Closing the door behind him, he entered the dark room. Dim, sickly sunlight filtered in through the window, casting a yellow, jaundiced illumination on the contents of the room. He didn't bother turning on the lights-- his night vision was excellent anyway, and the lighting suited his mood. Switching the ancient fan on, he headed towards the fridge for a drink. The bright fluorescence of the fridge light cast a pale, corpse-like glow on him as he opened a can of beer before closing the fridge. In the vanishing half-light once more, he took a deep quaff from the can as he took a seat on the floor he hadn't swept once in all the months he'd been here. Setting the can down beside him, he closed his eyes and leaned back against the coffee table.

Nothing.

Not like he'd really been expecting anything to happen, he reminded himself with a bitter smile. Things did not just pop out of nowhere and happen to you. Action and Reaction-- Newt's 35th law of lotion or something like that-- action and reaction was *the law*. Nothing happened without something else happening before it. So, things only happened to people who did other things, and other people doing other things made those other things happen to those people. And so on and so forth, ad infinitum, blah blah blah.

Where did it all begin, he wondered? Did the Kami (or should that be, the `Kamui'?) just say, "Let something happen" and something did? Maybe everything since then has all been the result of that one action-- a cosmic chain reaction, where this happens that leads to this that leads to this.

So the meaning of life is: ACTION & REACTION.

Nah... that doesn't sound right... but my whole life's been one big chain reaction, so why not? He shrugged to himself, raising his head.

The first thing that caught his eye was a skull. It was this screenshot of a floating skull with red, glowing eyes and wide open jaws, sited on the side of a cardboard stand. The stand itself was made to hold a box, more specifically, a game box, the type of box you always found original PC games in. This particular game was called "Stonekeep", and he'd bought it for no particular reason, actually. He'd never even opened the box-- indeed, he didn't even know where the box was. For that matter, he didn't even own a computer worth mentioning. But the stand was right there, all dusty with neglect, and that infernal picture of a skull still visible through the thick layer of dust.

"What're you staring at?" he mock-growled at the picture of a skull.

~A pathetic loser.~ it answered.

"Well that's all right then, isn't it?" he giggled, sounding incredibly silly. "All Dragons are losers, after all. Hey, a song! Dragons are loooosers af-ter all..."

His voice trailed off into silence after a while, and he just sat there for a while, head lowered once more. Then, he reached behind him, his fingers blindly groping until, triumphantly, he held up the object of his search. Taking another swig of beer from the can, he opened the package with his free hand. A strange glint in his eye as he raised his head again, he announced to the room, "Let's play cards."

Cutting and shuffling the deck with practiced movements, he watched the cards as they riffed through his hands. Cutting and shuffling. Cutting and shuffling. Pattern, pattern, again and again. Mix the same way, routine shuffling... ordered chaos. And cut, and cut, and cut some more-- slice the rigid pattern, but it's no use...

Shaking himself from his thoughts, he stopped shuffling and laid out five cards in front of him in a straight row. He'd picked up this game from somewhere-- where exactly, he didn't really know. You laid out cards in five distinct columns, or piles, or whatever you cared to call them, and you kept going from there. The aim of the game was to get rid of all of the piles/columns/whatchamacallems, and this was achieved by removing sets of three cards which had numerical values adding up to 10, 20 or 30. A pile (for lack of a better word) was eliminated when it had no cards in it, and no more cards would be placed there. Simple game, really. Just damnably hard to win.

Almost idly, he noticed the five cards he had just laid out. Ace of Spades, King of Spades, Queen of Spades, 10 of spades... Jack of Clubs. Staring down at the sad little painted face of the cardboard figure, he crooned to it, "Don't fit in, do ya? Happens all the time you know..." Humming happily to himself, he turned the card sideways so the face no longer stared at him. Think of the happy things, o-nly the happy things...

Laying out the next ten cards, he found that he could already get rid of one of the piles. Good start. Another set: 10..K..J. A second pile fell victim to the absorbing pattern. And on and on and on.

"I wonder why," he sang in a lilting voice as his hands continued their fluid movements. "The world goes round..."

Nice world. Pretty world. All nice cool/warm blues and greens that everyone likes. Like a tiny marble, so flawless, so perfect, so, so fragile. Glass breaks-- someone needs to catch it when it falls.

Why me?

...

10.. 7.. 3.

Interesting how you think when sitting on a dusty floor playing cards, mildly buzzed from the beer at your side and the failing light oozing in through the cracks in the curtains. It's times like this when your brain goes topsy-turvy and the part of your brain that says "ignore this; ignore that" shuts up and curls up with some beer of its own, leaving the rest of your brain (insaaaane!!!) to do what it wants. Don't you think that's wonderful?

~No.~ It was the skull again. K.. 2.. 8.

Why not? I mean, isn't it good to notice everything and anything and I mean E-VE-RY-THING? No more worries about not knowing, not hearing, not noticing--- you see EVERYTHING!!! Sugoi yo--

~There's a reason why you don't.~

This time, he said it aloud. "Don't what?"

~Notice everything.~

"How interesting..." Still looking at the three columns of cards laid out before him, he mumbled, "Should I know?"

~Your choice.~

Hmmmm.....

...

Suddenly, it occurred to him that he'd been working on these three columns since forever. They were no longer straight columns-- instead, they were beginning to recurve back towards their source, as if repelled by the uncrossable barriers of his leg and the beer can.

Never ends, he thought. It never, never ends... just when you think it does... He removed one of the three piles. Two left, a pair, a duo-- like they were meant to be together.

"Why is it," he asked the skull, "That I can never think of what to say until after it's way too late?"

~Why ask me?~

"I don't know... skulls have nothing inside there, you know, so maybe they can think clearer.." he slurred, his hands still placing the cards in their endless monotony.

~...~

He imagined that there was a manga-type bubble rising from the skull's mouth, the kind used to indicate speech. Mentally adding a line of dots down the speech bubble and a sweatdrop down the skull's... well... head, he supposed, he chuckled to himself (or to the skull? He wasn't sure) and said banteringly, "Don't know, do ya? Thick-skulled! Hahaha..." But the laughter faded away before long.

Love-- such a tangling emotion. Just like the cards, he thought, looking down at the crazy paths traced by the cards. Reminds me of knots in more ways than one--- to bind, to secure, to hold, to reassure, to heal, to stop... and to constrict. Soft, warm hearts that feel pain, constricted and choked, suffocated of emotion by the smothering *thing*. Not like hearts of steel. Hearts of steel shot down such things before they even got close.

Arashi, sweet, sweet Arashi, my Maiden... my Iron Maiden. And your spikes bleed the life from me, your lid hiding all the light. The first time I saw you, you seemed as the newly dawning sun itself-- so why are you as steel and stone now?

~Why else?~

"You're right, *why* else?" Place, check, repeat. Place, check, repeat.
His hands continuing their cycle, he lapsed back into his thoughts.

Like your sword you are. Always where you least expect it, seeming impossible in its existence, yet its edge and temper undeniably present. Hidden, you are-- as hidden as your Hidden Shrine, as hidden as you are to me. Hidden to yourself? Maybe. Should I care?

~`Should' is not the issue here.~

"Why are you always right?" he sighed at the skull, thoughts of his love, his so, so bittersweet love circling in his mind.

~Because you're drunk. It's easy to be wrong when you're drunk.~

"But I'm not wrong..."

~So how can you say I'm right?~

For one long moment, he stared at his own hands, the only sound or movement being the endless cycle of place, check, repeat. The pile of cards in his hand was growing smaller and smaller; the game was pretty much hopeless, the cards already laid out far outnumbering those in his hand. But still he continued.

Place, check, repeat. 4.. K.. 6.

Place, check, repeat.

Place, check, repeat. K.. 10.. Q.

Place, check, repeat.

"You know somethin'?" he broke the silence with the question. No more than a whisper, no one would have heard it, even if they had bean right next to the pitiable figure swigging beer and placing, checking, and repeating on the floor. But he continued, regardless, not caring if anyone heard him or even if all the Dragons of Earth, from Sumeragi's nemesis Sakurazukamori to that half-mad computer-screwing Yatouji to that good-looking bastard of a "civil servant", Yuuto Kigai, heard every slurred utterance he made. Continuing into the darkness of the twilight's end, he whispered two words that, he felt, could encapsulate every feeling of hate/love/pain/anger/pleasure/numbness (dead, so, so *dead* numbness) that he felt, had felt, or ever would feel.

"Life sucks."

~Just realized that?~ and the skull fell silent.

Place, check, repeat.

Place, check, repeat.

Place, check, repeat. 10.. Q.. J.

Place, check, repeat. K.. Q.. 10.

After five more minutes, he came to the realization that he was placing and removing the same six cards from the pattern before him. Six lousy cards, a guaranteed loss... endless, endless, no win, no loss... no closure. The 10 of spades, the King of clubs, the Jack of diamonds, the Queen of hearts, the 10 of hearts, and the Queen of spades.

Subaru Sumeragi, Kamui Shirou, Seiichirou Aoki, Karen Kasumi, Yuzuriha Nekoi... and...

Looking down at the cold, hard face of the Queen of spades that had led many to term the card "The Black Widow" even outside of the game of hearts, he slowly, caressingly turned the card in his hand so that its back was facing him, and whispered its name.

"Arashi Kishu."

For the first time, he noticed the rest of the cards. One column consisted of only a single ace, a stray that would never return. The other column consisted of the other 45 cards, a long, winding column that looped inwards, and looped inwards again, tightening inward and inward---

A spiral.

An endless spiral.

[M1]Standing up with a jerk, he snatched up the half-full beer can in the same fluid motion and drained it in one gulp. "Despair, despair, wherefore art thou??" he proclaimed in a loud, theatric voice (or at least it would have been if it hadn't been impossibly slurred), dropping the empty can right in front of himself. Wiping his mouth with one hand, he stared at the silent skull and asked again, "What're you looking at?" He waited, and waited, but there was no answer.

Some hours later, a voice intruded upon him.

"Sora-chan, are you there?" the figure in the doorway asked. "Where are--"

"Here," Sorata answered, having swiftly thrown the empty beer can and its newly emptied mate under his couch. "Sorry about the darkness; you just caught me... uh... meditating! Yes, meditating!"

Giggling, Yuzuriha replied, "Well, if you're done meditating, want some dessert? I made some for everyone!" With the same innocent look on her face that she always wore, she continued, "You can even have Sumeragi-san's share... he doesn't want any..."

Plastering a big smile across his face, Sorata strided eagerly through the doorway and said enthusiastically, "Well if you made it Yuzu-chan, it's got to be good! I must so finish the scornful Sumeragi's share so that none of this wonderful repast will go to waste! KAMI WILLS IT!!!!"

This was too much for Yuzuriha. Nearly choking with laughter, she was forced to lean on Sorata as she got her breath back. Closing the door, Sorata led a still wheezing Yuzuriha off to the dining room.

Inside the room, no one caught the faint snatches of a song that drifted fraily through the air.

"Put on your happy faces..."

"Put on your happy faces

The lies the world can't see

This mask of smiles and laughter

Is all there is of me..."

Want to go home?