There were many adjectives one could use to describe Laney Sul, with her laser cut black hair and her even sharper black eyes, with her quick hands and even quicker brain. Patient was not one of them. With six standards of training off-world, she could curse volubly in the five languages she was fluent in—as opposed to the obligatory three for interstellar pilot certification—and she could curse in another four beyond that.

Since she'd paged her mother, she'd run through all the profanity she knew in six languages and was starting on the seventh when her comm unit finally beeped with an incoming tight beam. "Mom!" she said, connecting.

"Hello Laney. Did you need something?" Vana Sul raised an eyebrow with a touch of her own impatience, her hair hidden beneath a surgical cap and a mask loose around her neck. Purple, so it was Vandergeres. Probably testy, then, but Laney was in no mood to be considerate.

"Mom! It's impossible! I was top of my class all five standards, had the highest rating of anyone at practicals..."

"Oh, gods," Vana murmured with no expectation it would save her.

"I should not be floating around on garbage duty, shuttling lazy fat cats from station to station because they can't wait for the scheduled transports. It's a waste of my talents!"

Vana sighed. "You pulled me out of a packed day of Vandergere surgeries to tell me what I already know?"

"It's not fair! I'm certified for interstellar but no one will hire me without experience and I can't get experience if I can't get hired. Most of the guys I graduated with are already working the trade routes since they had people they knew in the business but I'm..."

"The daughter of an omnisurgeon. Yes, I know. You've complained to me before. No one made you become a pilot. What did you call me for?"

"I should have known you wouldn't understand. Multi-species surgeons like you never had to fight for anything."

Vana had been looking off screen at her chronometer, but she looked back at that, held her daughter's eyes with her blandest look. "Really? Know so much, do you? What do I tell you when you reap the fruits of your own choices and then complain to me about the consequences?"

"She can't help me."

"What do I tell you?" Vana persisted.

Laney grit her teeth. "Ask Hati."

"And that's what I'm telling you this time. I don't have time to hold your hand as you deal with the same paradox that has hounded fresh graduates since time immemorial. Your situation is neither dire nor unique. If you want insight into it and what you can do about it, ask Hati."

"You do realize grandma has been dead for seven standards, right?"

"Don't get snide with me, Laney. She was a talk show host and advice guru for decades before she passed. There's tons of information about her and from her for you to access since you're clearly hurting for something to fill your time. Which cannot be said about me. If you want to talk again, call me after work hours."

"But, Mom! She won't know anything about my situation. She was an entertainer!"

"If you'd ever once followed my advice, you'd know there was so much more to my mother than that. And I'm going to keep giving you the same advice until you take it and learn something. Signing off." The screen went blank.

Laney went back into her cursing right where she left off.

By the time she started on her last language of cursing, she stopped. She was, after all, a woman of action rather than complaint—though she wouldn't hit her mother up as a witness. It's not like she wasn't stuck in a parking orbit for the next thirty-two hours, or that she didn't have the whole data base on Hati Sul on her shipboard computer. Her mother had insisted.

Grandma Hati, in person, was a regular grandma, leaving her advice guru persona behind when it came to family. Laney couldn't remember a single time she gave Laney advice or tried to tell her what to do, nor could Laney remember seeing Hati advise Vana, but then Vana had always had a pretty damn strong streak of independence and pursued her own thinking. It was true that, as a family, they hadn't spent a lot of time together in person or even in contact, at least in Laney's memory. Hati was an interstellar celebrity and rarely came to visit, but Vana never missed a show and seemed genuinely disappointed that Laney hadn't been the slightest bit interested.

Oddly enough, Laney's disinterest, her rejection of Hati the celebrity was really because Laney loved her grandmother despite their infrequent contact. Bright, beautiful, kind, her grandmother was often a warm and comforting presence somewhat at odds with her mother's cool efficiency. Laney always thought the Hati she knew was different than the Hati the galaxy knew and loved and she didn't want to share or somehow sully her cuddly, non-judgmental grandma with hard reality. 

Clearly, her mother wanted her to dive into all aspects of Hati, but why? And what would be the point now? What would any version of Hati know about fighting a boy's club to become a pilot or swimming upstream in an industry where most people were legacy pilots and already had a leg up? It's not like Hati had ever had to struggle. Right?

But Laney did have a whole heaping helping of free time. And her grandmother had been dead some time, a fact Laney had grieved over for standards. If there was more to Hati, maybe Laney should know it. She plugged in the first of Hati's many shows on the video and started reading her first autobiography on a handheld at the same time.

Sixteen hours later, the comm beeped to let Laney know the VIP she was shepherding was going to stay where he was another two days so sit tight. Laney had been so lost in old videos, a biopic and autobiographical information, she'd completely lost track of time, of food, of sleep and might have read/watched until she'd dropped if that communication hadn't interrupted. 

She acknowledged the communication and stumbled toward her berth, mind reeling. There were tons of data, of course, lots of good common sense advice and worldly wisdom, but it was Hati's life story that really threw Laney off-balance.

At seventeen, newly orphaned and uneducated, I'd answered an ad for a new colonization effort. I'd be a mail order bride, partnering with a pioneer as we conquered a brave new world. Well, that was how it was supposed to be, how it sounded. In real life, a bunch of us girls with no ties or family to protest were tricked into becoming chattel for men, property as much as their homesteads, with no rights, no options but to do as we were told and make babies.

I didn't know it then. A lot of the colonization efforts went on like that. Sure, things were supposed to be all equal in the federation, but, as soon as someone said, "pioneer" the system reverted to the dark ages. No laws to protect us. No voice or support, there was no hope for us to ever come out of the slavery we'd been sold into unknowingly.

Well, that was the theory. Dram Sul probably hadn't reckoned on having his particular young wife coming in and changing things around whether he, or everyone else, liked it or not. But then, he didn't know Hati.

Turned out he didn't know Hati. Didn't know that Hati preferred to consent to sex and that even big beefy farmers had to sleep sometime. Or that a woman who grew up in a world where she was considered a full citizen, with rights and power, wasn't going to settle for becoming powerless or voiceless. They might have stripped her of her power, but they hadn't taken her voice.

But what a difference in perspective those hours had given Laney. Sure, Laney was in a dead end position with no ready path to the success she felt she should have. But Hati had been made a slave, handed over, body and soul, to a lout in a world where there was no one disposed to listen to her, where she had no legal recourse or options, not even family elsewhere to help her.

Laney's body was tired but her mind was still racing. Could she imagine it? Sure, her mother rolled her eyes at Laney plenty of times, but Laney knew that, if she called her mother in trouble even a fraction as dangerous as Hati's lot, her mother would move heaven and earth to fix it. Laney knew that before reading Hati's biography. Now she knew where her mother had learned it.

There was no one to move heaven and earth for Hati, so Hati bloody well moved it herself. What did that woman have in her that made her so strong?

After disposing of her predatory husband, the unlamented Dram Sul, Hati gathered other women who did not want to be slaves, who remembered a world where they were treated as human beings and, together, they worked Dram's farm. The more she had with her, the more likely they would be heard. When the "law" came to challenge Hati, the "law" found it was not going to be so easy. The women were smart and well-prepared, well-armed, and not about to back down readily. And Hati knew how to talk. The other male colonists, just like these women, had grown up in a world where women had the same rights as men. Some of the men were chagrined at the mistreatment or felt guilty. Some were convinced by Hati's logic and passion. Some, especially those that had no women of their own, became angry and were quite willing to aim their anger at their own "law".

The louder and more fervent the defense on why women were weaker and shouldn't stand on equal footing with men here in the wilderness, the more men found themselves sympathetic to Hati as she pointed out they'd run the farm without a hitch and were certainly strong enough that an envoy of the "law" hadn't been able to oust them.

The problem with powerlessness, especially in the legal realm, Hati's autobiography had said, is that, without any voice of your own, you're dependent on others to speak for you and use their power on your behalf. That is how women first got the rights that had been taken from us. And that's how we were able to convince others we were robbed. We could never have done so so quickly if others hadn't fought for our rights centuries before and then refought those battles whenever our rights were infringed. Just as we did.

Hati was just seventeen when she started this, when she stood up first to her husband and then to the colonial government. Seventeen. That was ten standards younger than Laney was now. Laney couldn't even imagine.

When Laney woke back up, unclear when she had actually fallen asleep, she shook her head. Seventeen when she stood against all those men. But Hati didn't change things overnight. Vana was eight when Hati was able to change the local government and regain the rights she'd been born with. It was another five standards, before Hati got off that farm and found herself as a representative of that same colonial government at the great Convention where Federation laws were made.

Instead of quiet, Hati was still noisy, still persuasive, still logical, and she pushed the Federation to include limitations on colonial governments to prevent what happened to her from happening to anyone else. To ensure there was oversight.

Laney wandered back to the bridge, munching on an energy bar, her second. Hati had been younger than Laney's mother was now when she was changing the way the Federation let colonies start, forcing them to ensure human rights were not infringed. Laney had always thought her mother a bit incredible, an overachiever, but Hati was something else entirely. Self-taught, self-motivated, compelled not just to save herself but to save everyone else who didn't have a voice. Women's rights transformed into alien rights, to robot rights, and then sentient rights. Hati spearheaded it all. No one was going to be mistreated, not if Hati could help it. And Hati could help it. Dram Sul wasn't ready for Hati. Turned out the universe probably wasn't either, or maybe it was. Maybe the universe had been building for millennia, just waiting for Hati to put it back into balance.

And Laney was all spun up about not flying to the stars.

Perspective really could make mincemeat of a paradox.

Over the next two days, over every waking hour, Laney read more of the dozen or so books her grandmother had written, watched more videos, some movies her grandmother had been involved with. As she ate pre-cooked food, Laney studied the sweet face with its laughing eyes, the woman she had grown up with, and watched those eyes grow hard or sharp or drown as she talked through issues, as she offered her unending wisdom, as she commiserated the misused.

Yet time and again, Hati credited those that came before her. The ones that had built the path she'd laid again, that made precedents and changed minds in a world where women had never had a voice, never made the world change, never had power. "They changed things," Hati said on one of her shows, "when they had no chance of success. They used every possible resource, every ounce of ingenuity and grit and patience. They spoke up when women were beaten for far less. They took beatings. They came back for more. They learned history and used examples. They fought with logic and with passion. They told their daughters to want more. They told their sons that their daughters deserved better. They cajoled and persuaded, they threatened and insulted, they stood firm and retreated as often and as hard as they needed to. They never gave up. That's the lesson I learned."

Hati looked directly into the camera and it was as if she was talking directly to Laney, using the voice that Laney had thought she would never hear again. "The key to destroying paradox is perseverance."

Hati turned back to her guests and smiled. "Women weren't the only ones who had these victories, of course, but we definitely had real battles and, in the end, we've won every one. We have our answer to the age old question on what would prevail, an immovable object or an irresistible force. The force, every damn time. We need to remember that, too, and never rest, assuming the war is over. It's only won as long as we stay vigilant. And we need to make sure everyone has those same rights, because rules that don't apply to everyone are meaningless."

The hair stood up on Laney's collar, along her arms and she shivered.

Her grandmother. So much power, so much strength and still so much humanity. There wasn't really a difference between the grandmother who had rocked her in a chair and read her stories from this woman who had forced the universe to conform to her idea of just.

When the comm beeped to let her know her charge was at last ready to move to his next locale, Laney took him without comment and slid neatly into the slot at the next station. Then, she took a pouch full of data chips, a slingbag of ship clothing, and her wallet, then tendered her resignation.

If Laney wanted to reach the stars, she'd never get there if she waited for them to come to her. Time to make her own destiny.

But first, she should call her mother.

From the anthology Legacy by Stephanie Barr

This story was written for a SF contest with a really stupid title prescribed (which I discarded), and premise that was, though I didn't really appreciate it at first, inherently sexist: Genetic changes so that women had the same physical and mental capabilities as men. (a) That's stupid. We already have the same genes (except women have an extra half chromosome) and (b) just the argument that women were inherently lesser in either physical or mental ability was insulting. Yes, on average, men are stronger, but none of them can carry a child. The argument that one is inherently "superior" is stupid. But my subconscious caught it right away and generated this story which was not only a slap in the face to the premise, but provides a reminder that the issue is far more complicated than many of us appreciate. It is not the first time or the last time, I took something ridiculous and took it to its logical conclusion.

Ella James brushed a hand through her short-cropped hair, then stole a glance through the open room. Everyone sat at a pristine workstation, in skin suits in case they had to enter the clean rooms. Each of her coworkers monitored a different aspect of the chip-making process, and it reminded her of her years sitting on console at mission control, both the concentration and the boredom. But, then as now, boredom meant things were going well.

Of course, when she worked for NASA, the gender equalization laws were in their infancy, and hormone treatments were still an aspect of future standardized healthcare. Dress codes had just barely been unified.

Now, even her sharp eyes couldn't determine the genders of her coworkers, some of whom she'd known for two years, with their clean faces, ubiquitous short haircuts and carefully controlled similar builds clearly visible in the close-fitting skin suits.

"Operator James," her earpiece barked, startling her. "Have you double-checked the sensors for the clean room?"

"They take readings from the atmosphere and feed them directly into the main servers," she answered, confused. "There are no flags on my screen." She touched the screen with her fingertips. "All measurements are reading normal. Humidity 11%, particulate at 0.3%." She stretched her shoulders. Her skin suit was tighter than normal under the arms due to her increased breast size. She found her large biceps brushed them a bit more than she expected and, with their sensitivity, she found it disquieting. The skin suits had more than enough stretch to them but she feared the change in center of gravity would affect her outsized musculature. Headaches would follow soon enough, or so she'd read.

Even though it was required by law, she hoped no one would notice for a few more days. She hated causing a stir.

"After the contamination escape last month in the Eastern facility, management is wanting us to verify sensor values at the sensor location at least once per shift," her boss said through the earpiece.

Overkill, of course, but that was their current mode. "Very well,"

Ella pulled on her skull-hugging hood and tucked in all her hair, then pulled on her gloves made of special material that wasn't prone to shedding. She slipped clean booties over her soft shoes and moved toward the sticky pad that welcomed her into the clean areas, areas where the delicate organic chips were fabricated in as pristine environment as possible. Whole libraries could reside on a chip the size of her pinky fingernail, but only if the environment was totally particulate and volatile free. She went through two air showers, making no sound with her bootied feet. She wore a mask over her entire face to preclude skin flakes and hair from contributing to any contamination. The mask was hot and hard to see through, but better than losing a batch of Q-chips.

Her baggied hand-held monitor showed the parameters from the server. She went in person, pushed the test button on the sensor array, noted the blip on her handhold in response, and then both screen and wall-mounted readouts returned to their original values in total sync. As per protocol, she inspected the assembly line, looking for loose debris or dust but it was as clean as she could tell with the near-naked eye.

She'd pulled off her mask in the second air shower going back, but was deep in thought, though she'd be hard-pressed to say what she was thinking about. That's how she missed him. Her?

"Everything fine?" her boss asked her, dressed in a similar skin suit, face devoid of makeup or really any sign what gender he might be. As the law required.

Ella gasped and clutched her chest, her heart pounding. The sound of the air shower had totally masked her boss' approach. "Oh, yes," Ella said. "You startled me. I didn't see you come up."

"We haven't had a slip up in our lab. I want to keep it that way."

Her boss, Adlis, narrowed his eyes, then studiously kept them above Ella's neck. "Have you been taking your hormone shots? Your gender is becoming apparent and the laws state that, unless you are currently cleared for procreation…"

Wordlessly, Ella lifted her hand, palm out, and removed her glove. In her palm, the inset chip glowed blue. "We were cleared two months ago. I hid it as long as I could."

"Ah," Adlis said in his genderless contralto. "That changes things, of course. I didn't mean to offend you."

After the impact misogyny had been recognized to have had on a pivotal United States presidential election, and the view that discrimination in the workplace had been deeply ingrained, new laws had been adopted that required all personnel, not actively procreating, to have a specially designed hormone cocktail that gave men a bit of apparent breast and helped women grow muscles in much the same way men did. Facial hair had been strictly forbidden for all but small businesses and makeup and gender specific clothes had been prohibited to preclude mistreatment.

She'd always found it ironic that the laws that changed how gender was viewed and addressed at the workplace had been a direct result of the stupidest, most corrupt, most sexist President in modern American history. A number of laws had fallen out from that truncated Presidency: conflict of interest, corruption, transparency, independent review, press honesty and completeness. He had changed things more drastically than any President before or since. Ella James had often wondered if that was a comfort for him during his stay in Leavenworth.

Proposals had been made to adjust mental acuities but there was not enough data proving genetic links. More studies concluded, well within a generation, that, if children received no different treatment from birth, there was no statistical difference in any field of academics. Some parents had even opted not to know their own child's gender and special nurses were used. Automated baby changers/bathers were becoming popular.

There were undoubtedly many pluses, but much of the individuality she'd grown up with was lost. Though, admittedly, now that people had to get to know each other, the rates of violence had dropped precipitously. And the advantages weren't limited to women.

This radical change also helped actual transgendered employees, gay employees, and managed to eliminate the stigma for same sex marriage as people took that same thinking outside the work place. Few couples, nowadays, could be definitively pegged as heterosexual. Racial and religious stigmas still existed, but it was harder to make the argument when just genderless appearance erased misogyny almost overnight.

One of the other side effects was universal pregnancy prevention as becoming pregnant—or impregnating another—required coming off the hormone regime. And, being excused from the hormone treatments could only be cleared legally by screenings prior to having children not unlike the screen that had once been limited to potential adopters.

Pregnancy, however, made gender neutral efforts moot…unless, the process was shared by all. "I'm sorry."

Adlis sighed, but quickly added, "Of course, you haven't done anything wrong. Two months, you say? I'll have the empathy suits prepared. Fortunately, we don't have physically demanding jobs and can readily adjust." Adlis sighed again. "I hate when the random symptom generator gives me morning sickness, though. Here's hoping."

"I managed to avoid it," Ella said, hoping that would help.

"That does improve the odds," Adlis said, with a smile. "What is it your husband does now?"

"High rise construction," Ella said.

"Oh, my."

*

"Damn it, Bryce. I know it's not your fault, I mean, yeah, you're as entitled as the next person to have a kid. But still, we just finished one for Peterson who had her baby six weeks ago. I had to take a nausea pill for four months! Four months! Do you know how much harder this job is with a seven-month belly in front of you? And barfing?" The foreman, Rawler, was fuming.

"Peterson—" Michael Bryce, Ella James' husband, said, but was cut off.

"Yeah, I know Peterson did it, but now we've all got to do it, too. Again. It's stupid to make the husband wear an empathy suit on the job and then affect the whole work place."

"You know, women have been dealing with all this at the work place for generations," Miller said.

"Did I ask you, Miller? I mean, why are you even part of this conversation? Overkill! That's what it is, overkill!"

"Let me guess, you blame the liberals?" Miller said. Bryce was pretty certain Miller was female but she was taller than the foreman, Rawler, by a head and was the best welder they had. She loved to needle Rawler.

"Hell, no, I don't blame liberals. This is all backlash from that ass and his party's rampant extremism. Damn fools never learned a thing from history. Never heard of Robespierre? But it's still stupid."

"Robespierre? I'm impressed, Rawler."

"Smartass. Anyone can read, y'know. Isn't that the point of all this nonsense, not to judge people by their appearance?"

Miller grinned. "Touché. You remind me why I married you."

"Stop distracting me. I'm talking to Bryce here. Explain to me why a husband, balancing on metal girders thousands of feet in the air, needs to wear an empathy suit for a wife in a nice cushy office somewhere."

"But I won't know what it's like…"

Rawler cut him off with a gesture. "Yes you do. You wore one just six weeks ago, but at least she was actually here and pregnant. This is just silly."

"It's the law," Bryce said.

"Yeah, I know. Even with the best intentions, everything can be taken too far. Here's hoping I don't get morning sickness again."

The handheld symptom generator dinged.

"Sciatica! Damn it, Bryce!"

Part I of Legacy

He felt more than saw the light on the side of his face as he scrubbed the Torii. He heard Ryuuji's gasp below him, but he was already turning toward it, that impossible blossom of crimson and orange over the city like another sun. He felt fear, panic, disbelief, awe, enough that he lost his balance and sent them both toppling backwards on their slim ladder.

There was no sound. Even before, a part of his mind had been noting the silence, no birds, no insect, nothing until Ryuuji's gasp and then the blast of hellish light, all played in extreme slow motion, as if he could see each molecule move as the world came to an end, as he fell backwards, his friend's fingers reaching for his own. If Ryuuji cried out again as they fell, it was lost in the slowness as the world exploded before him and he fell endlessly to the unforgiving ground.

And all went black.

Daiki Omoto woke with a start and nearly crashed to the floor. Sleeping on a stool again! With luck—and practice—he had avoided a tumble but he was getting too old to take these kinds of chances. Better to put a pillow on the counter and stop pretending he could stay up until ten any more.

The windows across the front of the tiny coffee shop showed the fitful light of a streetlamp, obscured and made into modern art by sheets of rain and put to shame by the infrequent glare of lightning. Perhaps, thunder woke him.

The bell at the door sounded. Surprised that he'd missed someone approaching, even more so that they would come during such a downpour, Omoto poured out the coffee pot and started work on something fresh, as the someone stumbled in and sloshed forward to the counter. Omoto tossed him a towel before he could sit, and then another when the newcomer obediently covered the stool before sitting. But the soaked figure made no move to pick up the second towel.

As the coffee started perking, Omoto wordlessly unplugged his space heater and moved it to where the teenager sat, then plugged it in and turned it on. "Kyle-san?"

Huddled in his soaked hoodie, the boy jerked up. "O-san."

Omoto pointed to Kyle's hoodie. "Why not take off your wet clothes and use the towel? You must be freezing."

Kyle's face was whiter than even his normal pallor under a sopping shaggy mop of ineptly dyed black hair. Half a dozen earrings flashed silver in an ear pink with cold. His fingers shook as he wrestled the zipper down and surrendered the soaked jacket to Omoto's hands. Omoto sidestepped the nylon duffel bag without comment as he hung the jacket on the coat tree and handed Kyle the towel. "Coffee?"

"Uh, yeah," Kyle said, and reached into his black jeans, then sifted through wet crumpled bills, three ones and a ten.

"On the house," Omoto said softly, moving back behind his counter.

For the first time, Kyle turned his gaze on Omoto. Omoto was struck again by Kyle's shockingly beautiful eyes, birds' egg blue and framed with black lashes, in an otherwise ordinary teenage face. The boy's surprise was replaced quickly with feigned disdain. "O-san, you've got the last place in America that still serves coffee for fifty cents. With free refills. I can afford…"

"Kyle-san, I think you will need all the money you have." Omoto glanced at the duffel bag and then looked back into Kyle's eyes squarely. "Want to talk about it?"

Kyle's lower lip jutted, not unlike a stubborn toddler's. "And if I don't?"

"The coffee will still be free. And you are welcome to stay until you are dry or the rain lets up."

"Might take all night."

"If you need a place to stay, you can stay as long as you like."

"No strings? No questions?"

Omoto didn't really need to ask them. "You do not have to tell me anything you do not want to tell me."

Kyle's father had been coming to Omoto's coffee shop for a decade, often with Kyle in tow. When Kyle entered high school, he and some of his other friends, "goths" they called themselves, started coming because it was cheap. Quiet. Omoto thought they felt comfortable here. Omoto pushed a cup of fresh coffee toward him. Added two spoons of sugar.

Kyle cradled the cup in his cold fingers then sipped. Savored.

Omoto nodded, satisfied. "I will get the futon ready in the back. Here, take this sweater for now."

"O-san?" Kyle took the sweater, but seemed afraid to look up.

Omoto waited. The boy needed to talk.

"Have you ever lost everything? I mean, everything important to you in your life?"

Omoto returned to his stool on his side of the bar and poured himself a cup of coffee. Added cream. "Yes." He offered Kyle the warmest smile he could. "Yes. Twice."

"I mean everything."

Omoto pointed to the picture enshrined at the end of the counter, behind a bowl of sand with burnt incense sticks sprouting from it. Rather than a face, a mushroomed cloud bloomed in black and white, snaking up on a ridiculously long stem from the unseen carnage below.

"What's that?" Kyle asked.

"Nagasaki. When I was your age, I lived there when they destroyed it with one bomb and killed every member of my family. My mother, two sisters and two brothers."

"No way! For real?"

"Very real."

Kyle moved closer and peered at it. "Why you got a picture of a bomb that killed your family in your damn coffee shop?"

"In my culture, we set a shrine for our lost loved ones, pictures of them, but they were all destroyed by the bomb. So, this is how I remember them."

Kyle regarded him, first with fascination, then with disgust. "Nuh-unh. Damn it, you almost got me. If you were really there, you couldn't talk about it, not so calm and shit."

Omoto met his eyes without flinching. "Kyle, that was seventy years ago, and I've made my peace with it. And terrible events, if they aren't discussed, if the old don't remind the young about them, leave the door open for them to happen again. I'll tell you anything you want to know."

Kyle looked up at the picture, amazed. "I didn't think anyone lived through that! Wasn't that, like, the worst bombing ever? I mean you were actually nuked and lived to tell the tale."

"It was not as much of an adventure as you make it sound. Those of us who survived were kept in emergency camps, like refugee camps, as our shrine became. My friend and I slept in what was a dining hall, laid out on futons on the floor."

Omoto paused and remembered the nightmares right after the bombing, when it was still so fresh that he woke up stifling his screams so no one else would be disturbed. His friend, Ryuuji, always knew when nightmares woke Omoto though he slept elsewhere with his grandfather.

Ryuuji's hand gripped his shoulder. Daiki's waning fear and sense of loss were replaced by an emotion he'd known far longer, longing. That was his own secret that he would never share with his best friend, never share with his dearest love, who were one and the same. With the longing came the guilt that he rejoiced that Ryuuji still lived even if so many others had perished.

"Daiki! You are not alone!"

"I'm alright," Daiki hissed, wishing he didn't sound angry. "Just a dream."

"You should sleep with us, so I don't have to wade through the dark when you dream."

Daiki shook his head. Ryuuji never sounded sad, never sounded angry. Like the sun on a cloudy day. "Yes, yes."

"One yes will do, smarty. Come with me this time, and no argument."

Daiki sighed and silently picked up his pillow and blanket, little comfort on the worn tatami floor of the shelter. Daiki stepped carefully so he would wake no one, and was grateful that the darkness provided an excuse to hold Ryuuji's hand.

Before that day only a week before, Daiki had never seen Ryuuji cry. Or seen him silent as he was when they'd climbed down the mountain as fires raged on the landscape, the bustling heart of the city wiped clean from the face of the earth. The air stank of smoke and burnt flesh, burnt oil, burnt everything. Daiki had felt the tears stream, unchecked, down his own filthy face as he could readily see there would be nothing to find. Everyone they knew, save Ryuuji's grandfather—left screeching his frustration at the shrine—had been in that portion of Nagasaki that was naught but scorched earth. But Ryuuji made no sound, shed no tear until he stood in the empty patch of ground where once his mother and father had lived, his baby sister had played. Where his brothers had teased him. He knelt in the shattered dust without so much as a hairpin to show that people had ever been there, and wept raucous harsh sobs that tore through Daiki as his own silent tears could not.

Only when Ryuuji had wept and rocked for hours on his knees as Daiki stood over him, afraid to touch him, afraid to leave him in his grief, did Ryuuji stumble back to his feet and throw himself on Daiki. "You are not alone, Daiki." It was the first time Ryuuji had forgone the honorific in the seventeen years they had known each other. He was making Daiki family.

"You are not alone."

In the week since, Ryuuji had made it a mantra in a hellish world where all was loss and deprivation.

"Were you hurt?"

Omoto blinked his way back to the present. Even awake, his memories sometimes felt more real than today.

"No. Ryuuji—that was my friend—and I were cleaning a shrine on a hill and were shielded from the blast. I fell off my ladder when it flashed and was knocked out before the sound of it even reached me."

"Did you get all radiation sick and your hair fall out? Or wander around with your skin coming off like zombies?"

"No." Omoto left just a touch of censure in his voice. "But I saw those that were. Burned, shredded, sickened, ruined. I saw them all. I saw the shadows of where men had once been, their images burned into the ground but their bodies turned to dust and blown away. Everywhere, the scent of burning, death and decay. Not the same as your video games when the pain is real."

"Shit. Sorry, O-san."

"My family worked in the factories, the ones the bomb was targeting. My mother and two sisters lived at home by the factories. They were all gone."

"What about your dad?"

"He had already died in the war. Lost at sea."

"Damn. Man, I'm sorry, O-san. I mean, I know they're bad memories, but to have lived through a real nuclear explosion! Hell, how old are you?"

"Eighty-seven. I can remember now without pain, but it was hard then. It was hard for all Japan, but hardest for us hibakusha, those of us that survived an atomic bomb. Japan hated us, too, afraid that we were monsters. Ashamed that our cities caused Japan to surrender. If not for my friend and his grandfather, I would have been alone. He lost his family, too, but his grandfather lived for a time before the radiation got him."

Omoto could see Kyle dying to ask more, but was at least conscious that it might be offensive. "His death was not exciting. He was sick that day, most of us were, and the next, then seemed to be better, before dying a month later, bleeding, swelling with his skin purpling. It is not a nice way to die."

"Way harsh. And then it was just you and your friend."

"Yes, Ryuuji and me."

"So, how did you end up in America? I mean, don't you, like, hate us, for killing your family and shit?"

"Ryuuji's grandfather was a famous engineer who designed many weapons of war. I remember him as a proud man. When Ryuuji and I were thirteen, O-san went to support Japan in the war in China and, when he came back, he was a different man. His face was not older, but his eyes were, old and broken. When Ryuuji's grandmother died, he retired, shaved his head, and became a monk."

"What, a Catholic?"

"Buddhist. It was because he wanted us to help in the shrine that summer that we were there and not destroyed with the rest. O-san was cleaning the path to the shrine and had no protection. He stared into the blast and it blinded him. Even when the radiation sickness returned, he never complained. When he lay dying, soaked in his own blood he'd coughed up that we had no way of cleaning, he told Ryuuji, 'This. Hate caused this.'"

The hand that had been shriveled with age and toil was swollen now with blood beneath the skin. Still, even swollen, the fingers gripped Ryuuji's sleeve desperately. "Hate did this."

"O-san!" For the second time, Ryuuji wept, shattered by sobs as he bent over his failing grandfather.

"Listen, Ryuuji. It is hate. When you hate so much that you kill the children, the wives, of your enemy and leave their homes as dust, it is a profound hate. And through that hate, others will learn to hate you for your callousness and cruelty. Hatred such that this can be done to your city and family, and the world will turn away from your pain because it is the child of your own hatred. It is always thus, hatred spawning hatred, feeding more hatred, feeding on itself. No end. No peace. No justice for the crimes always escalate."

He choked on more blood and Daiki could see he was fading, but his blind eyes were as intense as they'd ever been, as if they could still see Ryuuji, still compel him with their power. "Always, endlessly feeding on itself. No one is so strong that he cannot taste the hatred of the enemies his hatred has created."

Ryuuji could say nothing, only sob. But he listened.

"You must stop it, Ryuuji. You and Daiki-kun. You must change the world."

Ryuuji couldn't speak, so Daiki spoke for him. "How, O-san?"

"You must turn from your own hatred. Hatred breeds hatred, but kindness also breeds its own. Everyone who turns away from hate, everyone who chooses to change, makes the world better." The hand was losing its grip, shaking so badly Ryuuji shook as well. "Learn! Learn, and hate no more."

"O-san?"

Omoto smiled, as best he could. "Sorry, Kyle-kun. Sometimes, the memories take over."

"You're crying." Kyle sounded awed.

Omoto didn't bother to wipe the tears or try to check the flow. "It was a very sad day, but a very important lesson. Ryuuji, who had always been kind, became more so. And I, I eventually left my hate behind. I was not so quick as Ryuuji, but it was ever thus."

"So, how did you come here?"

Omoto calmed himself as he refilled their cups. "When the Americans came, Ryuuji and I ended up working for them. Ryuuji's grandfather had insisted we learn Chinese, English, Korean. 'If you know your enemy's language, you know your enemy,' he would say. And we were both very good at math, half-way to engineers already. So the Americans found us useful."

"So, they helped you?"

"Well, yes, but it was mostly Ryuuji convincing them." Omoto chuckled. "Ryuuji could talk anyone into anything. Even making them take me, too."

Ryuuji wiped the blood from his lip and leapt back to his feet, nimble from his years of judo. Without fear, he came back, toe-to-toe with the hulking American corporal standing a good head above him, backed by several other soldiers. But he did not fight or point.

"You already beat me," Ryuuji said. "You already beat all of Japan. Why you need beat me again? Anyone bigger or stronger can beat someone already beaten. But can you change me? Can you make me believe your way is better? See, that would be something."

"Why should I bother with a piece of Jap trash like you? You're already beaten," the corporal snarled.

"Beating me again and again, you win nothing new. But, change me, and you have a whole new victory."

The corporal spat on him and shoved him aside. Daiki saw how easily Ryuuji could have taken him down, but he chose not to. Ryuuji didn't fall but spun on the balls of his feet to stand again, just an arm's length away. "You give up too easy, American."

The corporal clenched his fists and advanced but stopped at a barked from someone behind them, "Hold there, soldier."

The corporal stopped, stared, then saluted. "Colonel!"

Chewing around a truly noxious cigar, the Colonel jerked his head. "You men are dismissed."

The soldiers left with alacrity, leaving Ryuuji to face the Colonel. "Want to be changed, do ya, Jap kid? What is it you're aiming for?"

"University. In the States. We smart and can do good things for peace, not war."

The Colonel, grizzled, hair cut close to the scalp, studied Ryuuji and puffed on his cigar. "Peace, eh? What makes you think I'd trust you to do that?"

"Because that's how you prove you've really won."

The Colonel snorted, nodding at Daiki. "You too, kid?"

Daiki found himself addressed for the first time. "Yes, yes, sir. I want to learn."

The Colonel spat, but not on anyone. "Shit, son, if you and your friend could learn peace, I, for one, would be grateful."

Kyle took a deep breath, breaking Omoto's reverie. "I'm gay."

"Oh, yes, I know. Cookie?"

Kyle jerked his head up again, his eyes laser bright. "You knew?"

Omoto laughed and tapped his temple with his finger. "I am old, not blind. Have a cookie." When the boy kept staring, he chuckled again. "I know what it means when a man looks as you do at his friend. As I used to."

"You're gay?"

"It is not just a modern condition. But it does mean you have no reason to fear any judgment from me."

The shock faded from his eyes, but they were still wary. "You're not…?"

Omoto sighed gustily. "I do not prey on frightened boys, no."

Omoto's irritation evaporated as the boy's stiffness fluttered away, real regret in eyes already filling with tears, "Shit, I'm sorry, O-san. I just—I mean, I can't—!"

Omoto made no move to touch him, much as he wanted to comfort him, but offered him the plate of cookies and refilled his cup. Added sugar. "Have a cookie, Kyle, and more coffee. And tell me what happened. You will feel better."

Kyle stirred the coffee, lost in thought. Without looking up, he said, "You know Brian, right?"

Omoto knew him, of course, but played along. "Dyed bright red hair? Likes leather?"

Kyle's smile was wry. "That's the one. I mean, I've never felt comfortable with girls and I've always been more interested in guys, but it wasn't pressing, you know. And then, my freshman year of high school, I bump into Brian and—bam!—I was in love. Tried to play it cool, be friends, be grateful just to be in his clique 'cause, you know, I was pretty sure he was straight. Always had a girl or three hangin' on him. Always meant to keep it to myself. But we were graduating in a couple of months and he's going to fuckin' Michigan. Michigan! And I started thinking it was better to tell him and try than to lose him anyway and never know."

Omoto nodded as Kyle slurped his coffee. "Wise decision."

"Yeah, I guess. I mean it was. Bryan said he was bi, liked guys just as much as girls and that he really cared about me. He was my first and I love the shit out of him, so I'm not sorry. Even if I never see him again, I'm not sorry."

"Never be sorry for loving someone. Even if they betray you, never be sorry."

"Yeah." Kyle looked up at him, again. "Spooky how you know so much."

"Isn't it?" Omoto helped himself to a cookie. "It is because I am old."

"Yeah. Maybe. Anyways, earlier today, after meeting up with Brian, I came home and my old man had found my stash."

"Your stash? Drugs?" Omoto let his own surprise leak into his voice.

"No, not drugs, magazines, you know, condoms and lube. Stash. Stuff that screams, 'I'm gay!'" He laughed but it was a joyless sound. "I mean I'm almost a cliché, gay here in San Francisco. But my dad has to be one of those that hates gays."

He stopped, took a sip, broke a cookie in half but didn't eat it. Omoto wondered if Kyle was waiting for a prompt, but Kyle continued, "I should have denied it. Said I was holding them for a friend, but I didn't want to. Brian loved me and I wanted to be myself without apologizing, so I admitted it, bragged about it."

Omoto waited. It was not the first time he'd heard this story from one kid or another, but it always touched him. And he'd never heard it where he was certain of the ending. Some parents came around. Some left their children adrift, shorn of acceptance from those they most trusted.

"So, he threw me out. I mean, I wasn't really surprised. I thought, 'I'm okay.' Got a scholarship to Stanford already. I can make it. Brian will—" He choked and the tears that had only threatened began to pour. "I thought Brian loved me, that he'd take me in at least until I could get a place to stay."

Omoto handed him a napkin. "But he did not."

"He said he couldn't be outed. He's got a football scholarship, y'know, and… "

Omoto scurried off his stool, and came 'round the counter, gathering Kyle into his arms, just holding the boy so he could cry. The sobs were like Ryuuji's and it struck him that losing your family because they reject you was hardly better than just knowing they were gone. In some ways, it was more painful to lose a family by their own choice.

Omoto had always regretted leaving Ryuuji alone to his tears that day in Nagasaki. Since then, Omoto had learned how important it was not to feel alone at that moment, how much he'd abandoned Ryuuji, and how Ryuuji had forgiven him by adopting him and making him part of a family again.

If Kyle needed a family, Omoto would be one for him. No one should be alone.

When the sobs subsided, Omoto supported him off the stool and walked him with him behind the counter. "Have you eaten?" Omoto said as he maneuvered him to the back room.

"Can't eat."

"Fair enough. Here, sit here. I will get you some pajamas and you can get changed in the bathroom while I get blankets for the futon."

"Thank you, O-san."

"You are welcome, Kyle-kun."

When Kyle came out, in pajamas that fit other than being too short, Omoto could see that he was exhausted. Omoto fussed him into bed.

"Why are you always smiling?" Kyle said, eyes slitted with impending sleep. "So many horrible things happened to you."

"Ryuuji taught me."

"You love him?"

"Yes."

"Where is he now?" but he wasn't awake for the answer that Omoto didn't want to give him anyway.

Part I: Dragon's Breath
Part IIa: Shelter from the Storm

Omoto closed the door softly, then contemplated closing the shop. It was not yet ten, but the rain made more visitors unlikely and he felt very tired, very old. Too old. His tiny apartment upstairs beckoned, with his books and his tablet and his bed much softer than the futon Kyle slept on. Poor kid. Over the past forty-two years, many kids had slept on it and the cots and futons that had come before that.

Too many.

Parents in America seemed eager for an excuse to turn away from their own children. Some kids had been gay. Some had been pregnant. Some brutalized. Some just damaged. Some were estranged for the dumbest reasons. A few parents came to find their children, bring them home.

Too few.

No one went from Omoto's futon to the streets. That was for Omoto's own sense of justice. And for Ryuuji.

Ryuuji. He'd been dreaming of him more and more.

When Omoto had lost literally everything, he had had Ryuuji. And for twenty-eight years, Ryuuji had been the center of his world. They had roomed together through university, helping each other learn the nuances of American English in a very unfriendly place.

They went everywhere together. Ryuuji said he was lonely, but Omoto knew he just wanted to protect his adopted brother. He didn't trust Omoto to keep his temper in check. And Ryuuji was right. Omoto's anger and resentment were always boiling just below the surface.

So, Ryuuji came, calming things down, smiling and bowing, standing between Omoto and a beating or jail. Ryuuji never lost his temper, never struck back, even though he took more than his share of blows, never complained, even to Omoto.

Through grad school, they roomed and talked and studied, and Omoto couldn't help but feel his rage recede in the face of Ryuuji's acceptance and patience and never-ending understanding. He'd lost everything but Ryuuji, but Ryuuji was enough.

Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, after they had each gotten Ph.D's, Ryuuji in nuclear physics of all things and Omoto in this strange new world of computing, they parted. Ryuuji went to supervise safety in a nuclear and rocket test facility thirty miles outside of Los Angeles. And Omoto? He taught and researched and patented as a full professor at CalTech. They were not so far from each other that they couldn't meet regularly for beers or coffee.

And they did.

But Omoto remembered years of dreading to hear that Ryuuji had found someone and would start a new family. One where Omoto had no part.

"Why do we always have to meet at this shithole in the middle of nowhere?" Daiki grumbled into the beer he'd been nursing as Ryuuji sat next to him. It was how Daiki always greeted him every time they met on the weekend.

Ryuuji grinned. "Because it is quiet, just a few farmers, and convenient for me and my challenging schedule. And no one knows either of us here." He looked up at the barkeep. "Two more drafts please."

When Daiki said, "But what about me?" Ryuuji laughed and gestured to a booth in the far corner, a mug of beer in either hand.

"Unlike a highly respected genius in the computing world, I do not get to set my own hours and do things at my leisure. That is why you indulge me this way. Why don't you pick a booth and wait for me there, instead of waiting at the bar? I'll find you."

"And why a nuclear genius like you wastes his time checking for radiation badges and hard hats at a nuclear facility, I will never know. Did you not get enough radiation in Nagasaki?"

"I cannot let it blow up and kill you."

It sounded like a joke, should have been a joke. But there was no laughter in Ryuuji's eyes.

Daiki couldn't help wishing it was true.

"Do you realize you are thirty-five years old tomorrow?" Daiki asked to cover his own blush. "Why have you not found some patient woman to settle down with?"

"What about you? You turned thirty-five last month."

Daiki looked him squarely in the eye. "You know why."

Ryuuji's lips quirked. "I know why you have not found a woman, but why not a partner?"

Daiki shrugged. "I have partners, but no one I want to introduce to you."

"No one you want to make your family?" Ryuuji smiled. "It's the same with me. There are women, but none of them are worthy to introduce to you as your sister."

"Stupid. Brothers go and find their own families, without worrying about the comfort of their loved ones."

"I will not leave you alone, Daiki. Not now. Not ever."

For the millionth time, the urge to tell Ryuuji he loved him, in every possible human way including sexually, all but strangled Daiki. Did strangle him, because he knew Ryuuji knew. And, because Ryuuji knew and said nothing, Daiki was not going to gamble with the most important relationship he'd ever have.

Not now. Not ever.

But he believed Ryuuji. When they parted that night, Daiki knew there'd be another one, that he'd see Ryuuji the next week. That Ryuuji would not leave him alone.

The bell rang violently, and Omoto, drooling on his own counter, woke with a start. He didn't glance at the clock but suspected it was after closing time. He straightened his skewed glasses at the sopping figure in a black raincoat. The figure didn't move like a teenager. "I’m sorry," Omoto said briskly. "We are closing early tonight."

"O-san!"

Two things stopped Omoto and made him turn back to his coffee pot. First, Omoto could not miss the desperation in that voice. Secondly, he knew that voice. It belonged to Kyle's father.

Omoto tossed some towels on the counter and rinsed out the pot. "Put your coat up and dry off, Daniel-san"

Omoto had taken Kyle's duffel to the back but his wet hoodie still hung on the coat tree. "O-san! He's here?"

"Do not shout," Omoto said, as the coffee began perking. "And do not drip."

Kyle's father, hung up his rain coat and started dabbing at his drenched hair. "I need to see him!"

Omoto shuffled over to the front door, clicked off the open sign and locked the door. "He is sleeping. And he will stay sleeping unless I think there is a good reason to wake him. When he wakes, I will tell him you came, if I feel telling him won't hurt him more."

"This is none of your business! How dare—!"

"Tsk!" Omoto's upheld hand was implacable. "Your child came into my shop, alone and unloved, feeling he had lost everything. Do you know what that feels like? I do. So it is my business to make sure that you do not have the opportunity to make him feel that way again."

Daniel stood, agape, perhaps stunned by a fury he'd never before seen from Omoto. Good.

"You know why he left?" Daniel said, his manner stiff.

"Yes. The key question is can you accept your son as he actually is with no hidden resentment? Or will you turn your back on him and go back to your home to contemplate what went wrong?" Omoto poured coffee, but did not offer cookies.

"Those are my only choices?"

"Yes, and by 'what went wrong' I mean 'What is so wrong with you that you would turn your back on your child or make him feel he is any way unworthy?'" Omoto sipped his own cup, inwardly pleased that it was a little bitter. "Another choice, where you let him come back resentfully but remind him he failed you and eat away at his sense of self for your own sense of self-righteousness is pure poison to a kid like Kyle, so that is not one I'll give you."

"You have no authority here." Daniel should have sounded angry. He looked surprised, actually, that he didn't.

Daniel had been a friend a long time, a good customer. Omoto spoke more gently than he might have. "Everyone has the authority to insist on kindness. To protect those that are hurting and provide them shelter. If you can only hurt him, I will not let you, for your sake as much as his." Omoto sipped again. "Someday, because you have a good heart, you would regret the pain you caused him. And the hole you rip in your own heart."

"He's gay."

"Yes, I know. But he is the same caring, untidy, thoughtless child he was yesterday."

"His mother took off when he was five. Kyle's all I have in the world."

"All the more reason to treasure him."

"Where did I go wrong?"

"By thinking your son does you a disservice by being himself."

"Do you have any idea how hard it is for gays in this society? Even here in San Francisco? He's making his life so much harder than it has to be."

"He made nothing. His life is so much harder than it has to be because people do not accept. Because telling his own father, his own family, could cost him everything he has. Because people he loves may be unwilling to acknowledge him for fear they, too, will be stigmatized. None of that was his doing. He did nothing more than be himself."

Daniel sipped, grimaced, and sipped again. "That sounds like the voice of experience."

"It is. But I had something your son did not. I had someone who would not turn his back on me, who never let me feel alone. Who became my family when I had lost everything."

Daniel glanced up at the picture. "You were there, weren't you? I've never seen anyone else post a picture of the mushroom cloud. Was it Hiroshima?"

"Nagasaki."

"And you're gay?"

"I have always been gay. I do not think it changed the taste of the coffee or the caliber of my programming and computer designs. I was still the same person in all the years you have known me."

"And this person, he was your lover?"

"He was someone who accepted me as I was." Omoto shrugged. "You could do the same for your son if your own heart was big enough."

"I don't want him to suffer."

"He could pretend he was not gay, and he would suffer, wondering why people could not love him as he was. He could be overtly gay and also be ostracized. The suffering remains either way because the option he does not have is to be something else." Omoto sighed. "He would suffer less if he knew someone accepted him, someone he loved. His family."

Daniel sipped.

Omoto, started to tidy up, leaving Daniel with his thoughts. He wondered if Ryuuji ever struggled with his acceptance. Ryuuji never showed it, but then, he wouldn't.

"I cannot believe you still make me come out to this shithole every weekend," Daiki groused into his beer. "Or why you still work at that nuclear plant. They do not even use it to make power anymore."

"They still use it to make nuclear material and toxic waste. Someone has to keep it safe."

Daiki sighed. "I could get you a job tomorrow at CalTech. Or several up and coming companies. Several owe me a favor or want access to my patents. Hell, I have plenty from that already. We could retire and see the world."

"We have seen it," Ryuuji said. "And we are only forty-five. It is too early to retire."

"We have seen part of it. It's not all ugly."

"Tsk." Ryuuji said, and smacked his mug down with a snap that made it slosh. "It is not ugly at all. Always so gloomy."

Daiki found himself swallowing the pain as Ryuuji gave him a tragic smile, tears in his eyes. "Daiki, is it my fault? Am I the reason you can never be truly happy?"

Daiki cleared his throat, hurt beyond measure at the sadness in Ryuuji's eyes, and tried to laugh it off. "What do you mean? You just have lousy taste in dives."

"You love me, right, Daiki?" Ryuuji had gone back to Japanese. "All this time, you have loved me. Why have you never said so?" He gripped Daiki's hand so Daiki couldn't turn away.

"I did not want to lose you." Daiki couldn't say it in Japanese. It was too painful.

"Did you think you could?"

Daiki struggled to find an answer, struggled not to be overcome by elation at what he thought Ryuuji was saying to him.

"Jeeesus Christ, we got a couple of faggots here. Bad enough you gooks have been making free use of this place for years while our best and brightest travel across the world to kick your sorry asses." The man, large, muscular, wore denim and plaid, and a filthy white cap stained repeatedly by sweat. His eyes were cold, same denim blue as his jeans, and his hair was blonde and straggly. His muscled arms writhed with tattoos, military tattoos. He was flanked on either side by a similarly dressed buddy. "But when you start to get smoochy, you're asking for a good ol' American beating."

"Please," Ryuuji said in his most conciliating voice. "My friend and I were just leaving."

"I can just guess what you and your little faggot friend were off to do. Makes me sick."

"We mean no one any harm."

"Well you did harm me. My beer tastes like piss now. And I'm going to pound some yellow faces in to get the taste out of my mouth."

Ryuuji stepped forward, arms out pacifically and was clocked for his troubles, knocked down to the ground with a vicious right.

At that moment, Daiki lost it. Everything became a red haze. Ryuuji deserved pain least of all. Daiki would not let it happen again.

Daiki moved in. He'd never learned aikido, but judo worked well enough on men who thought their size and strength would be sure to carry the day. The first, who aimed a roundhouse at him, was tossed over Daiki's shoulder for his troubles, to come to dazed stop at the bar. The other two, off balance with their aggression, were thrown with similar dispatch, one over the hip and the other with his legs kicked out from under him. As Daiki turned from throwing the last, the barkeep stood behind the bar, a rifle trained on Daiki's face.

"Be a cold day in hell when a couple of faggotty gooks take down red-blooded Americans in my place." He somehow managed to spit around his cigar. "You just lost your last damn fight."

Behind the barkeep, Daiki saw a policeman, still in uniform, pulling his own gun and shouting something, likely to get the barkeep to stand down since that's where the cop was trying to aim. It was in slow motion, much like that day in Nagasaki, and Daiki thought, "Today, at last, I'll die." His eyes, noting so many details in the dilated time, saw the fingers squeeze on the rifle, yet somehow missed Ryuuji launching himself at him until Ryuuji was in his face, knocking him backward as the bullet flew where Daiki's head had just been and slammed through Ryuuji's neck as he fell forward.

Daiki cradled Ryuuji in his arms. Later, he would find out that the bullet had severed his spine next to the skull, that the cop disarmed the bar owner and called for backup. But at that moment, all he knew was Ryuuji was bleeding out his life into Daiki's lap.

Ryuuji gasped and strained to breathe and, when he couldn't draw breath, Daiki tried to breathe for him but Ryuuji used his last breaths to whisper, "Smile, Daiki. I always loved you. Do not let… this make you sad… or angry. Love and… let your love… be my… legacy."

"Here." Daniel offered Omoto a napkin. "I'm sorry."

"What?"

"Were you thinking of Nagasaki?" Omoto was struck by the power of Daniel's eyes, the same blue as his son's.

Only then, did Omoto realize he was weeping. "No. Not Nagasaki. I lost everything twice." He sopped at his eyes. "You could lose everything, too, and it would be your own doing, just as it was mine." He returned Daniel's look squarely. "Will you?"

"No. I'll be there for Kyle. I promise."

He sounded sincere, but… "That is quite a turnaround."

"You gave me time to think. I'm not only all he has, he is all I have. I don't want to lose him."

"Good. I will wake him. Fifty cents for the coffee."

"But it was bitter!"

"You deserved it."

If Omoto surreptitiously shed a few tears at their reunion, Omoto comforted himself that he was old. He was entitled to a little sentimentality.

The years weighed on him as he painfully climbed up the stairs to his apartment. He lit incense and bowed in front of Ryuuji's picture where Ryuuji was forever smiling. From a pile of papers, he pulled one of bird's egg blue and began to fold with deft fingers, then set it among the many cranes, dozens, of different colors, that adorned the shrine. Some were students he helped when he was a professor. Many were lost souls who found his coffee shop a haven. All were to honor Ryuuji. Not a thousand yet…

"Your legacy, Ryuuji," he said, as the tears fell again. "And now mine."