I won’t be satisfied until I’ve got them all.” And so here he was now, thirty-nine years old and in possession of ten out of twelve Zodiac coins commemorating the births of children who’d been murdered nearly a century ago. Sho had his museum acquisitions budget, funded by the Brotherhood, by museum admissions, by anyone else who wanted to rent the place out. But Sho also had his private coin budget, otherwise known as his inheritance, which (despite the other investments he made to keep himself afloat) had plummeted over the last several years as he ensured that each coin found its way into his possession.

So maybe they were cursed, in a way, the Zodiac coins of the deposed Emperor Masahiko. Sho had lost friends buying those coins at auction. Sho had canceled meetings his parents had set up, hoping to finally arrange a marriage for him. Sho considered himself a normal, reasonable man in most other circumstances, but he couldn’t allow anything to come between him and his goal. Or anyone. Not until he was finished. He’d come so far, he couldn’t give up now. He couldn’t and wouldn’t compromise. Virgo would be his, and Pisces too. No matter what. Was it unhealthy? Sure, Sho could admit that. Was it ridiculous? Sure, absolutely it was. But Sho was committed to this foolish quest with close to the same fervor the randy old Emperor had had in getting it all started. Nothing in his life could excite him, nothing could thrill him anymore, nothing but the arrival of those green and gold envelopes. The promise, the potential, of another coin.

He stood there until his eyes grew heavy, staring at the two empty notches. And hoping that next week’s event at Sobu Hall would bring him one step closer to what he needed.

///

.taurus.
the bull

///

He wouldn’t be able to relax until they fixed the temp controls in here.

It had only been two months since the transfer and a month since he’d first shown his face in person. Jun knew nobody was impressed or all that intimidated by his arrival, no matter what his surname was. He suspected that they were messing with him a little, trying to see if he was going to let them keep doing things their way. Then maybe after he’d been here a while, let them build and tinker to their hearts’ content, they’d lay off him. But for now, they seemed to shut down when he came by, inquiring about their projects. In meetings they used abbreviations and acronyms for various systems and components that Jun didn’t know, most likely because they knew he had no idea if they were real or fake. He suspected that his employees’ hazing of him also extended to the temp controls in his office. It was fucking freezing in here, and no matter how many times Jun turned the dial, he always arrived to find it several degrees cooler than he’d set it the day before.

For the last few years, a Starside engineer had been in charge all the way out here, some old hardass that Jun’s uncle probably hand selected from a pool of other hardasses. He’d apparently hated it here, Yoshida-san, but the company thought letting the Nightsiders run wild with the budget wouldn’t happen with one of their own in charge. Yoshida had finally been granted the transfer home he’d requested for months, and now here Jun was in his place.

Jun, who knew how to fly pretty much anything his family’s company had released in the last sixty years, but who didn’t have a damn clue about the engineering and complex mechanics that made it possible. Jun knew cockpits, he knew monitors, he knew comms. He could plot a course in his sleep. He knew day flying and night flying and every show-off maneuver in between. But Jun had put all his brain power (such as it was) into racing because he’d never imagined he’d end up here, nothing more than a Starside figurehead in a Matsumoto Air Company research and development facility full of Nightside brainiacs. He knew enough math to fly an airship, but not enough to design one.

His father had said it would help him find purpose again. The old man was full of shit. No, he wanted Jun somewhere away from the Orunitia media, still involved in the company but not in any sort of role that would embarrass the family again. R&D was top secret, usually not much more than a paragraph and some line items in the company’s annual report to its investors. Nothing that happened all the way out here was going to make its way back to the rumor mill in Orunitia. It was the perfect place to send him.

He was pissed off about it, obviously, but he’d done as he was told. Jun was many things, and “obedient” was occasionally one of them. He’d told his closest friends about the transfer, expected a handful to visit him here and there for a weekend of hedonism, but otherwise he’d be stuck here alone until his father decided that all was forgiven. Thirty-eight years old and still Jun was at the mercy of what was “best” for the family. And what was best for the family right now had been to send him to the side of the planet that had never and would never see the sun.

Nightside was for tourism. For bragging rights. Nightside was where you made your deals, found oddball investors. Nightside wasn’t somewhere you lived permanently, if you could help it. At least not in his family’s social circle. But there’d been nothing for him back home anyway, not with the Orunitia shogunate sniffing around about the accident. Jun’s personal fuck-up was not going to be the reason that the Night and Day and all the other racing got shut down for good.

Instead of going to university twenty years back, Jun had finished high school and gone to his uncle’s office on graduation day. Matsumoto Air Company had still been his grandpa’s company back then, but everyone knew that his Uncle Koichiro was going to take over. He’d gone behind his parents’ back, begging to be added to the Test Corps. It was embarrassing to think about now for sure, but he’d hand-written his qualifications and interest in a letter, had handed it directly to his uncle. “Uncle Koichiro, sir,” he’d said, knowing his parents were waiting for him at a restaurant, thinking he was saying goodbye to some precious teacher or another back at Horikoshi Academy. “Sir, I want to be a test pilot.”

Jun had only been eighteen then, not the brightest kid, because he hadn’t understood the family politics as well as he’d thought. Koichiro was the eldest, Jun’s aunt was the middle child, and Jun’s father was the youngest. And yet Jun had been the only male grandchild. Had he gone straight to the aeronautical engineering program at Orunitia University, the program his grandfather had founded and that his father, aunt, and uncle had attended, the company probably could have been his someday, ahead of his female cousins and the money-grubbing spouses they picked up along the way. But instead, Jun hadn’t been thinking long-term. His grandfather had invented airships, and he wanted to fly them. Nothing more, nothing less. And so his Uncle Koichiro had smiled, knowing what Jun’s hand-written request had meant for his daughters’ future.

“Of course, Jun-chan,” Uncle Koichiro had said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’ll get you all set up at M-Flight.”

Jun, who’d spent his school years more interested in hanging out with friends than studying, had already been a disappointment to his parents. Ending up in Matsumoto Flight School instead of their city’s top university had been just one more mistake in a series of mistakes he’d already made and would keep making over the next two decades. But they’d tolerated it, his flying, because at least he’d still been working for the company. By the time he was thirty he’d transitioned away from the dangers of the Test Corps and had been given control of the Matsumoto Racing Division, so his parents were glad he could finally hand out business cards that said he was Executive Vice President of something or other.

He’d always loved flying - in his family’s private ships, in aircabs, in luxury liners. It was amazing, wasn’t it, that their ancestors had left a planet millions of miles away, had traveled to resettle on this planet in the most advanced craft ever designed? And then they’d just given it up, the ability to fly so high, fly so fast, fly so far. Torn apart those ships, used the husks of them to build the first cities on Starside. Forgotten the math, forgotten the science. The people who’d been assigned to settle on this planet were mainly farmers. The engineers, the designers, the geniuses…they’d won the lottery with their apparent “usefulness” and had been assigned to resettle on other worlds. To settle in star systems named for more precious gems like diamonds or emeralds or rubies rather than garnets. Star systems where the planets at least orbited their sun normally, weren’t divided into always day or always night like this one was.

It was Jun’s grandfather who’d finally gotten them airborne again, more than eight hundred years after the first arrivals from Earth. Flying was in his blood. Jun loved the sheer freedom of it. The view of everything below from high above. The way that with his own two hands and his quick reflexes he could pilot some complex machine from one side of the planet to the other. It was what he’d loved most as a boy, when his father had taken him out, handed him the controls for a few minutes here, a few minutes there. It was a craving he couldn’t shake.

But it was joining the Test Corps that had been the turning point, changing him from a flight enthusiast to flight obsessive. He wanted to fly every single experimental craft that found its way to the Test Corps, no matter how much it worried his parents. As he got older, he pivoted from prototype ships to racing ships. Instead of exploding from something missed in the design phase, Jun started flying ships that would be more likely to explode from crashing into something at high speed.

Faster and faster and faster, Jun couldn’t get enough. He was the official face of the Racing Division, standing there giving speeches in praise of his racers before every company-sanctioned event. But when he wasn’t at work, smiling and hanging back in the safety of the aerodrome or racing venue, he was entering every single unsanctioned or illegal race he could. The more unsanctioned, the better. Some people knew who he was, knew he was the grandson of the great Matsumoto Hironobu, but none of that mattered in the air. Jun had proven himself, won enough races to win their respect.

Nobody ever ratted him out to the city shogunates, who believed that illegal racing was one step removed from black market smuggling for the Zodiac Cult or something equally unsavory and absurd. Because in ratting out Jun, they’d be ratting out themselves. Jun had his family ties, sure, but a lot of the other underground flyers did too. It was the only way most people could afford their own racing ships, unless they found a wealthy sponsor who got off on speed as much as Jun did.

Every year Jun told himself “this is the last race,” that just like he’d pivoted from test pilot to company shill, surely he’d change from death-defying racer to someone who just bet his money on other death-defying racers. He’d been getting away with it all for too long. The shogunate in one city or another was going to find them or he was going to crash and burn. He was getting older, some of his younger competitors would tease. “There’s no way you can keep up with us, Ojisan.”

It was a year ago that he’d entered the Night and Day, just as he had for the last ten years. The Night and Day was about endurance as much as it was speed. Most races were held Starside, even the illegal ones, simply because crashing there got you to a hospital or a body bag faster. The Night and Day, however, was the ultimate test of a pilot’s skill. It was a circumnavigation, one complete go-round of the planet from Orunitia around to Nightside and then all the way back to Orunitia, approaching from the opposite direction. In good weather conditions, the Night and Day could be finished in about 18 hours, provided you didn’t go so fast you burnt out on fuel too quickly. In poorer conditions, it could take nearly two full days. Jun had won it twice already, but he knew he could shave time off if he did the run one more time. Just one more time.

Unlike his usual racing ships, he needed something bulkier for the Night and Day. Something efficient but one that could hold plenty of fuel in case there was no tailwind to catch. A friend had sold him a ship he’d paid an outrageous sum to have customized, the Remarkable, and if Jun had done the run in any other ship, he’d probably have died. What was remarkable about the Remarkable was that it could jettison its extra fuel, hopefully landing far enough from the cockpit to keep the pilot from burning to death in a crash. Not that the landing would be any more cushioned without it.

There’d been a lot of cloud cover in the hours between leaving Orunitia and crossing the dusk barrier that separated Starside from Nightside, that separated relative safety from The Great Empty. He was flying a little north of his usual flightpath, hoping it would save him those minutes he needed to break his last record. Faster and faster and faster. Those clouds had met the colder Nightside air, caused a freak ice storm that was unusual for the time of year. It pummeled his ship so quickly, he couldn’t get away in time. He dumped the fuel, could still remember the darkness behind him going up in a sudden burst of flaming light. And then a minute or so later he’d tried to land as best he could with a broken wing and iced-up, sputtering engines.

It was two days before a rescue party found him, with his radio damaged and the race continuing on without him for several hours before anyone suspected something had happened. His left leg was, in a word, destroyed - the ship had fallen onto its side, and he’d ended up pinned under immovable, twisted metal. He’d nearly frozen to death too, even in his custom-made flight suit. If they’d found him even one hour later, the hypothermia would have led to cardiac arrest.

Instead Jun had been found, Jun had been rescued. And his family had used their incomparable connections to cover it all up. Instead of going home to recuperate in Orunitia, he’d been sent from the very start to Estogaza, where his parents owned a vacation home and where the best-bribed surgeons and physical therapists were all too happy to take Matsumoto Air Company money to put him back together again and keep it quiet. In Estogaza he’d undergone four surgeries to restore his leg as best they could. His left hip joint, femur, and knee joint were all replaced with a fancy composite of titanium, polyethylene, and his own stem cells, treatment aimed to both replace and hopefully start to rebuild. It had taken weeks to get out of bed, another month before he could start rehabilitation.

He still used a cane, nearly a year after the accident. Titanium bones were all well and good, but he’d been there in the crashed ship for a long time before they’d been able to get to him. He was lucky they’d fixed him as much as they had, but it would always be with him, that slight limp. That slight unsteadiness. The heavy scarring. The way he could feel a storm coming in the joints of that leg now. The way he couldn’t sit for long periods any more, needing to get up before his leg got too stiff.

A constant reminder of how he’d screwed up. And a constant reminder of how he’d let down his family yet again.

His mother had spent four months with him in Estogaza, using a remodel of the home there as an excuse for her absence from her social engagements. She’d spent most of the time chiding the physical therapists for pushing him too hard when it was Jun who’d demanded it, desperate to be upright without their hands on him anymore. His father had come only once, timing his visit right when Jun was weaning off the strongest of his painkillers.

“I think it goes without saying that you will never fly again,” his father had said.

“I will find a way,” he’d snapped back, childish and insistent.

“If you do, you will no longer be a member of this family.” Jun would never forget the cold look in his father’s face. “And I will turn you and anyone who helps you achieve that in to the shogunate myself.”

And so Jun thus far had not overstepped again. Jun’s personal fuck-up was not going to be the reason that the Night and Day and all the other racing got shut down for good. Racing…racing was impossible now. It was too uncomfortable to sit in the small cockpit of a racing ship, even for a short race. His body likely couldn’t handle the g-forces of most of his favorite daredevil maneuvers. Forget the Night and Day altogether. Everything that had meant anything…it was gone. The family would not speak of it again, to protect Jun and to protect the family, to protect the company. He couldn’t stay in Estogaza forever, and the family and the company couldn’t risk Orunitia or Estogaza’s media or governments looking into why a spoiled Matsumoto heir was now hobbling around. No matter how much he healed in the months and years to come, there were too many people that knew what he’d done.

Jun had crashed on Nightside, in The Great Empty, far from the limited civilization that existed there. And so Jun’s father had seen his salvation there as well, believed Jun would find a new purpose beyond flying, beyond racing. The old man had sent him here to oversee a bunch of engineers, to ensure that no matter how ambitious their aims and funding requests, the work done here would not exceed the allotted budget. Jun had no real authority - he wasn’t the one who actually fixed the budget or doled it out. Headquarters did that. The engineers had their projects - they didn’t need Jun to get involved beyond stamping his name on something in approval. So he wasn’t sure what purpose his father thought he was going to find here, aside from perhaps seeking out more trouble because he was so damn bored and lonely already after only living here a month.

It was Torenomachi that most Starsiders specifically came to in order to get into trouble. A city born out of a desire for freedom from the Empire, they’d only survived those years before the zidanium rush because of rich kid troublemaker tourism. Jun had been here a handful of times, years back, continuing said tourist tradition and coming with friends for a weekend here, a weekend there to visit the casinos, sample the latest illicit substances, break hearts. What happened in Torenomachi stayed in Torenomachi. But it had lost its allure in time, the night city. It was dark and it was cold. It was sterile and it was impersonal, no matter how much sordid fun its visitors came looking for. The people who actually lived here were either the stupidly wealthy descendants of the families that had gone all in on the idea of building a city in the dark or were the people that worked for them in some way or another. Everyone else was just visiting and would be treated accordingly. Jun, with his current work assignment slash punishment, didn’t fit cleanly into either group.

The R&D facility was in a separate dome only a few miles from the city, and Jun wasn’t even allowed to fly himself back and forth. A Matsumoto aircab picked him up outside of his hotel in the morning and brought him back in the evening. His personal skyliner, the Supersonic, was parked in a private berth at the Torenomachi aerodrome. His father had seen to it that a biometric lock was added to the control console - he wasn’t sneaking out of here alone. If he wanted to fly anywhere long-distance, he had to hire a temporary crew for the day. And of course a Nightside-born crew couldn’t legally cross into territory or airspace belonging to any Starside city - they’d forfeited that right centuries ago when they’d split off and moved into The Great Empty. So even if he wanted to get out of the dark for a few hours he couldn’t go home, couldn’t go to Estogaza or to any of his friends’ estates. He could only go to the deserts, to the plains. To the Starside ports of call that nobody with any power or money felt were worth visiting. To places where nobody would ask too many questions about his injury.

His parents encouraged him to invest in property, but Jun was hoping they’d see the error of their ways and bring him back Starside soon enough. He couldn’t put down roots in a place like this, a place with no sun. Back home day was day and night was when you closed the blackout curtains and dimmed the lights. How did people not go mad here, long term? Or perhaps they had, years and years ago, the people who’d fled the Empire to build a dome on land the Emperor never had the energy or interest in laying claim to. They’d gone mad and convinced themselves so hard that living like this was normal that it had somehow passed down through the generations.

Sometimes he could forget that he hated it, if he was inside long enough. Inside the Matsumoto facility, inside his hotel room with the curtains drawn and every light in the room turned on. Breathing the almost too clean recycled air, at least Jun didn’t have to worry about his allergies or his leg acting up in bad weather. Inside the dome there was no such thing as weather. No rain, no snow, no heat wave. It was just too cold all the damn time, no matter what he did. No matter how much zidanium the mines out here dug up and tossed in furnaces, there was no keeping a dome of this size all that warm.

And so every time he came back into this office, feeling the chill imposed by employees that had no real respect for him yet, Jun remembered being back there. Two days in the cockpit, crashed in the middle of nowhere. The only oxygen left to breathe was what had been circulating before the crash, and halfway through he’d had to knock a hole in the bulkhead to let in fresh air, even though the air outside had been so fucking cold. Those batshit people had wanted to prove something all those years ago - that even though The Great Empty was inhospitable for long-term settlement, they would find a way to do it anyhow. If they hadn’t found those zidanium deposits, gotten filthy rich, Torenomachi would have never survived. Of all the stupid luck.

There was a knock at the door, and Jun jumped in surprise. He found himself standing still in the corner of his office, staring blankly at the temperature dial for his thermostat. How long had he been standing here, doing nothing?

“Come in,” he said, moving away and heading back for his desk. There was only one person it would be.

Inoue Mao was a Nightsider born and raised, but Jun didn’t hold it against her. She’d been Yoshida’s assistant when he’d been living here and somehow hadn’t found an excuse to quit, so that told Jun a lot about her character. She’d spent the last month or so babysitting him during the workday, getting him from meeting to meeting where he was only there to be mostly ignored or condescended to by his employees. Mao-chan at least had the courtesy to fake a little kindness for him.

“Matsumoto-san,” she said, coming in with her tablet and tapping away, barely looking at him. “The aircab is waiting for you. Your dinner reservation at Bittersweet is for 6:45.”

“Thanks, Mao-chan,” he said, unbuttoning the thick sweater he’d been wearing all day and replacing it with his long overcoat.

The aircab service that brought him dome to dome, their cabs weren’t as insulated as he’d have liked, but rocking the boat when it came to company-paid transportation would get back to his father, and he was really not in the mood for another lecture. The company with the chilly cabs was also being paid by his family to spy on him, Jun knew that. So he’d just keep putting up with it. Making no calls in their vehicles and dressing warm. He knew his employees were laughing behind his back, seeing him come and go in the knee-length wool coat every day, but Mao-chan at least kept a straight face around him.

She was also kind enough to walk at his pace and never let it look like she was slowing her steps on purpose. He’d gotten much faster as the months went on, but he didn’t want to push too hard and cause himself any additional soreness. The facility had a private aerodrome, and it was a ten minute walk from his office even on his best days. There was a dormitory in the R&D dome for employees to stay in overnight here and there, but most workers commuted to and from Torenomachi in transit skyliners that Matsumoto Air Company privately commissioned as a shuttling service.

Aside from the constant hum of the air recyclers and the occasional turbine test, it was relatively quiet here at all hours of the day, at least compared with Torenomachi. He and Mao walked past laboratories and offices, most occupants of those rooms crunching numbers or staring at their computer screens. Trying to design a better engine, better fuel intakes, better aerodynamics for Matsumoto craft. Although working hours were over, he knew that dozens of the company scientists and engineers would still be here for hours, unable to tear themselves away. Jun knew that feeling, all too well. It was that feeling he’d always had when creating flightplans, when prepping for a race. He wouldn’t leave or quit until he had his plans memorized, until he had planned for every single contingency.

Finally, they arrived at the aerodrome, the vents sucking away the sting of zidanium exhaust almost as quickly as it appeared. Jun was starting to miss that smell, which lingered without shame in the aerodromes back Starside. Mao bowed to him, rising to tap at her tablet again. “You’ll be meeting at noon with the Covert Ops team tomorrow. It’s a lunch meeting, and I’ve already placed the catering order from Baccanale.”

Jun smiled. “Excellent. The same spread that we had for the Skyliner Interiors team?”

She gave him a wink. “But of course.”

They didn’t like him or care enough to hate him so far, but he didn’t exactly have any friends here yet. No matter how much they ignored or quietly bullied him, and no matter how badly Jun wanted to just go home, he was determined to at least win some of them over. Hopefully whichever bastards kept fucking with his office’s temp controls. Catering in good food always bested cafeteria boxed lunches. Jun had been a manager for years, and he’d gotten a reputation for spoiling his underlings. He was here to keep the budget balanced, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t use his own money to try and get some of these teams to respect him.

He got into the hired cab, looking out the window. The aircab exited the R&D aerodrome, zipping up and out into the night. It was only a minute or so before the Torenomachi dome came into view. It was a remarkable piece of engineering, Jun had to admit that. It was the brightest spot in Nightside, the largest domed city over here even to this day. Most others that had popped up were smaller - luxury resorts and residential enclaves and private businesses, the smaller domes much easier to power, warm, and maintain than something as massive as Torenomachi.

There were skyliners and aircabs arriving through the main airlocks at all hours of the day, and it only took a few minutes to be cleared through. Soon enough he was away from the barren Nightside wastes and flying through one of the airlock tunnels, emerging into the busy temperature-controlled “skies” of Torenomachi, its skyscrapers rising up at various points across the city, the lighter “daytime” lights running up their lengths already changed over to bruise colors that signaled it was actual night time. Unlike the sprawl of the cities in Starside that Jun knew, Torenomachi was packed in here tight, nearly every inch of space occupied by some building or another.

The luxury high-rises of wealthy residents in the east, the cluster of gaudy hotels, restaurants, and entertainments in the south catering instead to the city’s tourists. The northern side of the dome was home to massive estates, imported trees, and well-manicured gardens that convinced some people that this place wasn’t as artificial as it really was. The west was full of factories and high-rises packed to the gills with working class folks. The city center was a mixture of everything - a massive business district, more hotels, more housing, the city council government buildings. Jun was staying in the south end, the Hospitality District, and the aircab sped off toward the Sumire Hotel.

It wasn’t the city’s finest, but it was the most discreet. Nobody batted an eye, at least not openly, when Jun had reserved a luxury suite with an open-ended date of departure. He’d already paid six months in advance, and they catered to his every need. The cab slowed, signaling that it was heading down, descending to join the drop-off line. The driver was already pre-paid by Matsumoto Air, saying nothing as they landed and the hatch opened to let him out.

“Have a good night,” Jun said anyway, receiving a mumbled reply as he stuck his cane out of the aircab first, finding the sidewalk. He used it for leverage, climbing out and getting back on his feet. The doorman tipped his cap, holding the door as Jun wandered in, unbuttoning his heavy coat in relief. Catering to outsiders from Starside, the Sumire Hotel had a much better sense of a reasonable temperature than most other buildings Jun had been in over here. Not that it was all that warm but at least it was less cold than the cab he’d just left.

It was well-lit inside, thankfully, and he headed straight for the hotel’s finest restaurant, Bittersweet. He’d sampled a lot of restaurants his first few weeks, both standalone places as well as restaurants inside the other hotels of the Hospitality District, but after a month, he was perfectly happy with the service within his own hotel. They knew him by now, knew his drink preferences, his likes and dislikes. Their menus rotated frequently enough that he hadn’t gotten bored yet. He knew the wait staff by name, and pathetically enough, it was the closest thing he had here to a social circle.

He was early for his reservation, but they weren’t too crowded for dinner yet that evening, and he was seated right away in a corner booth away from curious eyes watching him and his cane. He ate slowly, amazed that a place like Torenomachi, this far from a proper Starside farm, could serve grass-fed beef that tasted this delicious. But it was a heavier meal than he probably should have opted for after a long, frustrating day. Jun wasn’t sure his body clock was ever really going to get used to long-term living in Torenomachi. He got tired early, woke up groggy. A big meal put him to sleep by 9:00 PM, something that would have made his hard-partying younger self recoil in disgust.

It wasn’t a very long walk from Bittersweet to the elevators, and he rode up to his suite on the top floor. The hotel was just as clean and quiet as most others at this time of year in Torenomachi. Starside always faced the sun, so it never got all that cold there, relatively speaking, but winter was still winter. A few degrees made a difference to a lot of people, and many flocked to vacation here then. The peak of summer’s heat and humidity also sent folks fleeing to the dome. Spring and fall had lower occupancy rates, and Jun hadn’t seen too many faces here on the floor aside from the housekeeping or room service staff.

He pulled his keycard from his wallet, opening the door to his suite. The air recyclers were powerful, but still his bathroom smelled like the citrus solution housekeeping used to scrub everything clean. He set the thermostat to the temperature he preferred, giving it a little tap with his finger. “No messing around now, you hear me?” he said aloud before chuckling softly to himself. He really needed to make some real friends out here, or he was going to lose his mind talking to inanimate objects.

Having a nice hot bath felt great on his leg, and he nearly fell asleep in the large, sunken tub. When the water finally started to cool, he forced himself out, wrapping himself up in the luxurious cotton robe the hotel provided and ditching his cane for the night since the distances to cover weren’t so far anymore. He swapped out his contact lenses for a pair of spectacles before he got too tired to bother. Jun had arrived with only a few suitcases, expecting his father would eventually admit he’d been bluffing and call him home. So far, Jun’s instincts had been wrong, and he knew he couldn’t stay here forever, wearing the same clothes, eating the same food. Much as he didn’t want it, it seemed like Torenomachi was going to be his home for quite some time to come.

If he got into bed, he knew he’d fall asleep right then and there, so instead he moved to the window and pushed the button to open the blinds. The little motor hummed as they slid open along their track, slowly revealing the Hospitality District to him - its bright lights and lack of rules. He knew there were plenty of spoiled kids out here just like he’d been, going wild without having to worry about a parent or employer or busybody shogunate poking into your business. It all seemed like a lifetime ago, his life before the accident.

Jun looked down, seeing that some mail had been dropped off for him that day. He didn’t get too much, although his last name had already gotten him a few invites to some parties and charity cocktail hours. He hadn’t accepted anything yet, if only because he was trying to get up to speed in his new job as best he could. Eventually he’d have to start putting in appearances, since ignoring additional invites might reflect negatively on his family.

At the bottom of the small batch of envelopes, he found something that stood out from the others. A green envelope with a golden ribbon. “Bit tacky,” he muttered to himself, though he couldn’t keep his curiosity at bay and opened it rather quickly.

The message was written in an equally tacky font, but after weeks of a boring, largely set routine in his new unwanted home, finally something different had come along.

Matsumoto Jun-sama, the invite read. Sobu Hall cordially invites you (and more importantly, your money) to the event of the season.

He grinned at the flippant honesty and read on, learning that he’d been invited to attend an exclusive party and auction that was normally limited to Torenomachi citizens only. It promised him good food, fine entertainment, and the “unique opportunity” to obtain some of the “rarest” items in the world, so long as he was the highest bidder.

He typed the address into his tablet, discovering that this Sobu Hall was one of the oldest estates in the city, nestled deep within the city’s weathiest neighborhood. All the more intriguing — the invitation wasn’t signed. He apparently wasn’t entitled to know the names of the people who had invited him, and no matter how many searches he did for “Sobu Hall,” there was absolutely no in-depth information about its owners or residents. But they had to be wealthy, given the address. And their ability to scrub any details about themselves from a computer search. Wealthy or at least a very hardworking con artist.

An auction, huh? He’d attended charitable auctions in the past, bidding absurd amounts on things he didn’t need simply to support this or that orphanage, this or that medical charity. Continuing the family tradition of winning hearts by doling out cash. There was none of that in this invite, and his host or hosts had specifically invited his money to attend. There was the hint of the black market, the hint of danger in the wording of the tacky invite, and he couldn’t help being intrigued. He was in the entertainment capital of the planet, and still Matsumoto Jun had spent the last few weeks bored and alone. Cut off from friends and family, working in a thankless, meaningless job. If he didn’t shake things up soon, he was going to have a breakdown.

Flying had always been his favorite hobby, but spending money had always been a close second.

Maybe it was time to get back in the habit.

///

.gemini.
the twins

///

That morning, Sho had dug through some boxes of unsorted photographs in the museum vault, finding images of the original Sobu Hall. Of course, it hadn’t been called Sobu Hall yet. In the year G-703 the Torenomachi dome had finally been completed, a gigantic and nearly-empty expanse waiting to be filled in. But the Sobu Trading Post had been here even earlier, a cluster of ramshackle buildings that had stood near the original airlocks. It had taken almost fifty years for the first families to get the dome ready for habitation, and businesses like the Sobu Trading Post had been set up to help coordinate.

In those long years before airships, it was the Sobu Trading Post and others like it that had hired desperate people willing to make the trek back and forth to Starside again and again for years, hauling food and equipment and building materials across The Great Empty to the factories and temporary structures that housed the domed city’s future residents. Two families had set up the trading post, and even now more than 200 years after the dome’s completion, their descendants still continued the family tradition, never splitting up the business, keeping the money flowing and sharing all profits fifty-fifty.

It was the ingenuity of the Aiba family and the money management skills of the Ninomiya family that had been the perfect combination. They’d created a trade empire here, and once the zidanium deposits had been discovered all around the city, they’d been one of the first companies with the financial means to set up mining operations. All the money they’d sunk into the dome’s construction had been made back a thousandfold with the mines.

The auctions had been started in the early days of the dome, the dark days, the hungry days. For entertainment, for the competition. The great great greats of Sho’s family acquired most of their first pieces through the Sobu auctions, investing the money they too had made from the mines. Now, two centuries later, the auctions had long since moved from the trading post to the massive grounds of Sobu Hall. It was an ugly old mansion, Sho’s mother had always said, a catastrophic combination of two families’ taste preferences that they’d built with their first batch of mining money. Most members of the families lived elsewhere in the city or had settled in other domes by now, but Aiba Masaki and Ninomiya Kazunari seemed to relish living at the old estate with all its ostentatious marble columns and fountains, the lawns full of noisy peacocks, the artificial lake that had been home to generations of giant koi, long ago smuggled in illegally from the Emperor’s own stock in Orunitia.

The two of them lived in partitioned off apartments at separate ends of the gigantic house, opening up the rest of it on auction nights, letting their guests engage in whatever debauched nonsense made them happiest since hiring in cleaners was never going to put a dent in their family fortunes. Sho had attended school with Aiba and Nino, a year ahead of them, and they’d always been as inseparable as their ancestors who’d founded the trading post in the first place. They mostly left the management of Sobu Trading Incorporated to other relatives these days, instead focusing their efforts on acquiring goods to auction off. Sho knew most of what they were doing to get stuff was pretty shady, but his friends seemed to thrive on the notoriety of their auctions.

Anyone who was anyone in Torenomachi knew that Aiba and Nino were running the show here, but everyone pretended not to. If “what happens in Torenomachi stays in Torenomachi” was the motto of the Starside visitors who came to their city to get up to no good, then “what happens at Sobu Hall stays at Sobu Hall” was the more elite equivalent for the dome’s upper class. Because the auctions weren’t just auctions. They were all-night parties where the most illicit deals in the city were brokered, where the most scandalous affairs were conducted, where the most family fortunes were won and lost. Deaths both accidental and intentional had certainly happened here on auction nights over the years. Crimes of passion and crimes of temporary insanity. Nino and Aiba had cleaners for that sort of thing, too. The city council looked the other way, of course. Most of them were usually in attendance. It was Torenomachi at the height of ridiculousness, Torenomachi at the peak of hedonism.

It was at Sobu Hall that Sho had first tried alcohol. First smoked a cigarillo. First lost his virginity, in every way that counted. And more importantly, it was where he’d been able to acquire ten out of the twelve Zodiac coins, and so he would always attend when a green envelope arrived, no matter who saw him there. He picked up things for the museum too, but only if his hosts bothered to share the details about how the items made it to their doorstep. Sho wanted to believe he still had some amount of integrity when it came to his day job. But with the coins, Sho didn’t much care.

It was obvious enough what kept most people coming, but Sho had long since stopped coming here for the luxurious food, for the gambling, for the meaningless sex. He was here only for the auction these days, which never started until after midnight. Aiba and Nino knew how to play the game - they never announced what was up for bidding in advance. If you wanted to know, you had to come and see for yourself. Some auction nights there’d be more than fifty items up for grabs, on others maybe five. You had to pace yourself or risk blowing all your money on something when the item you really wanted might get put up for bids later on. The pair of them had a network of thieves and spies planetwide, seeking out the most exclusive items and paying handsome sums for them. Despite the effort and money they sunk into acquisitions, Nino and Aiba always came out ahead. Even if they lost money with a low winning bid on something in the auction, it was rare that someone was going to hit the jackpot elsewhere in the mansion that night.

At Sobu Hall, the house always won in the end.

His friends had pocketed millions from Sho over the last several years, and in turn they made “anonymous” donations and referrals to the Garnetian Museum regularly. Their three families had forged an understanding long ago, in the earliest days of the dome. Aiba, Ninomiya, Sakurai…they would take care of each other. But that didn’t mean his friends were above teasing him. They hadn’t been able to acquire a coin for months now, and still they would present a united front of deception whenever he arrived, begging for a hint. Begging for them to give him a heads up that what he really wanted would be available that evening. “Yes, of course we have another one, Sho-chan,” Aiba would say. “No, Sho-chan, not tonight,” Nino would say when Sho approached him only minutes later on the opposite side of the room.

Cute. That was the term Sho’s friends used for his obsession with obtaining all of the Zodiac coins. Once it became obvious that Sho was determined to collect them all himself, they’d started putting in extra effort for him, searching Starside far and wide for any whispers about them. Then they’d bring it out on auction night, introduce the coin as one of the last items, and start the bidding at a number that made Sho’s stomach churn. And still he would silently raise his auction paddle. Aiba would point to him and smile. The coin would go home with him.

Sho took one last look at his existing collection, fingers poking at the two remaining empty notches. He was trying his best not to go into tonight’s auction with high expectations. It had been eight months since he’d gotten a hold of Capricorn, and it wasn’t like he’d made up much of the difference in his investment accounts since then. It was better for him financially if there was no new coin available tonight. Nobody went all the way to the end with him on bidding anymore - by now, most people didn’t bother to compete with him at all when another little coin was introduced. Nino and Aiba always had much flashier items to bid on, so there wasn’t much allure to spending a lot of coins to only get a worthless one in return. But that didn’t mean Sobu Hall wouldn’t get back most of the money they’d invested in acquiring it.

He hid his display away, hoisting his grandfather’s portrait again and putting it back in place. The old man was watching him with that enigmatic smile. Sho knew his grandfather had had little obsessions of his own, had gone to the Sobu Hall auctions regularly. He turned to the mirror, feeling like a costumed fool. Sometimes the auctions had themes for the night. Dress like a soldier, dress like a country bumpkin, dress like an Earthling, whatever that meant. Tonight there was thankfully no set requirement, but attendees were still expected to look their best. Because it had been a while since the last auction, he’d opted for the same outfit as last time. Several folks had commented favorably on it, and not all of them simply doing so in hopes of sleeping with him.

It was a little loud when looking at it in the mirror in the privacy of his own home, Sho thought, but compared to what some of the other guests would be wearing, he’d fit in just fine. The shimmering silver jacket that fit him like a glove, the slight shine of his black bow tie and the silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. The pressed white dress shirt tucked into his equally shiny red slacks. Those fit him slightly better than a glove. “Not everyone can pull off tight sparkly pants at your age, Sho-chan,” Nino had teased him before. “Good for you.”

He slipped into some plain black dress shoes at the door. He didn’t feel like having a complete mirrorball effect from head to toe. Waiting on the entry table was the envelope of pictures he’d taken from the vault that morning, a few photographs of Sobu Trading Post he could spare. A gift for his hosts that he slid inside his jacket before heading out just after 9:00 PM. Ueda was already waiting with the cab in the garage, not bothering to hide his irritation at having to fly Sho across town to Sobu Hall, where Ueda’s “enemies” would surely be lying in wait to piss him off about something or other.

“Looking good, Aniki,” Ueda said anyhow. “Any stops along the way?”

“Nope, straight there.” He got inside the aircab, trying to relax. To not think about the balances of his various accounts, though he’d been checking them all every hour on the hour for the last several days in order to determine just how far he could go if Virgo or Pisces was on the block tonight.

As usual, there was a traffic jam trying to get onto the property, Ueda having to circle the neighborhood a few times before being granted clearance to come down into the reception line. For a supposedly elite event, they always invited too many damn people, Sho thought with a grin. Most guests didn’t even come for the auctions, but to simply say they’d been there. But if that meant less competition, Sho would put up with a little wait. Finally, Ueda made it to the gravel drive in front of the mansion’s main entrance, bringing the aircab to the ground with a soft crunch. It had been designed in the days of carriages, both horse-drawn and for z-carriages with combustion engines. For vehicles with four wheels, not for zippy little airships.

Ueda came around, standing alert as Sho emerged into the evening. The double doors at the top of the steps were thrown wide, and he could hear the sounds of orchestral music and laughter floating out into the night. Ueda and the cab departed, off to park with all the other vehicles on the far end of the property, away from all the nonsense. There Ueda would likely spend the evening picking fights and shooting dice with other drivers. For now, Sho was on his own, climbing the steps to find Nakamaru-kun at the door with the clipboard like always.

They didn’t pay their head butler enough for the shit he had to do for them, but Nakamaru was a good sport despite that. He perked up when Sho approached, clearly a familiar face that didn’t bother him as much as some of the other frequent auction night guests.

“The boss said last time that red was your color, but I didn’t know what he was talking about,” Nakamaru said, looking at Sho with an amused smile. “Now I get it.”

“My tailor’s wife recommended it when she found out where I planned to wear it,” he said in reply, pulling his invite from the inside of his jacket. Nakamaru took it from him only as a formality, dropping it into a box at his side and scratching his name off the list.

Nakamaru nodded, gesturing with his head for Sho to head on inside. “Have a lovely evening.”

“It usually is,” he replied, finding his way through the obnoxious entry hall. The party usually started around 7:00 PM, though Sho didn’t like to spend a lot of time wandering the grounds aimlessly before the auction. But a few hours of mingling were necessary if someone wanted to approach him about the museum. Some of the best connections he’d made with Starsiders had come from introductions at auctions, and Sho didn’t dare arrive too late, lest he miss an opportunity to bring more income to the museum.

He crossed the already crowded black and white checkerboard floor, helping himself to a thin flute of champagne as he headed for the main ballroom. At the front of the long, high hall was an orchestra of maybe fifty, paid good money to play and play and play and say not a word about anyone they saw doing anything scandalous. Most behaved themselves in the early hours of auction nights, tending to retire to one of the bedrooms or to a secluded spot outdoors if they wished to do anything more risque. The ballroom was for mingling, occasionally for dancing, and mostly served as a first stop for guests before heading off to a smaller private space to spend money, earn money, or maybe snort the equivalent of a lot of money up one’s nose.

Sho would not find either of his hosts in here. Aiba was rarely out before the auctions, especially if there were a number of items up that evening. He was usually off rehearsing, as he served as the master of ceremonies and auctioneer. Nino, on the other hand, never showed his face at the auctions. Most people wouldn’t recognize him by sight as their host either, if only because he was not all that sociable to begin with. He could usually be found nursing a cocktail in one of the gaming rooms, sitting at a roulette table and idly betting as though he was just another attendee.

“You always overhear some of the most exciting news at the tables, Sho-chan,” he was often saying.

He sipped his champagne and eventually grabbed a second and then a third glass, spending his first hour in the ballroom greeting people he knew as he walked the room. People inquired after the museum, he inquired in return about whatever business they were in. The older he got, the more tiresome the song and dance became, but he never dared to let it show. He’d be doing it until the day he died, buttering up his fellow wealthy citizens, if it meant keeping the museum open.

His shimmering red slacks caught the eyes of men and women both as he made his way through the room, so he supposed he deserved it any time someone approached and wanted to engage in some inane small talk. But Sho’s outfit was no more gaudy than most of the other folks in attendance. Busy flowing fabrics, eye-catching sequins, neon-colored feathers and extravagant lace. Ropes of pearls and massive diamonds, vintage timepieces and cufflinks. Some dresses and slacks he saw seemed almost as though they were painted on their wearers they were so tight, so Sho was at least grateful he could breathe in what he was wearing. Look at me, every attendee seemed to be shouting, look at me!

His watch told him it was still a good ninety minutes until the auction would likely start when he finally got himself away from the ballroom, following the cigarillo smoke along one of the seemingly endless carpeted corridors. A woman slipped out of one of the rooms, nearly smacking him with the door as she came hurrying out, still adjusting her dress back down over her panties. He recognized her, some attorney with the city council.

She blushed, inclining her head in apology. He merely waved his hand, saying not a word as she headed back off down the hallway, trying to put her hair back into place. Sho kept walking, smiling in amusement but not bothering to turn back around when the same door opened and shut again behind him. He was getting a little too old to care who was sleeping with who at these parties.

He hung a right at the end of the hall, opening the door and finding the high rollers room. By day it was the mansion library, two levels of books that neither Nino or Aiba had likely ever read. Nobody at any of the gaming tables crammed into the room looked over at his arrival, so entranced were they in the roulette wheel, in the toss of dice, in the flipping of cards. He looked up, saw a small figure in a plain black tuxedo on the narrow upper level offer him a subtle salute.

Sho headed for the spiral staircase in the corner, shouts of surprise and dismay filling the room as he made his way up to join his host on the landing. Ninomiya Kazunari was apparently not in the mood to spend money on his own games tonight, was instead watching from above and nursing an odd-colored cocktail.

He stood beside his friend at the railing, looking out over the room below. Together they stood in silence for a few moments, listening to the clicking of the gaming wheels, the noise of the guests’ chatter, the soft hum of the air recyclers above them sucking the cigarillo smoke away as best they could.

“It’s gotta be some kind of societal faux pas or another to show up to an event in the same clothes you wore last time,” Nino eventually declared, lifting his glass to his lips.

“You told me I looked good. I take such things to heart, you know.”

Nino chuckled softly. “You always look good, and you know it.”

Sho sometimes had a hard time determining if his friend flattered him because they’d known each other most of their lives or because Sho had made him so much richer over the years. Nino was shorter than him, slim and youthful, with a clever smile and even cleverer eyes. Nino prided himself on apparently knowing all, seeing all that happened at his parties. He probably knew exactly who’d been with that woman in the other room, but he’d keep it to himself. He would never sink to blackmail, no matter what wild shit his guests got up to in his ugly house. After all, it was the openness, the freedom of these absurd parties that kept the Torenomachi elite coming back every single time. Bringing him more and more and more money. And if there was one thing Ninomiya Kazunari liked, it was money.

Nino probably had an indexed catalog in his head of every single person Sho had fucked around with here over the last several years too, but he usually never said anything. Usually.

Sho pulled the envelope from inside his jacket, holding it out. “A gift.”

“It’s not my birthday.”

“Don’t you like surprises?”

“Hmm,” Nino said, snatching the envelope with his small, quick fingers. “Nothing surprises me much anymore, Sho-chan. I’ve held too many of these ridiculous soirees.”

“I think you’ll like this one.”

Nino held out his glass, and Sho obediently took it from him, letting him use both hands to ease open the envelope, tug out the photographs within. Nino had clearly been drinking for a while that evening, because his eyes went comically wide at the sight of the Sobu Trading Post. Sho had given him some photos that he’d found a few years back, but it had taken him a while to find the time to unearth more. His grandfather had snatched up dozens of photo albums over the years, precious memories that nobody had ever come around to claim. They were a lower priority for processing than some of the other items in the museum vault, but Sho was glad he’d made an exception that day and gone digging through the 690s boxes for something interesting.

“Where did you find these?”

“One of my grandfather’s unsorted boxes. I was able to find some of the negatives too, if you want them. These are dated G-692.”

“Fuck me,” Nino murmured, bringing the photographs closer to his face so he could scrutinize the details. “We don’t have much that’s this old, at least not in this good a condition. I want the negatives, I’m gonna blow these up. My sister will want copies. Aiba-shi’s father will too. They’ll want to wallpaper the offices with these.”

“I’ll see that they find their way here.”

Nino put the photos back in the envelope, tucking his family history in his own jacket now. He turned to Sho with a wry smile. “Sho-chan, I’m not telling you what’s on the block tonight.”

He laughed, handing Nino his cocktail back. “I know that already. This is just a little thank you. I never did give you guys a proper thank you for Capricorn.”

Nino rolled his eyes, waving a hand dismissively. “Don’t be ridiculous. That was a business transaction.”

“Masaki told me what you paid that bounty hunter to find it…”

“He’s an idiot,” Nino grumbled. “He should keep his mouth shut.”

Sho looked away, laughing softly. They loved him, Nino and Aiba did, although they disguised it by making him pay them an arm and a leg for every coin they found for him. But still, the effort they went to all for him was no joke, especially considering that they could instead invest funds to acquire more valuable items for the auction.

“I’ll get you the negatives,” Sho reiterated, their conversation slowing as they continued to take in the gambling below.

Sho had to keep from smiling when he saw a city council member blow ten million credits in one spin of the roulette wheel. He did his best to not see that the wife of a powerful executive was clearly stroking the thigh of the woman beside them at the table. And this was just one room of so many. Everyone obviously felt so free here, so unrestricted here. It was what Torenomachi had been founded for - the Empire wanted to tell them how to live, the first families had always said, and so they’d built their own empire in the dark. Where they were free to make their own deals. Where they were free to love whoever and however they liked. Where arguments were either settled with a handshake or a gunshot. Things had calmed down considerably from the earliest days, but the auctions at Sobu Hall at least kept up the facade of a city with no rules.

Sho eventually heard Nino let out a soft gasp beside him. He turned, trying to follow his friend’s line of sight across the gaming floor. “What? What’s wrong?”

“He actually came,” Nino muttered, laughing a little.

“He who?”

Nino wasn’t foolish enough to point, even if it was obvious nobody on the ground floor gave a shit about the two men on the upper level. Instead he gave directions. “Babanuki table closest to the garden exit. So good looking it’ll make you kind of angry.”

“Tall? Short?”

“You won’t miss him, Sho-chan.”

He looked over, immediately intrigued. Unlike Sho, Nino preferred women, so it would have to be someone pretty damn striking for Nino to bother commenting on his looks. Babanuki table…Babanuki table…

“Ah.”

“Yep,” Nino said.

Sho tried not to stare, taking in the figure of a man he’d never seen before. He was tall for Torenomachi, which probably meant he was a Starsider. Nino rarely invited them here, so he had to be someone Nino at least thought was interesting. Or someone who’d come with a lot of credits to blow. The man was likely close in age to him and Nino. Dark hair, sharp cheekbones and thick, dark brows. Unlike Nino’s plain tux and Sho’s glittery attention-seeking, this man probably didn’t need his tailor’s wife to tell him what fit him best. He was in a black jacket splashed with white, looking like paint splatters or maybe written words - it was hard to tell from this distance. But the jacket perfectly accentuated the broadness of his shoulders, a trim waist. Definitely a bespoke item. Like Sho, he’d chosen a black bowtie and a simple white dress shirt. His slacks were well-fitted, plain but of obviously good quality.

Somehow, he fit in well with the crowd here and at the same time he absolutely did not.

It was only when the man moved away from the card table and toward the garden doors that Sho noticed the polished wooden cane in his hand, the slight limp as he moved. Real? An affectation to add mystery? Nino and Aiba invited all kinds to their parties. The man stopped by the doors, looking outside, appearing a bit hesitant to go out.

“You didn’t expect this person to accept your invite?”

“It’s not like Aiba-shi and I formally introduce ourselves in our invites. He might have thought it was a scam.”

“It is a scam,” Sho remarked.

Nino chuckled. “Piss off.”

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Sho finally said, admittedly a bit intrigued by the handsome stranger. “Who is he?”

“Oddly enough, Sho-chan, Aiba-shi and I were hoping that if he ended up showing his face here that you’d be able to step in, give him the good ol’ Torenomachi welcome.”

“There’s no such thing.”

Nino wrapped an arm around him, still giggling for some reason. “A Starsider, but he’s been here for weeks. He’s been staying in the Hospitality District, but he seems to have come alone. My sources say it might be a permanent relocation.” Nino paused, presumably for dramatic effect. “He’s a Matsumoto.”

“A Matsumoto?”

“A Matsumoto Air Company Matsumoto.”

Sho turned aside, seeing the knowing look in Nino’s face. The family that invented the airship? That Matsumoto family? No wonder Nino wanted him here. That family had changed the planet. That family had changed Torenomachi forever, enabling faster transportation of supplies, faster exchange of zidanium for Starside food and goods that had been so expensive and dangerous to import for decades.

That family, in Sho’s eyes, had created history. So why the hell would a Matsumoto come to live Nightside?

“Go on,” Nino said, giving Sho a nudge.

“Go on and what?”

“Make a new friend,” Nino replied. “You’re good at that. Talk his ear off about how great these parties are, how great my auctions are.”

Sho grinned. “You brought him here because you and Masaki want some brand new money.”

“I’ll always love your old money, Sho-chan. It goes so well with my old money,” Nino admitted. “But brand new money is never as choosy about what it wants to buy. Think of how much stuff I can unload to someone who’s brand new to my auction and so rich he probably shits gold. Think of how high Aiba-shi could start some of the bidding.”

He laughed, shaking his head. Nino was probably right. Torenomachi was full of wealthy people, certainly, but they’d been coming to the Sobu Hall auctions for generations. They were either going to bid on one or two things or just spend in the gaming rooms. Sho and his family had been supporting the Sobu Hall auctions for so long that at this point, he and Nino and Aiba were just handing the same money back and forth and back and forth. An auction bid here, a museum donation there. But new money, new like “invented the airship and changed the world” new…now that was money on a scale that got greedy people like Nino hard.

“Brand new money might need to rent out museum space for their brand new money events,” Nino prodded him. “Nobody else here tonight besides you, me, and Aiba-shi knows who the hell this guy really is. If you want to get in on the ground floor with Matsumoto Air Company before he makes any other friends in town, now is the time.”

Sho had to admit it was tempting. Schmoozing at events like these helped him keep the museum open. Who knew what he could achieve or acquire with a cash infusion from a patron like the Matsumoto family?

“This is manipulative,” Sho said.

“Certainly.”

“He’ll know I’m only introducing myself because of his name.”

“Oh, a guy like that has to be used to it by now.”

“Are there any Zodiac coins in the auction tonight?”

Nino cuffed him on the back of the head. “Go down there and be charming to my guest! That’s an order from the person who can and will throw your last two precious coins into one of my seventy-eight fountains and tell you to go fuck yourself.”

Sho laughed. Well, it had been worth a try. He raised his hands in mock surrender, leaving Nino behind and heading for the spiral staircase.

///

Jun had been to a number of ugly houses in his life, but Sobu Hall surpassed them all. He was actually kind of impressed with how absurd the place was. Many of the hotels and establishments in the Hospitality District seemed to be intentionally obnoxious, with disjointed architectural flourishes, bold paint choices, and eye-catching artwork. Catering to tourist credits, there was an expectation that visitors would be presented with the Torenomachi they’d grown up hearing about. Loud, disordered, and free. Jun just didn’t expect that the people who lived here permanently might also subscribe to a similar philosophy.

Sobu Hall was the noisiest he’d seen Torenomachi since he’d arrived. The noise extended to its interior design. Enormous crystal chandeliers, bronze candelabras and wall sconces, thick patterned rugs, vases filled with mismatched blooms, nude portraits of all body types hung with care. Rooms filled with furniture from all eras, dizzying upholstery patterns, throw pillows adorned with bright sequins or stringy fringe. All of it as though the owners had gone to a furniture showroom blindfolded and had just kept pointing at random until they’d run out of money. Every room an assault on the eyes, every room looking like a bomb had gone off. It was so incomprehensible that Jun felt it had somehow circled back around to making complete sense. He had to hide a smile, imagining the stroke his mother would have if she set foot on the property.

He’d handed his invite to a butler at the door, who’d given him the most bizarre offer of assistance he’d heard in a while. “Welcome, Matsumoto-san,” the man had said, slipping Jun’s invite into a gilded box beside him. “If you find that the bowls of condoms and lubricant in the washrooms are running low or don’t meet your needs, I can look into other options for you.” He’d only been able to nod in reply, joining the crowd of hundreds that had already arrived. The invitation had implied as much, but apparently there really was a lot more to this event than a simple auction.

The main ballroom was stuffed with oddly-dressed bodies, some clustered together for conversation, others breaking off into pairs to sway to the waltzes coming from the orchestra. It had only been 10:00 PM when he’d arrived, and already he’d seen two naked men wrestling in one of the rooms just off the ballroom, others gathered around betting credits on their preferred victor. Some hallways he passed through were soaked in a scent combination of thick cologne and sex, laughter and sounds that definitely weren’t laughter audible behind this door or that.

There’d been a parlor along the way, a sign hung on the door reading only “Desserts Within.” He’d poked his head in, finding a fairly standard chocolate fountain, guests casually dipping pieces of fruit and cake into it. Further back in the room there was a more sordid element, two giggling women painting one another with some sort of edible glaze, inviting anyone to sample a treat from them more directly. Years back, Jun might have been first in line to indulge himself, but he wasn’t sure who might be watching him, what actions might make his life here more challenging than it already was.

After passing a handful of other smoky gaming dens, he entered the largest one thus far, a two-leveled library filled to bursting with books. It was the most elegant room he’d been in thus far, although the bar had been set pretty low to begin with. Mercifully all of the guests in this room still had their clothes on, were sitting at various tables spending credits and smoking cigarillos without a care. He observed quietly, wondering if it was worth having a seat, but none of the games seemed to lure him in. Maybe he was getting boring in his old age.

For all its obnoxious faults, Sobu Hall was well-lit, and yet Jun eventually found himself drawn to a pair of double doors that led out of the mansion entirely. He could see lanterns all along the garden paths beyond. He imagined it would be quieter than it was indoors, although given what the party guests got up to in rooms full of light here, he wasn’t sure what he might encounter out in a darkened corner of the estate grounds.

He could sense a person approaching right before they got too close, and Jun turned before they could tap him on the shoulder or back. He tended to jolt when someone came up on him unannounced, and he didn’t like the feeling. Pale like most Nightsiders, or at least the ones who didn’t end up a bit orange from a tanning bed, the man approaching him was very deliberate in the way he carried himself. Proud, confident in a way Jun knew he’d been himself in the time before the accident. Dark hair, fringe angled across his forehead, but the slightest hints of brown shining through in the light. A smaller frame than Jun, a round face. He couldn’t help glancing down and quickly up, taking in the man’s long legs, his tight red slacks demanding attention. The movement of his eyes didn’t go unnoticed either, and he saw the slightest quirk of the man’s mouth.

Jun would recognize that quick little quirk anywhere. Ah, it seemed to imply, no words required. So you find me attractive too?

The man was holding a champagne flute between his long fingers, bringing it to his lips for a short sip, his eyes not leaving Jun’s for an uncomfortable few seconds. When he spoke, voice raised slightly to be heard over the gambling noise, there was a polished, but amused air to it. This was not the man’s first visit to Sobu Hall, but he seemed to know it was the first for Jun.

“Good evening.”

“Good evening,” Jun replied, inclining his head.

“Did you need anything to drink?”

“No, I’m fine for the moment.” Jun tightened his grip on his cane, noticing the slightest flush in the other man’s cheeks, the playful look in his dark eyes. He’d probably had a few already. “Thank you.”

“Full disclosure,” came that cheery voice again. “The host told me who you are and asked me to welcome you to his home. He’s a bit shy and tends to rope me in to do these sorts of things for him instead.”

Jun raised an eyebrow at that. So this man was connected enough to know the mysterious owner of Sobu Hall? And to know who Jun was already? “Is that so?”

The man nodded. “Actually, he asked me to encourage you to spend money here. A lot of money, if it’s not too much trouble. Our host is shameless, although this party may have already confirmed that for you.”

Jun couldn’t help laughing at that. Money wasn’t all too polite to mention in conversation back home, even if his circles had always been full of families like his that had more money at their disposal than they could ever really spend. Very little seemed to be taboo to make small talk about here in Torenomachi.

“I have you at a disadvantage, so let me change that,” the man continued. “Sakurai Sho, I’m the curator of the Garnetian Museum here in Torenomachi. That’s in our Eastern Cultural District, if you’re ever in the neighborhood. I’m a Nightsider from birth, but I’m sure that wasn’t hard to guess.”

He bowed his head in return. “Matsumoto Jun, nice to meet you. Don’t suppose I need to say the surname isn’t a coincidence.”

The man had a well-practiced smile, but it was still kind. “You don’t.”

“I imagine that’s why I was invited here? I’m the town’s latest curiosity?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Sakurai replied, still amused. “You don’t seem that shocked by our host’s intentions, so let me ask you this. Why bother coming?”

He shrugged. “I’ve had my fill of the Hospitality District the last few weeks, thought the folks back home might want to know what happens at a party with the locals around here.”

“Good for you,” Sakurai said, voice encouraging. “I’m sure you’ve already gotten your fill of stories to bring back home.”

Jun hesitated. The only reason he was invited to this party was because there was an expectation that he’d come and spend. Nobody was interested in Jun the individual, just his surname and the bank accounts attached to it. And yet oddly enough, given the crowd around here, he found that Sakurai Sho seemed almost genuine. Almost trustworthy. Maybe it was that knowing look in his dark eyes. Maybe it was the way he’d come out and introduced himself quickly, to put them on more even footing when he could have kept Jun in the dark for a bit of fun.

So maybe a little honesty couldn’t hurt. “Actually…I think I’m stuck here for the foreseeable future.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “New work assignment. I’m overseeing our R&D facility, just outside of town.”

Sakurai’s eyes widened. “Ah, I know it. Do you design the airships as well?”

“I don’t. Just in management.”

“But that must be exciting regardless, working in such an important field. Matsumoto Air Company changed the planet and for the better, at that. Torenomachi wouldn’t be what it is today without your family.”

“It is exciting,” he admitted, warming a little at the praise, even if it was probably insincere, intended to butter him up. Sakurai was already coming at him strong, though they’d only been acquainted a few minutes. But no matter how little Jun knew about research and development, there was no doubt that his family’s company did essential work. And after weeks being just another management cog, unappreciated and ignored in his new role, it felt kind of nice to get an external reminder that the company truly did good work.

But he couldn’t think of anything more to say in response, not wanting to give too much of his current situation here away. He found himself staring into his companion’s face, hoping he knew where to take the conversation next. Jun was out of practice at meaningless flirting. Hell, after all those months trapped mostly alone in Estogaza with only physical therapists for company, Jun was out of practice with plain old conversation in general.

Sakurai cocked his head a little, appearing to realize it was on him to keep talking or take his leave. Perhaps he had a sixth sense. “Were you looking to go outside? Get away from…all of this?”

He turned, looking out at the gardens, seeing the pleasing shape of Sakurai behind him in the reflection of the glass. Watching him take another long, measured sip of champagne. Wondering if he was just hearing something in Sakurai’s tone that he really wanted to hear. Wondering if he was lonely enough to act on it. Walking through this ridiculous party, Jun had already seen, heard, smelled guests who’d obviously come here with something besides the auction in mind to pass the time. It was difficult to shut those thoughts out, especially when he was so lonely and an attractive stranger was chatting him up. He grinned softly, remembering the butler at the door casually mentioning the items available in the washrooms, as needed.

Jun decided to play things by ear, if only because it was nice to have someone talking to him for the first time in a long time who didn’t work for him or wasn’t serving him a meal.

“Yes, I’d like to have a look, but let me get a drink first. It’s still a bit of an adjustment, living here. All of that…darkness.”

Sakurai leaned in, patting him on the shoulder. “Let me go get us both something. I’ll go out there with you, make sure you don’t get lost. Even with the lanterns, I find it a bit intimidating and I’ve been visiting this estate since I was a teenager. I’ll be right back.”

Jun exhaled at his departure, watching him walk away in those ridiculous slacks, smiling and waving to others as he glided so easily through the room. Completely comfortable and at ease. For the last few weeks Jun knew he was out of his depth at work, out of his depth in a city that was so foreign to him. And even here among the wealthy scions of Torenomachi, he was still nothing but an outsider. Maybe it was best that he just accepted it, accepted that he would always be on the outside looking in.

He tapped his cane on the carpet once, twice, regaining his composure as best he could. Sakurai had said nothing of it, Jun’s obvious need for the cane, had not even glanced down at it. And yet he’d volunteered to head off, save Jun the effort of hunting down a drink. Acknowledging it without saying it aloud. Here, Sakurai had said. I can help you. It was embarrassing, and perhaps if Jun didn’t feel as small as he did in a strange party like this, he might have told Sakurai no. No, he was perfectly capable of fetching his own drink.

It was a few minutes before Sakurai returned with matching glasses, each holding ice chipped into a perfect sphere and an ample serving of whiskey. Sakurai held out the glass to him with an almost nervous smile. “I made a guess. I usually go without the ice, but they just looked too damn pretty to pass up. The whiskey’s from a distillery outside Orunitia. Since you’re a long way from home and stuck here, after all.”

Jun accepted it. “Thanks.”

“I’ve already forgotten the name, sorry…the bartender told me when I asked but…”

Jun had a sip. Ah. “Dali Windmill.”

Sakurai pointed in recognition. “Yes! Yes, that’s the one.”

He grinned. “A family friend owns it, I’d know it anywhere. It’s great.”

“I’m so relieved,” Sakurai admitted, chuckling awkwardly. “Well. Shall we venture out?”

Jun made a point of hooking his cane over his arm, turning the doorknob, and opening the door himself. It was cooler outside, but not as unpleasant as it could be. The mansion was warm, and he appreciated the break from the perfumes and colognes and other scents of the party guests. Sakurai followed, shutting the door behind him, shutting out most of the noise. There was still the hint of music piping through the air, but distantly. Likely some open windows elsewhere.

Sakurai said nothing as they stood there a few moments, Jun letting his eyes adjust to the sudden lack of light. They were on a brick patio, a short set of stairs ahead leading out to the lantern-lit garden paths.

“Will we miss the auction, coming out here? The grounds seemed very large from the flight over, and I wouldn’t want to miss it.”

“Not to worry, Matsumoto-san,” Sakurai said, standing nearby but not as close as Jun might have expected now that they were alone out here in the dark. “They set off fireworks just after midnight. To show off, of course, but also to signal anyone out here to put themselves together and come back inside.”

He smiled. “Good to know.”

“I won’t let you miss it. I’ll be attending the auction as well.”

He turned, having a sip of his drink. “The invitation I received promised that some of the rarest items in the world would be up for bids. You’ve attended the auctions before?”

Without a word, they both got into motion with Jun’s question, Sakurai strolling alongside him at a comfortable pace that he didn’t find to be too fast or too slow. As though Sakurai had realized that Jun wasn’t in the mood to be coddled and had adjusted accordingly.

Their shoes left the solid brick behind, the garden paths covered in pebbles that crunched beneath them, announcing clearly to anyone in the vicinity that they were no longer alone. It was difficult to see what type of flowers were planted in the beds they passed, even with the lanterns, but their scents mingled in the air. Nothing too overwhelming, likely due to the air recyclers. But still, Jun felt closer to home than he had in a while, relishing the smell of something fresh and natural here despite the artificial above and all around them.

“I’m a regular at the auctions here,” Sakurai explained as they walked together. “They usually have about five, six a year. They do put up some interesting things, but I suppose it will depend on your tastes if you find them worth bidding on. Jewelry, spices, furniture. Old things, rare things, or simply things that have traditionally been harder to get Nightside, so they may not be as interesting to you as a Starsider. But it’s been a good way for me to acquire some new items for the collection at the museum, so I never pass up an opportunity to see what’s on the block. They make a whole production out of it, so even if you don’t bid on anything, you’ll probably get a kick out of the show.”

“Ah, you mentioned that,” Jun replied. “You said you run a museum.”

“My family’s been in Torenomachi from the beginning,” Sakurai said. “History’s always been the family obsession, but we weren’t really able to act on it much until the zidanium rush here. They were able to invest capital in mining right away, and the proceeds from that helped them acquire a plot of land and build our museum. I’m the eldest in my current generation, so it passed down to me. It’s my understanding that most of the Starside museums are focused more on art pieces?”

Jun nodded. “Yes, now that I think about it. Paintings, sculpture…but you collect historical things?”

“Indeed. We’ve got things dating back to Emperor Kuja, things that Starside shogunates wouldn’t want out in the open for people to learn about. Letting people learn their own history is kind of out of the question these days, or so I’ve been told. They’re no better than the Empire before them, clinging to power by keeping the people ignorant….” Sakurai paused, sounding a little embarrassed. “Ah. No offense intended if I’ve stepped on any of your politics…”

He laughed. “You haven’t at all. The company has its deals and its ass kissing to do, but I’m no fan of the shogunate busybodies myself.”

“Good, good. Well, anyhow, our collections are pretty eclectic, since my father, grandfather, and relatives stretching back the last few hundred years here in the dome could only acquire what came through on trade routes or through auctions like these. With the restrictions on travel and business opportunities for Nightsiders on your side of the world, we’d have to commission trusted Starsiders to do any sort of in-depth research on items or to dig at a historical site on our behalf. Zidanium out here won’t be depleted for another millennium at least, but the more people you have to cut in on things, the harder it is to turn a profit. The museum was more an expensive hobby for my ancestors, but for me it’s…well, it’s my whole life…”

“I didn’t think about that,” Jun admitted. “How much of a pain in the ass it must be.” For all their wealth, even the richest Nightsiders (and obviously Sakurai’s family was among them) couldn’t legally cross into Starside territory. They had to live their entire lives here in the dark, unless they found it interesting to visit the unclaimed wild landscapes of Starside that had no infrastructure. Most Starsiders didn’t even bother.

“So I’m very grateful for these auctions. They help me add new things here and there. And, as I’m sure you noticed, they allow for meet and greets with some of the most influential folks in town. The museum also depends on donors, private events, things like that, to stay operational. You might say, hey Sakurai, why aren’t you investing in something more lucrative, why aren’t you investing in new technology, but I’ve always loved learning about how we got here. How people came here from so far away and started over, the decisions they made, the justifications they made. Starside and Nightside and the places we know so little about, the places we haven’t yet explored. The places we’ve forgotten about. The things people left behind that are all that’s left that can tell their stories, the people who didn’t make it into Empire or shogunate-sanctioned textbooks. Being able to hold something five hundred, seven hundred years old in your hands, it’s honestly such an incredible, humbling thing. Putting together a new exhibit to try and help people get just as excited as I am, it’s something that…” Sakurai chuckled a little, having a sip of his drink. “I’m sorry, Matsumoto-san, you didn’t ask for a lecture, did you…”

“No, no. It’s very interesting. Really it is,” Jun said, not minding at all.

History classes had never been Jun’s strong suit in school, but he’d always wanted to learn more. Most kids, at least the ones he’d grown up with, knew that a lot of what they were being taught at school was a sanitized version of what had actually happened. The Empire had been gone for decades, and still the shogunates approved what could and couldn’t be learned about from those centuries under their power. Everything about the Empire had apparently been bad. A backward and unenlightened time best forgotten. So many restrictions, so many wars. And yet the shogunates, Orunitia’s included, had no qualms about behaving the same way.

It was kind of refreshing, hearing the passion in Sakurai’s voice. Most of Jun’s own friends cared mostly about their money, about the next big thing they could buy or invest in. For Jun, it had always been his next ship, his next race. Clothes and shoes and watches. Hearing Sakurai Sho talk about the bigger picture, about their world in general, Jun felt pretty shallow.

The path through the flower beds eventually halted at a pond, an elaborate fountain lit with various colored lights, water spraying in elegant arcs as though designed for an audience. And yet nobody else seemed to be around to take it in. It was just the two of them, this far out from the mansion. They stopped walking, standing at an iron fence that ringed the pond. Jun’s leg throbbed a little - they’d been walking together for longer than he’d realized. He leaned forward, letting the railing bear his weight for a little while instead. He swirled the slowly melting sphere of ice around in his glass.

“History for you is kind of like airships for me. Growing up, I couldn’t get enough. Flying, a busy aerodrome, all the different models. Being the grandson of the man who started it all, it always meant flying in the newest ships. The top of the line models. I still love how rough the older models can be, that feeling of everything barely holding together. But then I love how smooth a ride in a brand new skyliner is too. I love that sound when you take off, that feeling. When the engines really kick in as you lift off the ground, the power in that. The way it makes your heart race. It’s almost addictive to me.” No, not almost. It was addictive, still was, Jun knew that all too well. “I live them, breathe them. Have my whole life. Sakurai-san, I could talk about different models until you fall asleep.”

“We both seem to be men who’ve taken the family business to heart.”

He smiled sadly, watching the fountain spray, the glow of the colored lights turning the mist to rainbow colors. From the corner of his eye, he could see Sakurai lean against the rail as well. It was for the sake of the family business that Jun was stuck here in the dark, so far from home. It was the family business Jun had betrayed pursuing his true passions.

“You should come sometime,” Sakurai continued, voice encouraging. “To the museum. It would be interesting to get your insights on airships, to learn about your grandfather. I…I’d love to learn more about it from you. And yes, I know that sounds like a plea for a donation too, but I can’t think of someone better to advise me on incorporating more recent history into my collection…”

He chuckled. “Suppose it might be a better use of my money than an auction trinket.”

Sakurai scratched at the back of his head nervously. “Ah, well, you’ll still have to shell out there, or our host will be really annoyed that I’ve failed in my mission to get you to crack open your wallet tonight. And he’ll be unbearable for weeks. You’ll save me from all of that, won’t you?”

He turned a bit more, seeing the almost affectionate way Sakurai was watching him. Though Jun had plenty of whiskey left in his glass, the ice slowly melting into it, Sakurai had only the ice sphere left. No wonder he was being so open, so talkative, so honest. The colors of the fountain lights cast interesting shadows on Sakurai’s face, emphasizing his full lips, his cheekbones, the curve of his jaw. He was impossible to resist.

Jun couldn’t just pin this attraction on being lonely, on Sakurai Sho being handsome and obviously interested in him too. On Sakurai Sho being the first person he’d spoken to…really and truly spoken to since his arrival in Torenomachi. No, it wouldn’t be enough for Jun to lean in close and see what happened. To let tonight be all there’d ever be. He wanted to know more about Sakurai Sho, to hear more. About his museum. About history, all the things he’d never been allowed to learn. To hear more about Sho himself.

“Sakurai-san, would you like to continue our conversation…”

Jun jolted at the first loud bang, looking up to see the shimmer of light already dissipating. The smoke was sucked away almost as quickly as it appeared. The first bang was followed by some more. Flashes of light, a loud boom, then smoke vanishing.

“We should head back,” Sakurai said, already moving to the pebbled path, a little speedier than he’d been walking earlier. “Don’t want to miss it.”

The crackle of the fireworks continued overhead as they walked back to the mansion in silence. Jun downed the rest of his glass in one go, even as the cold ice ball burned a bit against his mouth. Sakurai led him around to another part of the mansion, back to the ballroom where Jun had first arrived. Before opening the door, Sakurai turned to face him, but this time he seemed to have sobered up a little, could no longer meet his eyes.

“To answer the question you’d been about to ask me,” he said, voice a little strained. “I’d love to continue our conversation another time. Let’s…let’s exchange our information after the auction.”

“I’d like that,” Jun replied.

Sakurai held the door and Jun headed inside. Unlike his casual demeanor in the gardens, Sakurai was now a man on a mission. His face was no longer friendly and open, but absolutely focused. All business. Jun held in a smile as he moved away even more quickly, no longer bothering to slow his steps for Jun’s benefit and abandoning him entirely. The Sobu Hall auction was serious business.

The butler at the door was now near the ballroom entryway. Most guests had cleared out and the room now had been turned over a bit. The orchestra had departed, a small stage and podium set up in their place. There were a few rows of chairs, and the butler was handing out small paddles with numbers on them that auction bidders could silently raise to keep the auction moving.

Jun set down his whiskey glass on a passing staff member’s tray, queuing up in order to receive an auction paddle. “Ah, Matsumoto-san,” the butler said, holding out a number for him. “Glad you could join us.”

Jun accepted the small paddle, walking steadily to the rows of chairs. He grinned, seeing that Sakurai had already parked himself in the second row on the aisle. Jun eased himself into a chair a few rows back, waiting for the show to begin. It took only a few more minutes before all seats were occupied, people smelling of liquor and thick perfumes all around him, tapping their auction paddles in anticipation.

The room now filled with those eager to buy or eager to take in the show, eventually the overhead lights went out. Music came piping in through speakers, a lively, thundering drum beat. Jun smiled when a lone spotlight turned on, everyone turning in their chairs to look behind them to see who had arrived. A golden litter borne by four shirtless, muscled men was being brought down the aisle, the person within concealed by several layers of gauzy fabric. The litter was strung with small blinking lights, just one more obnoxious eyesore in a mansion full of them. The men carried the litter onto the stage, and just at the crescendo of the music, some booming noises went off, almost as though the fireworks outside had also been carried into the mansion.

A tall, lanky man came bursting out from within, dressed in a bright patterned shirt with fringe on its sleeves, slacks tighter than even Sakurai Sho’s sparkly red ones. The room burst into applause as the man raised his head, flinging a colorful feather boa aside as he showed his face. Handsome, mischievous, and with a glittery green eyepatch covering his left eye.

One of the litter carriers handed him a microphone before they all picked it up again, carrying it off stage. Soon the man was alone, his arms raised to the sky as the applause continued. Like a celebrity had arrived. Finally the lights came back on and the man let out a breathy laugh. “Okay, that’s enough of that. It’s time for the auction! I am your master of ceremonies. I bid a friendly welcome to our honored guests, and you know what, I bid a friendly welcome to our dishonored guests as well!”

Laughter carried through the room, and Jun adjusted in his seat, wondering just how many items might be up for bids. The MC didn’t bother to introduce himself by name, heading directly to the podium and inserting his microphone in a holder. Maybe everyone here besides Jun already knew who he was. Someone wheeled a table onto the stage beside him, and Jun could see more staff waiting in the wings to bring out the items for bidding. The MC grabbed hold of a wooden gavel, ready to get started with the first item.

Jun couldn’t help looking away from the stage, peering over a little so he could see the back of Sakurai Sho’s head a few rows ahead. He was sitting upright, perfect posture. Stiff and obviously unmoved by the elaborate production. He’d said in the garden that he came to every auction, sometimes picked up items for the museum. But from the way he was sitting there, Jun realized that he was taking this very seriously, way more seriously than anyone else in the crowd around him. Most people were engaged in hushed whispers with their seatmates, were still drinking. There was a couple beside Jun, the man drawing the auction paddle back and forth across his partner’s bare thigh. He looked away, trying to pay attention again to his eye-patched MC and the show to come.

The MC was a bit of an oddball, though no odder than most of the odd characters Jun had already encountered at the party that night. He called for items to be brought out in a booming voice, although he stumbled over his words frequently as he read off descriptions on some of his cards. He went through the first several items in this manner, squinting a little with his good eye at some of the facts on the cards about where the items had come from, giggling in a husky manner when he clearly messed up or mispronounced something. But the items all seemed legitimate. Swords from a battle that never launched against Garnet South. A string of pearls followed by another string of pearls followed by a diamond bracelet. More jewelry - earrings, another bracelet, necklace, necklace, necklace. Weapons. Furs. The key to a gangster’s vault in Lindoblumu, deep in the Starside heartland. Jun wondered what a Nightsider would even do with such a thing, but it was snatched up by an eager bidder in minutes.

No matter how odd the MC’s delivery, he was no slouch in running the auction. Jun watched as the MC set the bids - all starting at a minimum of a million credits. Perhaps some of the numbers were a bit inflated, but that didn’t stop the auction guests from finding the items desirable. Bidding at Sobu Hall was not for the faint of heart or wallet. The little auction paddles popped up across the room, but the MC saw them all despite his lack of peripheral vision, quickly pointing with his gavel to each bidder as the amounts started to rise. For Jun, he hadn’t seen anything on the block that would change his life so far. Neither did Sakurai, Jun noticed, not seeing his paddle move through the first ten items, nor the second ten.

When the bidding slowed, the MC would get a big smile on his face, a drumroll starting from somewhere behind the stage as he started to goad the audience into raising the stakes. “I have 37.5 million credits, do I see 38? Yes, the young lady in the third row makes it 38. Do I see 39? How about 39? Don’t be shy, don’t be shy, these pearls will look lovely on her but perhaps they’ll look better on someone else? Thank you sir, fourth row with paddle number 8-6-5! I’ve got 39, can we make it an even 40?”

As the auction continued and every item successfully sold, some folks started to trickle away from the room. But Jun saw that Sakurai still hadn’t moved at all yet. The MC looked out to the wings once more, gesturing with his hands for the next item up. They were all the way to item number 34 at this point, and the bids had grown a little sluggish. It seemed as though the Sobu Hall auction put more of its hot items up first - the jewels, the vault keys, the weaponry. The staff member set down a small box on the table, lifting the lid and setting it up just so. She then departed, revealing a small round item within. A bit dull, even under the lights.

But from the corner of his eye, Jun saw Sakurai flinch.

“Item thirty-four tonight,” the MC said, flipping to the next card in his batch. “We have the Virgo coin. This is part of the Zodiac set commemorating the birth of yet another of the Emperor Masahiko’s sons. We don’t know too much about poor dead Virgo, but apparently he was left handed.”

It was the shortest description the MC had offered all night. The least compelling. And certainly the item on the block was the least interesting and least flashy. A small gold coin, and being related to Masahiko meant it would be worth nothing in Starside but a trip to prison, most likely. But Jun didn’t miss the way the MC’s head tilted the slightest bit in Sakurai Sho’s direction when he finished reading from his prepared notes.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll start the bidding at one million credits.”

Jun watched the room carefully. Few were paying attention, and after about ten seconds of silence, Jun saw Sakurai lift his right hand, his paddle in the air for a few seconds before he lowered it again.

“Thank you. I have one million credits. Can I get that to 1.5?”

Jun knew he shouldn’t. He absolutely knew he shouldn’t. After all, he’d listened to Sakurai in the garden, the way he’d spoken about his beloved museum. “It’s my whole life,” he had said. Seeing the lack of interest in the auction for this particular item, this was probably something Sakurai figured he could pick up cheaply for one of his exhibits. Nothing that anybody in this entire auction, that anybody walking around or fucking around in Sobu Hall at that moment would want or find valuable.

And yet Matsumoto Jun had never been so bored as he’d been the last year of his life. Recovering from his injuries only to be shipped away to the other side of the planet. Going to his unimportant job, retiring for the night to his hotel. Repeat repeat repeat forever or at least until his father called him home. Coming to Sobu Hall had honestly been the first exciting thing that had happened in months. Jun hadn’t known Sakurai for long, but it would be fun, wouldn’t it? To just tease him a little? What could it hurt?

So against his better judgment, Jun found himself raising his paddle, seeing the slightest look of shock registering on the MC’s face.

“I have 1.5,” the MC called out, recovering quickly. “Can I get that to 2?”

Sakurai didn’t react, but he definitely didn’t wait as long this time before lifting his paddle again.

“2 million credits. How about 3? 3 million for a dead left-handed prince, how about it?”

Jun bit back a smile, lifting the paddle once more. This time when the MC announced that Sakurai’s bid had been matched and exceeded, the man reacted. Jun already had his paddle down when he saw Sakurai turn in his chair, his eyes quickly scanning the room, not seeming to notice Jun before he turned back around and lifted his paddle with an almost haughty and impatient flick of his wrist, raising the bidding to 4 million credits.

It was in that moment, watching the eye-patched MC point his gavel from the stage to acknowledge Sakurai Sho’s snippy little bid, that Jun suddenly felt something he hadn’t felt in months. It wasn’t quite the same, this rush, not really. But his heart rate was starting to increase, he could feel it. For years Jun had always felt most alive in competition, in a race to defeat his opponent. Well, the stakes were far, far lower here, but just a few rows in front of him, there was his competitor. The man who’d spoken so sincerely of his love for history, of the challenges he faced in trying to enhance his museum collection. The man that Jun still wanted to speak to again, to learn more about.

And yet, in that moment, Jun only wanted one thing.

To win.

“Do I have five million for Virgo?”

Jun raised his paddle again, and this time he left it raised so that when Sakurai turned around, he’d know. He had to try so hard not to laugh, seeing Sakurai’s face react in real time when he realized the truth. At first, utter confusion. His eyes going wide, his mouth dropping open.

“Five million from the man in the sixth row, thank you.” The MC paused a moment, looking over at Sakurai with what Jun could only describe as a look of terror. “Do…do we have 6 million?”

Sakurai didn’t take his eyes away from Jun. The initial shock had worn off his face, only to be replaced with something Jun would recognize a mile away. Complete and total betrayal. And in an instant, Sakurai’s arm shot up again.

“Six million. Six million going once…” the MC said, getting a little ahead of himself.

Jun raised his paddle again, and Sakurai let out an audible gasp that just had Jun all the more convinced that this ridiculous competition was worth it. After all, hadn’t Sakurai Sho approached him deliberately to encourage him to spend money? Well, Matsumoto Jun was here to spend.

“I have seven. How about…”

“Ten million,” Sakurai declared, holding his paddle high, fully turned sideways in his chair now, eyes locked on to Jun.

The room went quiet, jaws dropping or hands covering mouths. So far the bidding had been contentious on a few items, but all through items one to thirty-three, nobody had said a word out loud while bidding. Only their MC. But now Sakurai had spoken. That silly little coin? That’s mine, damn it, his eyes were trying to tell Jun. And of course, Sakurai Sho had no idea that he’d just made a colossal mistake.

Jun leaned back in his seat, letting his face go as blank as he could manage, lazily lifting his paddle again. He settled on the tone of voice that used to get him sent to his room as a kid. Indifferent, insouciant.

He spoke aloud as well, matching his opponent.

“Twenty million credits.”

“Twenty-five,” Sakurai said, voice a little shaky as he lifted his paddle again and refused to let it drop.

He let out a noisy, bored sigh. “Thirty.”

The MC was trying to interject with updates for the audience but there was no need. War had been declared, and Jun wouldn’t rest until he was the victor.

“Thirty-five,” Sakurai called out coldly, none of the kindness he’d shown in the garden. Ah, he wasn’t very good at this, Jun realized, liking the man all the more. It was actually kind of cute. Maybe he’d just give Sakurai the worthless coin in the end, if only to reward him for how adorable his lowball bids were.

Jun looked over at the MC, waiting for him to say something. And then right before he could open his mouth, Jun went in for the kill.

“One hundred million credits.”

Every single set of eyes in the room (as well as the single eye on stage) was now looking at him. Except for Sakurai Sho, who’d turned in his seat, arm shaking a little as he lowered his auction paddle. The MC eventually cleared his throat.

“One hundred million credits for Virgo,” the MC said, voice incredulous. It wasn’t even the highest bid of the night, not by a longshot, but somehow this had shaken him for some reason. “One hundred million going once. One hundred million going twice.”

The MC looked over at Sakurai once more, pausing for an unnecessarily long few seconds.

“Sold!” the MC called out, clearly faking his enthusiasm this time. “One hundred million credits for Virgo, thanks to our friend in the sixth row. Now, let’s bring out our final item for the night…you’re really going to like this one, folks, it’s a first edition of the famous erotic novel, The Chocolatier and His Many Heartbreaks. Let’s bring it out!”

Before Jun could get to his feet, to head to the wings and arrange for the payment, he watched Sakurai Sho leave, a fading glimmer of silver and red as he dropped his auction paddle and fled the room.

///

.cancer.
the crab

///

Their food arrived, and his two dining companions watched with concern as Sho grasped the knife tightly, jabbing the fork into his steak and slicing with barely contained rage.

“It’s not like we can void a valid transaction, Sho-chan,” Ninomiya Kazunari said from across the table, clearly trying not to laugh.

“We tried though,” Aiba Masaki admitted, sitting at Nino’s side. “We really did try. Called around to some lawyers to see if there was any law on the books in Orunitia about wire transferring that amount of cash Nightside. If you can’t get someone on a murder charge, try and get them on taxes, am I right?”

Sho stared at him, wanting to put the knife through his friend’s eye and make him need that fucking eyepatch for real instead of as part of his ridiculous Master of Ceremonies persona.

Nino held up his hands, begging for calm. “He won fair and square. That’s how the auction goes. And just because you’ve been extremely successful with your boring ass coins all this time doesn’t mean nobody else is allowed to bid on them.”

“I would have bought it from you directly, you know that.”

“That’s not how we do business,” Aiba said.

“Don’t I know it?” Sho grumbled, chewing another piece of steak. It was really delicious.

His friends, clearly out of pity, had offered to take him out to lunch a few days after the auction, at least once Sho had started taking their calls again. Of course, being the type of people they were, they were dining at UB, the restaurant on the top floor of Sobu Trading Incorporated where they could use their Friends and Family discount to get Sho’s meal comped. Sho had added a jumbo lobster tail and a truffle crust for his steak, just to stick it to them a bit.

“How was I supposed to know he’s secretly evil?” Nino continued, starting to poke at his own food. Likely wondering if Sho had the ability to poison it with only one strong glare. “We had some good stuff up for bids, too, and he could have picked from any of that shit. We won’t invite him again.”

Sho set his fork down. “Like hell you won’t.” He looked between his two friends. “Not when he’s willing to shell out credits like that.”

Nino and Aiba exchanged a look before Aiba spoke again. “Look, Sho-chan, it’s a free market and…”

“Why did you make me talk to him?” Sho cried, holding his head in his hands. It was probably a good thing they were in a private dining room. Sho had been a mess for days now. He suspected that his many years around Ueda-kun and his temper weren’t helping him cope with his anger in a healthy way either. “Why didn’t you just let him sit down at a table and throw his money away on babanuki or poker or something?”

Matsumoto Jun. No batch of syllables had ever made Sho angrier than the ones that made up the name Matsumoto Jun.

He’d been a fool, chatting the guy up, taking that romantic stroll in the garden with him. Getting lost in those dark brown eyes with those long, gorgeous eyelashes. Sho was cursed. He’d finally found someone interesting, someone different from anyone he’d met before. Someone he thought had been listening to him, someone he thought maybe could understand him. The way Matsumoto had talked about his love for airships, even if just for a few moments, Sho had felt an equal amount of fervor, of passion. Nothing was more attractive to Sho than someone who was as driven as he was, even if it was about something completely different.

But what Matsumoto Jun the flyboy apparently loved even more than airships and eye-fucking complete strangers like Sho at parties was double-crossing people. Sho had opened up to him, had poured out his soul to him. Well, he’d been drunk at that point, and words tended to come spilling out of him like water from a leaky hose, but still. Still, Matsumoto Jun had listened to all of that and had then waited through thirty-three other items at the auction. He’d waited until Sho had finally shown interest in something. And then the asshole had pounced.

One hundred million credits, he’d called out in that deliberately bored tone. Like it was nothing. Fuck him. Fuck him!

“Sho-chan,” Nino interrupted, tapping his plate. “I hate to interrupt your meltdown, but your steak is getting cold.”

“How’s the truffle crust?” Aiba asked more pointedly.

He looked up, pointing rudely at his friends and saying the words he’d been holding in his gut the last few days out loud.

“I’m going to get that coin from him,” Sho vowed.

Nino looked uneasy. “Have you ever looked at an annual financial statement from Matsumoto Air Company? Really looked? Revenue year over year? Aiba-shi and I have as part of our, uh, recent due diligence…”

“Yeah, one hundred million credits is nothing to a guy like that, I get it,” Sho continued. “But I’m still going to get that coin from him if it’s the last thing I do.”

“Why do you think he’d give it up so easily?” Aiba asked. “He’d probably charge you twice as much to buy it off him. Not because he genuinely believes it’s worth that much, but just to toy with you.”

“I’m not above begging,” Sho admitted. “Guy like that would probably get off on it, seeing me get on my hands and knees and tell him what it means to me.”

“Sure, and then he’ll charge you triple,” Nino grumbled.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Sho said. “But what other choice do I have?”

“Seduce him,” Aiba said.

“Hire a thief,” Nino said.

Aiba clapped his hands, looking proud of himself. “Hire a thief to seduce him.”

“Seduce the thief yourself,” Nino said, “and then you don’t have to pay them to go snatch the coin from Matsumoto.”

“Twenty-five years of my life I’ve put up with this,” Sho complained, dipping a chunk of lobster in drawn butter. Damn, the food here was good.

Nino and Aiba laughed, as they often did at Sho’s expense. “Of course, you know we can’t get involved,” Nino said with only a touch more seriousness. “So whatever you plan to do to exact your revenge for his perfectly legal coin purchase is your business. But if you could please not, you know, kill Mister One Hundred Million Credits when we’re hoping to have him visit our auctions for many more years to come…”

Sho narrowed his eyes.

Aiba wiggled an admonishing finger at him. “Sho-chan, murder is beneath you.”

“That’s right,” Nino insisted. “And if Matsumoto Jun turns up dead in a ditch, no matter how much it looks like an accident, we’ll know it was you.”

“And?” Sho gritted out.

“And we’ll tell your mom!” Aiba declared.

Sho shrunk back in his seat, letting out a huff of irritation. Okay, Sho didn’t have it in him to kill anyone. Or to hire someone to kill anyone. Or to hire someone to drug a particular person and then smuggle their helpless body out of the dome in a sack and dump them in the middle of a desolate Starside field to send a message. Not that Sho had contemplated any of those options for more than a few hours here and there. Ahem.

But not his mother. They didn’t dare threaten Sho with ratting him out to his own mother. They’d always had a bit of a contentious relationship - or more like Sho had often been a terribly bratty kid and she had a zero tolerance policy for said behavior. Even as a grown man, seeing that look she’d get on her face sometimes would give him the shakes. That “you spent how many credits on an old piece of paper?” face. Having married in to the Sakurai family, she’d always found the money spent on artifact acquisition to be ridiculous, though she’d always been far more indulgent with Sho’s father than with Sho himself. If she had even the slightest notion about how much of Sho’s inheritance and personal integrity had already been depleted to acquire his coins, she’d leave the Karuizawa dome just to come back to Torenomachi and give him a literal kick in the ass.

“Fine,” Sho mumbled.

Despite his friends’ lack of genuine help or support, the food had at least been top notch, and that went a long way to easing Sho’s restless soul after so many days of blind rage. He bid them farewell, finding Ueda waiting for him in the parking garage. Sho had obviously been in a rotten mood for a while now, and while he’d hinted to Ueda that somebody had purchased an item at the auction that he’d wanted to get himself, he hadn’t dared to tell his driver the offender’s name.

Matsumoto Jun was probably Sho’s least favorite person at the moment, but thankfully Sho had enough human decency left inside him to not tell Ueda about him. Because then the guy really would end up dead in a ditch, and as nice as it had been the last few days to envision such a thing, especially since Sho imagined his corpse being pissed on by a passing dog, Sho didn’t actually want the man dead.

He just wanted that god-forsaken Virgo coin.

“Just got the heads up that your contacts are en route, Aniki,” Ueda said once they were inside the aircab. “By the time I get you home, they’ll probably be there.”

“Excellent,” Sho said, cracking his knuckles.

Just because he didn’t want Matsumoto Jun dead didn’t mean Sho was above investigating him. He could be cold-blooded and ruthless from time to time if he had to be. Ueda dropped him back at Tower Zero, clearly jealous that he had not been invited to Sho’s next appointment. Sho took the elevator up, having a drink while he waited for the ping of his intercom. It came a few minutes later, and he invited them up and into his penthouse.

Sho had worked with Fujigaya and Senga before, had them look into some of the museum’s potential investors. Kisumai Private Detective Agency was one of the oldest and most respected in Torenomachi and thankfully one of the most discreet. He’d paid them handsomely for their prior work, and somehow they’d managed to keep straight faces when Sho had tripled their usual asking rate for his current request — to learn everything they could about Matsumoto Jun, grandson of Matsumoto Air Company’s founder. No matter how minor the details, Sho wanted to know everything that might give him leverage in a future coin negotiation. And if they had to coordinate with Starside contacts, then hopefully the retainer fee he’d paid would cover their efforts.

They had drinks first, standing together at the windows overlooking the city.

“I’ve got to ask, Sho-san,” Fujigaya said. “What did this guy do to you?”

“You can’t ask him that,” Senga complained. “The whole point of our job is literally to never ask that.”

Sho waved them both off. “He has something I want, and if anything you’ve turned up can help me to get it, then you’ll have earned every credit I’ve paid you. Let’s leave it at that.”

Fujigaya moved over to Sho’s sofa, having a seat and picking up the folder he’d dropped on the coffee table when he’d arrived. Kisumai was a good agency, but its individual agents could be a little casual with their clients. Another reason why Ueda was not allowed in this meeting. They’d end up punted off Sho’s balcony.

“Well, he’s so rich he could probably buy up this dome single-handedly and start charging us all rent to keep living here,” Fujigaya said with a wry grin. “But I suppose you had an idea about that already, Sho-san.”

Sho gritted his teeth. “Yeah, that’s not surprising. What do you have otherwise?”

“Matsumoto Jun,” Senga continued, sitting in one of Sho’s armchairs. “Born G-883, currently thirty-eight years old. In terms of his connections to Grandpa, he’s the younger of two kids born to Matsumoto Hironobu’s younger son. His uncle is currently running the company, and until about a year ago, Matsumoto Jun was running the company’s Racing Division. Not a very high-level position there, not much power, all things considered, but it was high-profile in the media. Found plenty of news coverage, vid coverage, photos of him at races and things like that, public appearances at Orunitia charity events.”

“Went to the most elite high school in Orunitia, as you’d expect,” Fujigaya chimed in. “But went to flight school instead of university. Our source told us one of the local newspapers almost went to print with some puff piece about the kid being a mega genius and accepting a place at Orunitia University, but the parents paid up to have it pulled and scrubbed. His grades say otherwise in terms of him being a genius, if that matters at all, but that seems typical for people like that. No offense, Sho-san.”

Sho laughed. “None taken.”

“So if I had to venture a guess here,” Fujigaya continued, “flight school was something that definitely pissed off Mommy and Daddy. Everything about his career at the family company was pretty clean though, at least up til last year. He was a pilot with them for years, prototype airships, test flights. Putting his life at risk. Reckless is probably the word for it.”

“He’s been here a few times, Torenomachi, but not for at least ten years. Probably the usual weekend benders that bring those kind of guys out here. Enough credits to get security cam feeds erased, buying out the entire bar or club for the night, the usual messy stuff when they come here before heading back to their precious sunlight.” Senga paused. “Did you want dating history too?”

Sho’s stomach twisted a little at that, remembering how stupidly good-looking the guy was. “I want everything you found out.”

“Alright,” Fujigaya said, flipping to the next page in his folder. “Seems to have calmed down in recent years, but in his 20s he was spotted out and about with a different paramour every week. Men and women both.” Fujigaya looked up to gauge Sho’s reaction, smirking and looking back at his notes. “Equal opportunity, you could say, which seems very Nightside of him, especially given his family and place in society there. He never confirmed or denied anything himself. But yeah, nothing that seemed to stick very long. Nasty rumor followed him a few years after allegedly dating some adult movie actress, but he never confirmed or denied that either…”

“Woman told a tabloid that one of her boyfriends was really into drinking her…well, she had a lot of boyfriends,” Senga chimed in with a shrug.

“We couldn’t confirm that she was even referring to him. The tabloids ran with it because rumors about his family sell copies, but if you want any further digging on that…”

Sho shook his head. “I don’t want rumors. I want facts.”

“Okay,” Fujigaya said. “Well in terms of facts, we found no evidence that any of these relationships resulted in any long-term obligations. No real estate purchases for any boyfriends or girlfriends. No marriages, no secret marriages. No children, no secret children. And no almost children, if you catch my drift.”

Sho rolled his eyes, and Senga pressed his hands together in apology for his partner’s more abrasive tone. “All that to say, Sho-san, that we couldn’t find any current love links for him either, not since he’s been here. And nothing in the last year.”

“You keep saying last year or until a year ago,” Sho interjected, “what aren’t you telling me?”

Fujigaya and Senga exchanged an uncomfortable look before Senga spoke up again. “He was off the grid,” he said.

“What do you mean, off the grid?”

“He literally disappeared,” Fujigaya explained, setting down his folder. “The last public appearance was more than a year ago, during Aquarius at some family function. And after that, nothing. No appearances at family events, charity events, work events. No tabloid spottings, no date night photos, no rumors about drinking anybody’s piss, no proof he was even in Orunitia all that time. No statement from the company about him leaving his position for something else. Absolutely nothing for more than a year until we’ve got him on cameras arriving here in Torenomachi about seven, eight weeks ago.”

“Where did he go?”

Senga spoke up. “The family has it locked down. And I mean locked down, no leaks at all. They never commented on it, even when asked. So we can only assume it was something big.”

Sho swirled his drink around in his glass. So far he hadn’t heard anything abnormal or unusual aside from this one year gap in time. Sho remembered how disappointed, almost sad Matsumoto had sounded when describing his “new work assignment” here in Torenomachi. He was here against his will, most likely, under family orders. So what the hell had happened? What had he done?

“I told you he favors his left leg, uses a cane,” Sho said. “Anything on that?”

Senga nodded. “Well, every photo, every video of him before he vanished? No cane.”

Sho took that in. Whatever had happened to him, to his leg, it had happened during his missing year. An accident? Given his background, maybe an airship crash. But why the secrecy? Why not go to the press, get a little sympathy and support?

“Alright,” Sho said. He’d have to think about next steps. “How far along are you on phase two?”

Fujigaya smiled. This part he clearly liked more - tailing a mark, not running background. In addition to finding out what they could about Matsumoto, Sho had asked them to figure out Matsumoto’s current routine. Where he went in and out of the dome, what he got up to, all to find the best window for Sho to drop in and negotiate for Virgo. “We’re well underway. I’ve got someone inside at the R&D facility on the cleaning crew, and I’m on point at the Sumire Hotel.”

“Give us one more week to solidify the schedule, and we’ll find the best opening for you,” Senga said. “But it might not even take that long, to be honest.”

“Why is that?”

Fujigaya shook his head, laughing. “There’s not a lot of variation, which is honestly pretty surprising for someone of his caliber. At the office all day, mostly back to his hotel for the evening meal. Aside from the party you told us about, the guy has not been living it up since getting here.” He gestured to the folder. “His younger self would be so disappointed in the dull ojisan he’s become since coming to Torenomachi.”

Hmm, Sho thought. A set schedule. That at least boded well.

“Anything else for me?” he asked, eyeing them both.

“We’ve got the names of the love connections in the folder, if that’s something that matters, timelines for his career.” Senga crossed his arms, thinking. “Personality-wise? Kind of prickly and exacting with underlings and serving staff, but not an asshole just to be an asshole. Very particular about his food, what he drinks. Health nut, probably. Lots of partying in the past - late hours out drinking with friends, but no risky or off-color behavior we’ve observed since he’s been here.”

“You think the family’s got him on probation here?” Sho asked.

Fujigaya nodded. “Yeah, he’s almost a little too well-behaved, given everything else we’ve found about him.”

Well-behaved, sure, but obviously not too worried about his family cutting him off, Sho realized. Someone worried about something like that wouldn’t drop one hundred million on a coin that was ultimately worthless to him.

“Well, gentlemen, I appreciate the update. If anything else turns up on that missing year, I’d love to hear it, but I suppose that’s a dead end. But in terms of things I can work with, as soon as you’ve solidified the routine, get in touch.”

The detectives got up, heading for the door. “You got it, boss,” Fujigaya teased, giving him a salute. Senga merely inclined his head, following him out.

When they were gone, Sho refilled his glass and had a seat on the sofa, opening the folder of information Kisumai had brought him, the folder of information Sho had paid an absurd amount of money to acquire. Looking back at him as soon as he opened it was a photograph of Matsumoto Jun, a coming of age announcement in the Orunitia Journal-Gazette. There they were, those same striking eyes, those same dark eyebrows. A slightly cocky curl to his lips. A whole easy life ahead of him in Orunitia elite society, but somehow he’d ended up here in Torenomachi.

“Matsumoto Jun, grandson of Matsumoto Hironobu, has turned twenty,” the caption beneath his photograph read. “Jun is following in his grandfather’s footsteps, soaring high following his recent graduation from Matsumoto Flight School and his entry into the daredevil ranks of the company’s Test Corps. A bright future surely awaits.”

Sho sighed, tossing the folder back onto the table and pinching the bridge of his nose, unable to stop thinking about that missing year.

Matsumoto Jun, the syllables Sho despised the most. How do I get Virgo from you?

And, Sho thought, what the hell happened to you?

///

His usual server at Bittersweet had been willing enough to betray her restaurant, recommending a new spot for Jun to try in the city center. “It’s usually about a month’s wait to get in there,” Nana-chan had explained, but Jun always found that a few thousand credits here, a few thousand credits there could get him in just about anywhere.

The aircab dropped him at Yankumi, nestled perfectly somehow amongst the soaring skyscrapers of the city. But there was none of the city noise, no aircabs granted permission to fly overhead. Probably some noise canceling devices embedded in sidewalks, in the high walls of the property. He followed a stone path to a one-level traditional building. He was asked to remove his shoes on entry, following a kimono-clad waitress down a corridor to a private room at the end. She slid the door open, bowing and gesturing for him to go inside.

Jun wished he’d asked Nana a few more questions about this set-up, but as he approached the table, he was grateful to see that there was a sunken space beneath it. It was impossible for Jun to be comfortable for very long sitting cross-legged or on his knees now, so he was relieved to be able to sit on a cushion, tucking his legs under the table. There was gentle koto music piping through some cleverly hidden speakers. To the left was the sliding doors he’d come through, but to his right the doors were open onto a lantern-lit porch, a zen garden beyond mainly in shadow. Very relaxing, very unlike the rest of Torenomachi.

It had been a long and exhausting day. While he’d finally gotten the temp controls in his office back to something he could live with, a follow-up meeting with Covert Ops had not gone well. The team insisted that their efforts to develop an airship that could cloak itself and be all but hidden from radar were worth an additional investment, but Jun didn’t see why. That kind of technology in the wrong hands could start a war. Shogunates could spy on one another, opportunists from both Starside and Nightside could start shadow wars. Was that really the direction the company needed to go in? The discussion had broken down from there, the engineers devolving into more technobabble that made Jun’s brain hurt, made him feel all the more stupid for not understanding how their proposed cloaking tech would even work.

Yankumi was a very nice respite from that, as they offered an elaborate kaiseki dinner with over a dozen carefully crafted courses. Being able to focus on his meal would serve as a fine distraction. No matter how cold and dark Torenomachi was at all hours of the day, the restaurants and supermarkets here liked to tout seasonal menus and items just the same as those back home. In that, at least, Jun had been grateful for a little continuity as he continued to adjust to his new city. Tonight’s courses were spring-themed, even though Jun kept his suit jacket on since the cooler air from outside was unavoidable.

An interesting side effect of his family’s business was that it had enabled Torenomachi to become a key foodie destination, despite its distance from the rest of civilization. Flights arrived every day bearing fresh fish, vegetables, and meats for the city’s restaurants. There were small seas and freshwater lakes on this side of the planet, but most seafood came from more established fisheries Starside. Jun could not taste a difference in the meals he was served here compared to those back home, although prices were a little higher to make up for the effort to import the ingredients.

Eventually he was more than halfway through his courses and had been told that a light soup was on its way next. So when the door to his private dining room slid open again, he expected to see one of the waitresses with their luxurious kimono and elaborate hairstyles. Instead there was Sakurai Sho in his stocking feet, staring him down. No suit jacket tonight, he was in a long-sleeved dress shirt, sleeves rolled casually to his elbows. A dark vest hugged the shape of him, and his red tie was a slight pop of color against the white shirt, dark vest, and his dark slacks. He looked perfect, just as he had at Sobu Hall, until Jun looked down, trying not to snort at his equally red socks. Apparently someone had told him it was his lucky color, and he’d become a firm believer.

“Sakurai-san,” Jun said, acknowledging his uninvited guest. His heart was already racing in excitement. Surely Sakurai was here to start their second battle. “I was wondering when I’d have the pleasure again.”

“Good evening,” Sakurai replied, sliding the door shut behind him, as though Jun had already invited him inside. He decided not to protest, watching Sakurai come around the table opposite him, sitting down without so much as a ‘pardon my intrusion’.

Jun leaned forward, rudely leaning his elbow on the table, bringing his hand to his face. “Don’t you know how kaiseki works? You’ve already missed the first eight courses.”

“I’m not here to dine with you. Just here for a chat.”

Jun nodded. “Hmm, I see. Would have been more polite for you to pop by during dessert, but I suppose I’ve earned the mid-meal ambush. I’m happy you’ve called off your hired goons and finally shown up yourself.”

Sakurai narrowed his eyes. “My hired goons?”

Jun leaned back, trying not to wince as he stretched his leg a little under the table, hoping to avoid colliding with his guest. He aimed for his most arrogant tone, the one that really seemed to make Sakurai angry. Only their second real meeting, and Jun was already learning how best to poke at him. “The one on my facility’s cleaning crew, the one at my hotel, and then of course the one who followed me to the day spa earlier this week. You think I didn’t notice? You think I didn’t hire counter-spies?”

He offered Sakurai a cheeky little wink when his face reddened in embarrassment.

“I’m flattered, really, that you find me so fascinating as to try and learn my schedule down to the minute and then choose to drop in unannounced when you could have just called my office for a proper meet and greet.” He cocked his head. “I distinctly remember you promising to exchange contact information after the auction, but you just ran away on me.”

Sakurai’s face turned rather sour. Jun had to admit that Sakurai’s ugly reactions endeared him to him all the more. Running his little museum and shaking hands with bigwigs, it seemed like the man had limited experience with subterfuge. Jun, however, had been a media target since he’d been born, thanks to his family’s famous name. It hadn’t taken long for Jun to realize he was being tailed the last week, to realize that people were snooping around about him. Sure, his arrival in Torenomachi had to be of interest, especially after his big bid at the auction, but there was only one person in Torenomachi that would have cause to look into him so closely. Whatever that little coin was, Sakurai wanted it enough to behave badly. What Sakurai didn’t know was that Jun enjoyed being chased almost more than doing the chasing.

“Can you fault me for wanting to know more about the person who sat through an entire auction, only to swipe the one thing I wanted to buy?”

“Not at all. It’s pretty amusing that you had the funds to hire private investigators to stalk me but not a little bit more to invest in your coin.”

Before Sakurai could complain, the door slid open again, the waitress showing no reaction to a second guest in Jun’s private room. Perhaps Sakurai had some friends here at Yankumi. The woman set down Jun’s next soup course, though he barely paid attention to what she was saying about the ingredients and their provenance. The way Sakurai was staring him down was making his heart beat even faster.

He had a few spoonfuls of his soup, absolutely delicious even though it was a mere palate cleanser, before looking up and gathering the courage to meet Sakurai’s intense gaze again. “So you’ve got a thing for coins, Sho-san?”

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” Jun parroted back. “Kind of an ugly little thing. Would never know it had been minted by the imperial treasury back in the day. Bit filthy when they handed it over, fortunately in the box.”

“There are means of caring for them, though extensive cleaning can reduce their value. The discoloration proving their age is actually better than stripping away the surface metal.”

Jun smiled. “So I probably shouldn’t tell you I polished it as soon as I got it home?”

Sakurai’s eyes widened, sheer panic making him all but lock up across from him.

He laughed. “Kidding. I’m kidding.” He had another spoonful of soup. “I sold it already.”

“You did WHAT?”

He dropped his spoon back onto the serving tray, unable to keep from laughing even harder, so hard his body shook. How long had it been since he’d laughed like this? How long since he’d had cause to? He was so grateful to Sakurai Sho for coming into his life when he desperately needed something to laugh about.

“Oh,” Sakurai eventually mumbled. “That was another lie then.”

“I haven’t sold it,” Jun admitted, needing some water to try and calm down. The man was way too easy to tease. “Truthfully, I haven’t looked at it since they handed the box to me and I brought it home. It’s on the desk in my hotel room, gathering dust.”

“Then why buy it?” Sakurai asked, eyes showing obvious hurt.

“It’s my birth sign. Haven’t your little spies told you that much already?”

Sakurai scowled. He had a very expressive face. “Didn’t you just say it’s already gathering dust?”

“Well, I’m not really a Zodiac obsessive.” He raised an eyebrow. “Are you?”

His companion sighed, shoulders slumping. “It’s not the Zodiac itself so much as the set it’s a part of. Emperor Masahiko minted one for each son, and I’m trying to collect them.”

“For the museum?” Sakurai hesitated, and that made Jun all the more intrigued. There was definitely more to Sakurai Sho than just the humble student of history he’d presented himself as at the auction. “For yourself then?”

He nodded. “For the time being. My goal was to display them in the galleries once I’d pulled the whole set together. A set that can’t exist if I don’t have Virgo, so perhaps that makes my motivations clearer.”

“And by ‘motivations’ you mean your whining and your stalking?”

“Matsumoto-san…”

The door slid open again, interrupting Sakurai and bringing Jun’s next course, a bubbling hot pot. This time the waitress had brought bowls and utensils for two. Before Sakurai could protest, Jun took his bowl, ladling out an ample portion for him. A rich broth with littleneck clams, mussels, and rockfish. He held it out, grinning. Sakurai, who had claimed he wasn’t here to eat, took it with a polite nod anyhow.

They were quiet for a while through that course and the next and then onto the fresh strawberries and small, elegant sakura mochi served for dessert. They enjoyed the food together, murmuring only compliments for the ingredients and the meal’s presentation. He looked up here and there, seeing the way Sakurai was trying very hard not to react but obviously found everything delicious. Jun didn’t even mind splitting it with him. It was all quite a lot for one person to finish, and Sakurai had a ravenous appetite. It was also the first meal Jun had shared with someone in Torenomachi who didn’t work for him.

“Sho-san,” Jun eventually said. “There’s twelve Zodiac coins, right? How many do you have?”

Sakurai didn’t answer, desperately trying to distract himself by picking up every little crumb from his plate.

“Was Virgo the last one?”

Sakurai shook his head.

“Pretty close to being the last one?”

Sakurai looked up at him, something approaching desperation in his eyes. “Can’t I just buy it from you?”

“And take a huge loss on my investment?” Jun scoffed. “If you had the money I had to buy it, then you’d have outbid me at the auction and wouldn’t be sitting here with me now looking like a sad puppy. What incentive do I have to sell it to you for anything less than a hundred million?”

Sakurai was quiet for a few moments, the wheels in his head probably spinning until a fresh idea emerged.

“Do you have any ambitions in this town? Do you want to be well-liked?”

Jun smiled. “Is that a threat?”

“It’s an offer, actually,” Sakurai said, surprising him. “I can introduce you to people. Potential new shareholders, people who might want to funnel money specifically toward your research and development department. People who’d pay millions of credits to own the newest aircabs and skyliners, fresh off the production line. As I’ve already told you, my family has been in Torenomachi from the beginning, and we know everyone else who’s been here from the beginning. That includes some families that wouldn’t let you set foot in their house or their office, no matter what your name is, simply because they’re prejudiced against Starsiders. I could open doors for you here.”

“All for an old, dusty coin?”

“Yes,” Sakurai replied. “I don’t have a hundred million to invest at the moment, since as I’ve said, my investment in the coins is personal. I don’t use museum funds for it, and most of my and my family’s investments are tied up long-term in mining and real estate. But surely we could negotiate something that might be agreeable for the both of us?” He leaned forward across the table, hair falling across his brow a little, licking his lips and letting his voice go a little huskier. “When we spoke in the gardens the other night, I felt we had a real connection. I meant it when I said I wanted to meet with you again to talk about airships. There’s so much I don’t know. And I want to.”

Jun felt his heart weakening the slightest bit, hearing Sakurai’s voice go to places he probably knew were most effective at luring someone in. Seeing those big, round eyes focused only on him. If Jun wasn’t so full from dinner, didn’t have such a mixture of flavors still on his tongue from all his different courses, he’d lean in too, maybe find out how kissing him would feel.

At the same time, the little voice in Jun’s head that had betrayed Sakurai the first time was nagging him again. Sakurai was laying himself bare, being open and honest with Jun about what he wanted, about everything he’d do for Jun in exchange. For all that Sakurai probably loathed him for snatching up the coin, clearly there was still an attraction there, just as there’d been at the auction. If what Jun had done was truly unforgivable, surely Sakurai would have done more than just hire people to follow him. He’d had nearly two weeks already to bribe someone at the Sumire Hotel to steal the coin for him. It wasn’t like Jun had it locked in a safe. Instead he was here trying to cut a deal. It was difficult for Jun to resist him - to resist the allure of the deal he offered and to resist the idea of pursuing him physically when he was sitting there with his sleeves rolled up so perfectly, his eyes dark and tempting.

But where was the fun in folding so quickly, that voice in Jun’s head was asking. Where was the excitement?

“Why these coins specifically?” Jun pressed him. “Why would a museum-goer in Torenomachi care about coins celebrating the births of twelve long-dead sons of a long-dead despot? Is it morbid in theme, your museum? Is it a shrine to death? Or maybe to the evils of Starside and our sun-drenched lives?”

Sakurai’s hands became fists, and Jun once again had to keep from laughing. He had a real temper on him.

“Those coins mark the end of an era, the end of a dynasty that lasted nearly two hundred years. They symbolize the fall of an Empire that was even older, more than seven centuries. It was that Empire and its restrictions that pushed my ancestors to build a city in the darkness. It was that Empire that once sought global conquest against a civilization people today barely know existed. They’re more than just coins, Matsumoto-san, and they’re more than just trinkets celebrating the lives of dead men. Those coins are just one more piece in the Garnet puzzle.”

The door slid open, and the restaurant staff cleared their plates away, leaving some tea in their place. Despite himself, Jun poured Sakurai’s cup for him first before attending to his own.

“What does having all of them matter?” Jun continued once they were alone again. “Could you not tell the same story in a museum exhibit with even one of the coins?”

“It wouldn’t be a very compelling exhibit…”

“But if the point is to explore history, to understand where we’ve come from as a people in order to better understand why we behave as we do now, then the items you collect are just a conduit. One coin or twelve, we can see that Hironomiya Masahiko was a crackpot who believed that the only way to hold on to his already weakening Empire was to have a different son for every month of the year. You can shout from the rooftops about the Emperors living in some strange little bubble separate from the lives of their struggling people, about generational rot in our systems of power since the shogunates Starside are honestly no better, but you don’t need a full set of dusty coins to prove it.”

“You know more about why history is important than you let on at Sobu Hall,” Sakurai begrudgingly admitted. “But you don’t understand…”

“No, Sho-san, I do understand,” Jun said, staring into his teacup. He understood Sakurai Sho and his obsession in a way he doubted few other people even could. “I understand what it means to aim all of yourself at something impossible or foolish. Every thought, every action, every cell in your body, all of it pushing toward your goal. Not for monetary gain or glory, but simply because once you’ve set that goal, it would absolutely kill you to give it up.”

Across from him, Sakurai leaned back, watching him carefully.

He shouldn’t have said it. He shouldn’t have put everything that had been stolen from him into words. He shouldn’t have said a fucking thing.

“Matsumoto-san…”

Jun put on a smile, aiming at his indifferent character once more. That was the face he needed to show him, the face he needed to keep showing everyone or he’d surely break.

“I’m still adjusting to this stupid place, your city,” he complained, waving Sakurai off. “My sleep rhythms are off no matter what I seem to try. If you don’t mind, I’ll be leaving. It may be early in the night for you, but my body clock says it’s time for bed.”

He slowly got up, reaching for his cane and taking a moment to get to his feet. Sakurai was at least kind enough to avoid asking if he needed any help. Thankfully he’d pre-paid for his meal, was able to slide the door open and head for the exit. Sakurai followed him, out the door and into the cool, recycled air. He finally turned around, knowing that Sakurai was not going to let him make it to the aircab line without closing their conversation properly.

“The coin is not for sale,” he said bluntly. And he wasn’t sure why either. Just because his dreams had been destroyed through his own foolish actions didn’t mean he had to destroy Sakurai’s.

The fastest race, collecting old coins. Were they really all that different? Buying Virgo at the auction had been a moment of impulse, of fun. What was he doing now? What was the point of it? Maybe it was an excuse. An excuse so that Sakurai Sho might continue to chase him. The only race Jun was qualified to participate in at the moment.

As Jun anticipated, Sakurai stood his ground. He wasn’t giving up, and for that, Jun’s interest in him grew all the more. “Yes, I figured as much, but what about the other possibilities I mentioned?”

“I’ll think about it.” He leaned forward, giving Sakurai a poke in the shoulder. “If you call off your spies.”

“I will.”

They were quiet for a moment, clearly waiting for the other to make a move, to say something. As he had at the party, Sakurai was the one to go for it.

“My driver is close. Would you like a ride back to your hotel?”

Jun grinned. It would be impossible to make it to the Sumire Hotel and not ask Sakurai to join him, no matter how contentious things remained between them. Jun was tired, but inside he was buzzing with the confirmation that Sakurai’s odd and obsessive personality was no less intense than his own. But he couldn’t act on it, couldn’t acknowledge that pull Sakurai seemed to have on him. Not tonight and not yet. Not with the coin still keeping them at odds. Instead he opted to tease the man again.

“And give you two the opportunity to bash me over the head, steal my room key, and then steal the coin? I think not.”

For as serious as he’d been that evening, Sakurai actually laughed, that charm of his reasserting itself and melting Jun’s resolve all the more. “I will see you another time then.”

“You absolutely will,” Jun said.

“Good night, Matsumoto-san.”

“Good night, Sho-san.” He couldn’t help one last stupid dig. “I’ll sleep with Virgo under my pillow. Keep him safe.”

Sakurai inhaled, exhaled. And then walked away before doing or saying something he’d regret. Jun watched him leave, unable to keep from smiling.


part two
 

Comments

[selvage]

AHHHHHHHHH author-san this is a placeholder comment to say I am BEYOND excited to read this! I will be back with more flailing as soon as I've read it <3 <3 <3

EDIT OKAY ALRIGHT I have read the first section!

FIRST OF ALL I'm so so stoked that you decided to run with my FFIX prompt! I am absolutely delighted - it's absolute one of my top FF games, and I'm just thrilled. With a few quick sentences you sketched out the world and I was immediately obsessed. All the FFIX references brought me so much joy. As did the inclusion of so many other Johnny's members <3

I really enjoyed getting deep into this FFIX-adjacent world. Sho's profession and his stress made a lot of sense. As an aside, Kato-kun the writer finding the "shallowness and artifice of Torenomachi most inspiring" actually made me cackle.

HE'S CHASING THE STELLAZIOS AHHHHHHH, this reveal was so good! Now I'm wondering if he's gonna screwed by the 13th coin like in FFIX...

Oh Jun <3 His background is so fascinating, I love how you built it up. Racing Jun! Just one more Night and Day! And the result :(

"So good-looking it'll make you kind of angry" is a very excellent description of Jun.

DISCO STAR AUCTIONEER AIBA this image will bring me joy for the rest of my days.

The auction was so tense I'm die.

The thrill of the chase! Will Sho get his Virgo? What about Pisces? I'm so excited to read parts 2 and 3.

[64907]

I just want to say that I absolutely do not know anything about FF (never played it) but that didn’t serve as a hindrance in any way since I was able to pretty much imagine the setting here.

Putting in a comment to let you know how loud I laughed about Piss Jun making it here. Absolutely delightful, thank you for your efforts.