Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1999 11:28:12 -0800 (PST) From: Toji Suzahara Subject: Alone Among Friends, Part V Hi there! Thanks for being still here and reading my story.. I really appreciate it. Remember that this plays in Germany and not in the US. What else do I have to say? The usual disclaimer: If you feel offended by men loving men, having feelings for men or anything which has to do with homosexuality, you should better leave. For all the rest: Enjoy the story. Let the mails keep on coming (I try to answer all the mails I get:) ) This story is dedicated to the one I will love someday. "Ich hatte zu wenig Zeit um mich kurz zu fassen." Alone Among Friends, Part V. Daniel was standing on the windowpane, feeling worthless and unloved. It was a long way down to the ground - 12 stories would take him a couple of seconds until his corpse would impact on the street and the awkward sound of crushing bones would certainly drag the attention of some students to this unnatural death. But these thought he didn't have yet, only one word was omnipresent in his mind, a single word, spoken by a voice so powerful but comforting the same time that he would have to obey. "Jump" it said monotonously. Daniel closed his eyes and hoped that the pain he was feeling would end soon; His body and mind were hurting and the absolution was only some inches away. An easy step, a single, bold step. Bold. Very bold. He could hear the muffled sounds of tires screaching, people having conversations in the cafe below, an airplane approaching the airport. All these sounds, though being relatively close, seemed far away and it felt like unnoticeable background noise to him. Something one wouldn't think about if it was a normal night. Daniel didn't hear all this consciously; for him there was absolute silence and only this one voice in himself existed. But it wasn't the only voice there was. There was another voice, having a solution for him which was not as appealing as the one constantly repeated by the dominant one. Daniel's breathing became lighter and slower and he could feel that his muscles were relaxing, starting to loose the ability to hold his weight. A small smile played on his face and Daniel knew that very soon he would not have to worry about anything anymore, that there would not be anyone to whom he would have to explain anything (Do you know if this is true Daniel?). He would not need to care anymore (But what about the ones who care for you Daniel?). He would end his life with a bold step (Is this really courageous Daniel? Aren't you a coward running away from life? Aren't you lying to yourself again?). Sometimes the world seems to be controlled and nothing happens just for the sake of it. In newspapers, magazines, on TV or where ever one wants to, one could read, hear or listen to stories of people who claim to have seen the logics of the world, seen behind the curtains, and who suspected that there was a higher meaning for everything. Man had always tried to find his role in the universe, some claiming to have found one, a meaning to life, to the role of their existence, a reason for being conscious. Some of them were letting the universe revolve around them and others being less self-centred tried to fit into the whole by being a piece of it. What most of them shared was, that there was no coincidence. Nothing happened just for the sake of it. Some of them even came to the point that the unlikeliest thing would happen exactly then when one would expect this event to occur the least. It was one of these moments. Daniel was standing on his windowpane, his upper part bend out of the window, holding himself only with one hand when a mind-torturing sound broke the silence. Daniel still in full pain and grief and in struggle with himself was completely shocked by this synthetic noise. His body spasmed by the unexpected noise and his right foot slipped off the pane. Daniel's other leg collapsed and he lost balance. Instinctively the grip of his hand got intense and Daniel came back to his senses. He was fully conscious now and hanging with one arm out of the window. The telephone was still ringing. He knew that he was unable to hold himself longer this way. He had to make a decision. Live or die. LIVE or DIE. DIE: He let go. Daniel felt like it was taking ages until he would reach the ground. He saw how his window was becoming smaller, the ringing of the telephone becoming lower. The wind was covering most of the noise created by others and Daniel enjoyed these last moments of his life. In the last split seconds he saw his entire life again and he knew that he never had seen happiness. He had realized that he had never lived to his own happiness, only for the happiness of others. He had seen this homophobic world and was happy that he was leaving it. He would never feel pain anymore and he saw the upper part of the entrance door of the dorms sliding by. In this split second he knew that he was a coward. He had run away from his problems by committing suicide, by letting "them" win and bring him down. But he was unable to undo his decision. Daniel's body hit the street. He felt how the bones in his legs, which were the first to hit the street, were crushed by the force of his own mass. Daniel's pelvis and chest collapsed by the pressure and his innards were torn by the fragments of the crushed ribs. It was like an eternity for him and he could feel every single part of his body being destitute by gravity and his own matter. His head exploded on the street, exposing the brains and the consciousness, the mere existence of Daniel was wiped out of the world. What remained was a lifeless, warm accumulation of water, carbon and other elements on the asphalt. The telephone was still ringing. He knew that he was unable to hold himself longer this way. He had to make a decision. Live or die. LIVE or DIE. LIVE: He lifted himself up a few inches and grabbed with his other free hand the window frame, pulled himself up and with a swift move landed on his bed. The telephone was still ringing. Daniel was unable to hold himself there anymore. He had played through both his decisions and decided that the last one, to live, would be the bolder one. He wouldn't let "them" win. He didn't know who "they" were, but he knew that his death would only hurt the people loving him. And he couldn't disappoint them. He couldn't disappoint himself. He didn't want to be a coward. He didn't want people to look at his cadaver and fake pity for him but think that he was a coward the same time. He accumulated all the strength he had left in his arm and tried to pull himself up. He only managed to get up an inch. "Shit!" His breathing had become heavy and he was feeling somehow silly, hanging there on the edge, being the one who wanted to end this life some minutes ago, and now trying to safe it. He didn't know why he did that, but it was irrelevant now. He didn't want to die this way. The telephone was ringing and the noise, this synthetic noise was making him crazy. He concentrated on how much he hated the world which amplified his anger. He lifted himself up another inch, and he now had enough to get a grip on the frame with his other hand. He pulled himself up and he rolled over the pane and landed on the bed. He rearranged himself and just lay there, weeping in anger and feeling all alone. Kevin hung up the phone and went to the kitchen-niche he had there in his room. He wondered what was wrong. Georg seemed to be busy, Kaneda wasn't at home and so wasn't Daniel. It was Sunday night damnit, and he knew that if someone skipped classes on Monday then it would be Kevin Hartmann (and he felt somehow proud) and not Kaneda nor Georg or Daniel. It pissed him off that the others were being so careless about the apartment. Kaneda had suggested this whole shit he thought. And he had the opportunity, and now nobody seemed to be interested much. "Just jerks," he murmured to himself and took a sip of his beer. That stuff was awfully warm and he just noticed that his refrigerator had gone berserk again. "Fuck, tastes like piss," he yelled and threw the can into the plastic bag 'specially for cans. Kevin never cared too much for recycling, but he was separating the cans from the rest of his garbage for they were taking enough space. He turned around and went to his bed, looking around at his room - he was pissed off with it and wanted to move out of this box. He knew that he would pay the same rent for a bigger room if he shared that flat with the others. The room would be at least twice as big as this 'joke'. When I woke up I was firstly puzzled cause I didn't know where I was. It took me some seconds to realize that I was in Georg's room and moreover, that this sweet guy was lying next to me. I turned around the much as I could since Georg's face was lying on my arm and I didn't want to move it away from there. He looked so peaceful, with his bare shoulders looking out of the sheet which was covering the rest of his adorable body. He looked contempt and happy, though he was sleeping deep. I could not help it so I bent over and gave him a light kiss on his cheek. I carefully turned around even more so that I could be closer to him. I just held him tight to myself and lay there and felt as happy as I had never done before. "Good morning!". The lamer was awake! "Georg you were awake?" "No, but your kiss woke me up - do you think I can miss a kiss from you?" he said and smiled. I smiled at him cause of that comment. "Better get up, let's not be late - and I need to get to my room to get ready." "Okie-dokie!" Georg said. "Georg, this sounds... corny, please just say okay or something else," I said to him seriously but not meaning it very serious. "Uh.." "I was just joking Georg, forget it" "Heh.. well there is a lot I don't know about you yet.." "Let's keep some secrets my guy - or do you want that we don't have anything left to tell each other?" "No man, we will ALWAYS have much to tell each other.. and if not," he said and turned around with the last word and moved himself on top of me," we have other means of communication.." I was in my room and tried to get dressed and gather the stuff for the course. That wasn't actually very easy since there was quite a mess in my room. I actually had planned to bring some order in my room after returning from the movies, but other, very nice and sensational things had crossed my plans. I loved that guy, he was what I wanted, and when I thought about what we had shared earlier and last night, I couldn't have wanted more. I felt really good until Daniel came into my mind and I had to think about him and how he was feeling. Actually I felt somehow guilty for being that unthoughtful with my comment. I had jumped the gun and was feeling the exact opposite of excellent. I had to "repair" the damage I had created but I needed a right place and right time for talking to him. He wasn't sharing the course with Georg and I so I would have to wait for him to appear in some of the other courses. I thought about where I would meet him and left my room. In front of the lecture hall were the usual "message boards" with all kinda stuff on them. Georg was standing next to them with one leg against the wall. He was wearing this nice jacket and had - as usual - styled up his hair. He had some cargo-pants on and was wearing his heavy boots. I thought about how somebody would feel to get kicked by such boots and had to grin about my silly thought. "Hey Kaneda, whassup dude?" he said and grinned sheepishly. "Nothing much, nice to see you. Let's get in!" The lecture was completely boring, and even if it was interesting, neither Georg nor I were paying too much attention. We were sitting in the second last row and holding each others hands. It was pretty safe to do that in that row for nobody was sitting behind us and even if somebody had looked back, that person wouldn't have seen anything but two guys, grinning a bit. Georg's hands were feeling so good, and I was still feeling a bit like in a dream. He kept on stroking the back of my hands with his thumb and I felt like kissing him but that was not in disposition at the moment. I could swear that the guy talking there in front of the blackboard was very convinced of what he was babbling. But I couldn't care less - here I was, with my boyfriend, being the happiest guy in the world. I was sort of daydreaming when Georg started a conversation. "Hey Kaneda, remember? We gotta move out from our flats. Or rather move in into that flat Kevin was talking about," he said. "I don't think we'll have to move everything in there. We can just confirm it and slowly move the stuff over. Wonder why Kevin is pushing this so hard. Well whatever, it's better anyhow," I said to him and grinned. For the rest of the lesson we didn't say anything and just held each others hands. It was lunchtime and we went to the refectory. This was the usual hangout for the bunch of us and this time we were the first to be there.They weren't serving anything I liked so I just got myself a glass of fresh orange juice and a yoghurt. There weren't too many vacant tables but we got one which would suffice the six of us. Kevin was the first one to join us, and a second later, Jens and Yilmaz also arrived. Only Daniel was missing, whom we hadn't seen at all yet. "Hey jerks, now that I got you ALL around me, .. uh.. where's Daniel?" Kevin asked addressing all of us. "I don't know," Jens said and making a grimace, " you know I ain't his mom." Kevin ignored Jens' statement. "Don't know Kevin," I said to him. "Well I'll tell him myself later. Anyhow, where was I? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm yep: We're going to move together, and I really had this great luck to get my hands on the apartment which is a) rather huge and b) rather cheap. Only thing is that we'll have to move in quite fast.. and fast means today. I mean TODAY." "Why today?" "Easy: I wanna OCCUPY it, get it? If we don't get in there, somebody else will get it, and I don't want to miss this chance. Okay, are you guys with me?" We all looked at each other and were actually okay with what Kevin was suggesting. I wanted to move together anyhow, actually I wanted to live closer with Georg and Georg was feeling the same - we just wanted to share a room. "I am with you as I said on phone yesterday," Georg said to him. "Same here," I said. "I wanna get out of home," Yilmaz said a bit theatralically. "My current roommate sucks," Jens said and grinned. "Yeah we all know that, no need to start that story over again Jens," Kevin said and grinned at him. Jens roommate was an asshole. He was completely egoistic and never thought about Jens in his actions. He would for instance return late at night when Jens was already asleep and turn on the lights, make hell of a noise while he was changing or whatever he was doing. He never used to wash his plates or pots. He knew that Jens would have to use them aswell and would wash them. That would change soon anyhow. I noticed that a girl was approaching our table. Actually I was the only one noticing her and I felt like she wanted to sneak up. She was looking quite good, had nice tits, had a nice taste in terms of clothes and was holding a folder. She saw that I was looking at her and she gave me a sign to be silent or stay calm. I just did what she said and now I noticed that I actually knew her from somewhere. I didn't remember from where though. By now she was at our table and she bend down behind Kevin and covered his eyes with her hands. She had some sort of transparent nailpolish on her fingers and it looked.. interesting. "Guess who's here?" she said with a super-sexy-sweet voice. I could see from the uncovered parts of Kevin's face how he lighted up. "Babe.. Sabina of course!" They both started to laugh out like if they were mad and he stood up and gave her a very deep kiss - right there, in front of us. "ahh Kevin.. who's that ch.. lady? Don't you want to introduce her to us," Jens said and grinned. Kevin broke off from the kiss and I had to compare it to how Georg and I were kissing. I concluded that we were better. "Sorry jerks, .. eeh.. that's my girlfriend. Sabina." "Sabina, Jens... Yilmaz... Kaneda... Georg" "Nice to meet you all" she said with a very cute and small voice. "I know you from somewhere, I think I do," I said to her but actually addressing Kevin since I wanted him to tell me from where I knew her. "Uh well, yeah, you know her from the disco.." I grinned heavily. That guy was fast. I hoped for him that it would work out for something long. Even though Kevin seemed to be a guy who would just mess around with girls, meaning that he would have one after another, it wasn't how he really was. He was on his own personal search for the right girl. I decided to ask later if she was among the candidates or not. After some minutes of chit chat with the girl we decided to split and get our stuff ready. I headed back to the dorms with Georg of course. We had walked the way from refectory to the dorms a myriad times now and so we both didn't concentrate a bit on where we were going. It seemed like we were moving automatically. "Kaneda?" Georg said and broke the sweet silence we were having. "Yes..?" "You noticed that Daniel wasn't around at uni at all today?" "Yeah," I replied and I had nearly forgotten about him. I had to go to him and fix things, there was no other way. "I'll go to him just now and talk to him." "Kaneda.. whatever it was yesterday, it seems severe 'cause he didn't show up at any of the courses today. I am worried about him." "Same here," I said and felt really bad, god this kid was really in pain, I needed to comfort him. "Let's just hurry up Georg I better get sooner to him than later," I said and we both started to jog back to the dorms. "We'll meet later, after I settled things with Daniel, okay?" "Okay," he said and disappeared in his building. I turned around and went straight to our building and opened the door. I had to wait very long for the elevator or was I just feeling that I was waiting long for it. I didn't know that but what I knew that I was worried sick about Daniel now and had to speak to him. The doors of the elevator opened and I rushed over to Daniel's door and knocked. "Daniel?? You in there? Open the door, I wanna speak with you!" No response. "Daniel! Please, open the door,..." I pressed my ear against the door so I could hear if anything was moving in there. No sound, no voice, no noise. "Daniel.. I know that you are in there, let me in," I didn't know at all if he was in there, I just assumed it. Still there was no response. I sighed out loud and pressed my ear again against the door. I thought that I had heard something move in there. "Daniel, I am worried about you.. and if you don't open the door, I will kick it in.. do you hear?" Still there was no response. Horrible images were running trough my mind by now.. what if Daniel had cut his wrists? Or he had taken sleeping pills or other stuff.. my head started to spin and I felt sick from the thoughts. "Daniel..," my voice broke and the last syllable of his name sounded squeakish," .. I am coming in, step away from the door if you can," I stepped back from the door and turned around. With a swift 180-degree turn I kicked against the door. Nothing happened, I had used too less power. I repeated the procedure, using a bit more of my strength now and the door swung open. What I saw I could hardly bear. Daniel was lying next to his bed, and his face had bloody scars all over, the skin of his arm was partly peeled off, and blood had dried on his wounds. His pants were torn, and his right leg, rather his right thigh was exposed and had a thick red scar on it which seemed like it had bleeded madly. His left arm was resting on the bed and it didn't look as horrible as the rest of his body. What had he done? I felt endlessly guilty seeing him this way and somehow thought that this was all my fault. I quickly moved over to him, pushing the door back so it was sort of closed and kneeled down to him. I felt how tears were coming into my eyes and a second later a tear ran down my face. It was paining me seeing him this way and I looked into Daniel's blue eyes which were looking at me but it felt like he was not really there. I put my arms around him and lifted him up to the bed, god he really was heavy, and now that he was not making any effort to handle his weight I could feel it. He just lay there, completely numb. "Daniel.. .. what have you done..?" Still with watered eyes I examined all his wounds. They looked like they were facial scars, nothing deeply cut and were not serious but looked very serious. But still it looked very hurtful. "How could you do this to yourself, Daniel..? This.. this..," I was hardly able to form my words when he interrupted me. "I wanted to put an end to myself," he said very dry and soberly. My guts wrenched when I heard him say that. I could not believe what he was saying. He had tried to kill himself? What for? That he was gay? That nature created him this way? Again my eyes started to water but this time it were tears of anger, I was angry with myself, that I hadn't tried enough to help him when he needed the help, that I had spoken the wrong words at the wrong time, that this world wasn't making it easy for guys like us to live.. I looked onto his face again and started to clean it with my hands. "Daniel.. I never wanted this to happen to you.. ," I said and took a deep breath, I tried to collect myself," I know this only went so far because.. I was so uncareful with the words I said, .. I never wanted to hurt you.. cause I .. I," Daniel was looking into Kaneda's eyes which were full of tears. Kaneda was cleaning Daniel's face and Daniel felt that Kaneda was really caring for him, even that he was gay. Daniel felt for the first time that somebody was accepting him truly for the way he was. It had never really bothered Daniel what Kaneda had said back then when he kissed him, he rather had been in a struggle with himself, not accepting the feelings and emotions he had developed for another guy. And now this guy was caring for him, he had cared so much for him that he had kicked in the door, and was now weeping in front of him. Daniel started to feel a bit better. "cause.. I .. I am ," I said and cussed myself for I was such a coward. I put my hand under Daniel's head and lifted him gently up and then I pressed him against myself, holding him tight, his head on my shoulder. I tried harder to collect myself, and to let my emotions not to overtake the situation too much. "Please.. Daniel, don't ever try to harm yourself again.. you're such a great guy and what would the world do without you?" I said. I didn't expect an answer so I continued. "Look the way you are feeling is absolutely right. Don't condemn yourself for it, don't condemn yourself for something which is true, and feels genuine to yourself. Don't listen to what the others say. Don't let them condemn you, be strong and be true to yourself, it only counts what you think of yourself, what you make out of yourself. " I said and wondered where all these words were coming from now. I felt how Daniel put his arms around me and hold me tight aswell now. I felt a bit relieved. I stroke his head a bit and I felt how his body was shaking a bit. He was weeping softly. "Kaneda.. do you know how lonely I felt in my life..," he said with a very low, sorrowful voice. "I.. I never wanted to be the way I am.. I never chose to be.. this way.." "I wished you would understand the loneliness I felt," he said. Now it was time. I thought about it, I had to tell Daniel about myself,.. it was complicated though... What if I told him and he fell for me? He had kissed me in the first place right? It was likely that he liked me more than just being friends, hell, I used to have my own thoughts about him aswell, I even jerked off thinking about him a couple of times. I decided not to think about it too much. "I do understand your loneliness.." He didn't say anything on that and I assumed that he was thinking that I just said this to comfort him. So I decided to tell him the truth, straight-forwardly. "Daniel.. I am gay aswell." I could feel how his grip loosened and then he hold me an arm-length away from himself. He sobbed a bit and looked directly into my eyes and I just confirmed his unsaid question with my look. I saw a smile on his face arising and he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me real hard. "Kaneda.. god .. I am so lucky to have you.. I never thought you would be gay. My best friend here being gay, feeling the way I feel, can this be true..?" he said and chuckled a bit. I felt relieved that he had eased up. "Yeah man it is true, a little secret only you and some others know.". This guy was completely innocent, I think he never ever had something with a guy up to now and the way he was hugging me just suggested the same. "Daniel, promise me, that you will never ever do such a thing again, ... if you feel lonely come to me and we can always talk about everything," Daniel was sort of laughing and crying now but what I definitely knew was that he was wetting my shirt. That was absolutely okay. I liked holding him this way. I tried to ease things up even more. "Daniel, people have been missing you. Everybody cares about you. Georg asked about you, so did Kevin, Jens and Yilmaz." Of course the two latter didn't ask, but this little lie was so irrelevant. "Really?" "Yeah man, you're popular, everybody likes you, don't you see that?" I asked him and we had already broken our hug and were sitting on the bed now. I could see how he smiled but then it got clouded again. "Yeah but they don't know that I am ... uh.. gay," he said. "So what? Don't reduce yourself to your sexuality man. You don't need to walk around and blurt it out to everybody if you don't want to. It's your personal thing. Look, I know that you're gay, and see, we're still great friends!" "But that's cause you're gay aswell," he said and grinned. I had to admit that he had a point there. "Yeah well, okay, but this doesn't matter. Anyhow, I don't think that you feel like telling it to the world - I haven't outed myself either as you know. But what you can be certain off now is that you have a friend here who fully understands you." "Thank you Kaneda. I am glad to have you" he said and gave me another big hug. Daniel, the skater, was really cute. I felt quite sorry for the good clothes he had torn by his attempt. "Will always be there for you Daniel, no worries." "I don't feel like telling it to nobody who is not the same like me. With you it was different.. I got a bit overwhelmed yesterday Kaneda, but I think I was instinctively right .." Daniel broke again the hug and looked into my eyes. I felt the intensity rising and knew what was coming now. He slowly closed his eyes and moved his head closer to mine. "Daniel.. I can't..," I said, and I knew that it was better to tell him right off now rather than doing something wrong and letting him develop more feelings for me. "Wha..? Why?" I could see how his face was all puzzled. "To be honest, I have a boyfriend. I don't want to cheat on him you know," I said. I knew Georg for a day but I had such an attachment to him, I could say without any problems that he was my boyfriend. "Oh okay! Well.. I have tough luck then," he said and I could see a real sad look on his face. This time I hugged him. "But this doesn't mean that we're not going to be closer friends than usual friends." "Kaneda, you're a great guy,.. can I ask you something?" "Sure?" "Have I seen your boyfriend? Is he here in the uni?" he said and grinned a bit. I laughed at that. "Uhm.. well yes he is, and you have seen him." "I would like to get to know him, only if he is okay with it. I want to get to know other gays I think. And I think if he is your boyfriend then he must be a great guy. And I think I will not feel this lonely anymore. More guys like myself. I cannot believe it!" he said with a smile. I smiled at this innocent remark and said, "I think this should not be a big problem." I wondered if it would be okay with Georg? Should I just take Daniel over to Georg with me or should I ask Georg if he is okay with it. I decided for the latter. "Well I'll ask him and probably we can meet up pretty soon, I'll have to tell him who you are of course Daniel, is that okay?" "Kaneda, he is your bf - sooner or later you'll tell him about me anyhow, wouldn't you?" "Well I wouldn't if you asked me to, thought it would be hard for me to do so." Daniel smiled. "It's okay. Just tell him, I am curious to who that guy is and it's even more interesting that you told me that I know him!" "Okay I'll just phone him - from my apartment. Can I leave you alone here for say 1 minute? You won't do something you and I'll regret for our entire lifes?" He laughed out and I was really relieved. I think Daniel was on the best way getting a grip on things. "No man, I am coping with it. I had an enlightment while I was hanging out there," he pointed to the window, "what do you think where I got the scars from?" I swallowed hard. "Better that you're in here Daniel," I said and gave him another hug," don't do such a thing again do you hear me??" "I won't." "Give me your promise!" "I promise," he said and then added," doesn't this sound a bit childish?" We both grinned and laughed out. "Yeah it does. But I really don't want that you get stupid thoughts again. You'll always have me to refer to Dan," I said looking seriously to him. "Okay man, just don't let me 'hangin'," he said, looking very serious and then breaking into laughter. "I won't, I give you my promise. Okay, I'll be back in a minute." I went over to my room and dialed Georg's number. He picked up the phone. "Georg?" "Yeah, it's me" "Yeah, everything's fine with him, yeah." "A different reason why I call you: Would you mind if I bring over a young gay friend who wants to get to know my boyfriend?" I asked him. "Good! I will be over in a couple of minutes." "Yeah, see you" I put the receiver on the cradle and jogged back to Daniel's room. "Everything's set up. We can meet at his place." "Cool," Daniel said. I looked at him and said, " Daniel we should get your stuff changed, I mean they are all ripped, torn and blood-soaked," I said and grinned. "Oops, I forgot. Let me get some fresh stuff." He went over to his cupboard and took a RL sweater, a T-Shirt, a pair of CK jeans and a fresh Levi's underwear out of it. He took off his sweater exposing his great looking chest which was partly bruised and ran with a towel to the shower. "You wanna shower with me? Oh I forgot you have a bf." he said and grinned heavily. I smiled hesitantly. At least he was back to his normal self. He took only a couple of minutes and he stepped out of the shower with the towel around his waist. His body was back clean but still the scars and bruises were left all over it. I looked somewhere else for I didn't want to stare at him too much. He changed and dried his hair. "Okay man, ready to go," he yelled and it really felt as if he was back to his normal self. Well a slightly different normal self. "Let's go then." We pushed the door close and were a bit worried about leaving his room this way. From outside the door looked as if it was closed, but actually the lock was completely busted and couldn't be locked anymore. "Thanx for breaking my door Kaneda." "Uh.. well,..." "No man, I am really glad you did it, might be that I had been lying there for another day.. who knows.. I definitely know now that you care about me," Daniel said and smiled at me. "Anytime," I said and smiled back. We went down and over to Georg's dorm. "What? He lives in here? Now that's close!" I didn't say anything to that, I again had luck for some students were chatting in the entrance of the building and the door was open. We slipped in and I pressed the button for the elevator. The doors opened and we went in. "Hey look at that line over there," I said to Daniel and while he turned around I pressed the button for the 12th floor. I wanted to keep him guessing who it was if he didn't have a clue yet. I was quite amused and was eagerly awaiting the reaction both of my friends would have, well my boyfriend and friend to say it correctly. Daniel tried hard to get what that guy meant and he wasn't done with thinking when the doors already opened. I dragged him out and we went right in front of Georg's apartment. "What??" "Ssht," I said. I knocked his door and 2 seconds later Georg opened the door. First he saw me and he smiled, then he noticed Daniel next to me, with all the bruises in the face and he got a worried look. And after this worried look, he realized that other aspect of Daniel. Daniel himself was still wondering. "Heh..," was the only thing Georg brought over his lips. "Before you two stand here for the next hours, let's move in." I dragged Daniel into Georg's room and shut the door. We 3 looked at each other, and it was me who broke the silence. "Daniel, may I introduce my boyfriend to you: Georg!" Daniel was smiling all over and Georg also started to smile. "I never thought you were gay!" both of them said, unisono, and started to laugh out loud. "Yeah we all 3 are gay and nobody knew of each other," I said and laughed a bit. "Daniel, you look bruised up, everything okay with you?" "Yeah, it looks more dangerous than it actually is, Kaneda helped me out a lot.. Let's not talk about me. Let's talk about you guys! When did you find out about each other?" Daniel asked with his big, curious eyes. "Well, that was.." I wanted to say when the telephone rang. "I bet it's.." Georg started. "Kevin!!!" we all shouted. This was real fun. Georg grinned, went to the phone and picked it up. "Hello?" "Yeah Kevin" "Yeah all 3 of us are here." "Okay, wait let me get a .. ah okay.. okay.. okay, we'll meet there in 5 minutes." "Guys, we better get going and take a look at our new apartment - Kevin want's us to be there in 5 minutes!" Georg said and the 3 of us went off to head towards the apartment Kevin meant. ----- To be continued? Actually this would be a nice end to the story and I want to make the 'continuation' dependent on you guys! If you want me to continue then drop me a mail telling me (address below)! Thanx in advance. :) -Toji, the lonely, Suzahara tsuzahara@yahoo.com