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Turned On	By : blackwaltz0 Category: +M through R > Phantasy Star Views: 2172 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Phantasy Star, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Fortunately for Chaz, Wren contented himself with following the hunter silently, uttering not a word and staying at least two meters behind Chaz as he led the way. Rika and Kyra had gone west, Rune north, so the only path left that they could take without retracing their steps was east. An open door was conveniently placed there, its long dim hallway dark and intimidating. Both adventurers walked slowly, deliberately, their weapons out and prepared for combat. This was the perfect time and the perfect place for a monster ambush, and contrary to what the others had said to him, Chaz was not going to scream. He was too battle-hardened for that.

The corridor was long and thin for the time being, with no exits save for the one they had come from, a tunnel that led away from the courtyard and wasn't pressed up against other parts of the Air Castle, probably leading towards the eastern wing. Every twenty meters or so windows were cut into the sides of the hallway, beautiful arching frames in the shape of an old-fashioned bell, but empty and without bearing any glass panes. They had either shattered eons ago or had never existed in the first place.

The windows were placed in a zigzagging pattern along either side of the walls, so despite each window being twenty meters away from one another there was always another window on the other side, about ten meters away. They cast white bells of light all over the floor, creating a repetition of light and shadow. The atmosphere was strange in this place, seeming to be manipulated by some sort of unknown magic. Despite the many windows the entire hallways was unnaturally dim, while the light streaming in from Algo was contained in those beams of bell-shaped illumination, neither extreme penetrating the other.

Chaz felt, though he did not know where this intuition came from, that walking in the darkness was a lot safer than the light. He edged around the eerie non-shadows as if they were dangerous booby traps and heard Wren doing the same thing behind him. Did Wren feel similarly to him about those beams of light, or was he only just following Chaz's lead like a mindless automaton? He could ask, but Chaz didn't want to even open his mouth. He might end up starting a conversation that would sour very quickly. He was walking on eggshells enough as it was.

Slowly Chaz could sense that Wren was beginning to fall behind. The two meter distance that he had kept between them had degraded into three, and was halfway to becoming four. The hunter waited for a few seconds to allow the android to catch up with him and saw the blankly troubled, vacant expression on Wren's face, like his awareness had gone somewhere else and had entrusted his body to follow Chaz indiscriminately. If there had been a pit of lava between the both of them Wren wouldn't have hesitated to step straight into it and fall to his doom. He would have been useless had a monster attacked. Wren stopped a few seconds after Chaz stopped and just stood there, waiting for him to move again.

A thought suddenly occurred to Chaz. Perhaps it wasn't that he was ignoring Wren, but that Wren was ignoring him? They hadn't spoken civilly in days, not since that confusing night and Chaz had purposefully kept away from the android to avoid a secondary confrontation. But if Chaz had tried to seek Wren out instead of ignoring him, would he have received the same amount of coldness that Chaz had shown to him? The thought had never even crossed his mind but there it was, as hard and as unyielding as the heart of a peach. The fact that Wren was following him like a mechanical toy only seemed to confirm his suspicion.

Could Wren have somehow taken offense to something Chaz had done during that night? The youth thought back to it but couldn't really pick anything definite out of his memories, they had been messed up enough thanks to what Wren had done to him. Chaz sheathed his sword for a moment so that both of his hands were free and clapped them loudly together with his palms curled a little but, altering the noise so that it was deep and profound. Wren flinched like he had been startled and raised his gun quickly again, pointing it at the source of the noise.

Chaz of course felt a little vulnerable at having a giant canon pointed at his midsection but tried to ignore it, setting his hand on the barrel of the weapon and trying to push it away from him. It didn't yield but Wren blinked once and seemed to come to life again. He didn't look very confused, he was like a victim of hypnosis coming back to their senses once more. He lowered the gun gently and this brought Chaz much relief. "Daydreaming?" The hunter asked as he unsheathed his sword again.

"Oh�" Wren said slowly, backtracking on his stream of input data to locate the problem that had rendered him oblivious to his surroundings. He had been thinking various things and then something seemed to have slipped, for want of a better term, and the next thing he knew was Chaz clapping to bring him out of his own thoughts. He supposed that it was what daydreaming was all about. "Yes, I was daydreaming. I am sorry for the hold up, Chaz." He replied, but made sure not to look the youth in the face. That was very important.

His words left Chaz to wonder what exactly an android would take leave to daydream about. All they cared about was fulfilling their purpose in the world. Now that Wren was away from Zelan and performing tasks that only indirectly related to his purpose, did that make Wren daydream about Zelan? From his perspective Chaz thought that it would be incredibly boring. He smiled a little and started down the corridor again, the metallic clack of Wren's feet indicating that he was following him, and much closer this time. That was good. "Daydreaming about anything in particular?"

"I cannot satisfactorily reply." Was Wren's answer, taken directly from his inner logbook of technical replies. It wasn't that he didn't want to answer him, it was just that he was unsure himself. Streams of information become cluttered and blur into one another when not monitored properly. He did have something he wanted to ask Chaz however, he just didn't know whether it was appropriate enough to speak of. But in the worst case scenario, what more could he get but silence? He had been getting enough of that lately. "You have been avoiding me." He said, not as a question but as a simple statement.

So Wren really had noticed, Chaz hadn't just been apathetic for nothing. That actually made him feel a little bit better about himself, although he didn't know the reason by. Would this blossom into the conversation that Chaz had dreaded to begin? Probably, but it had already started, it was best to get it over with now, especially when they were safely in private. Once this was resolved he would have one less issue to deal with. He nodded his head in affirmation but didn't look back at the android that was following him. "That's right." He said and left it at that. He wasn't going to string the conversation along if he didn't have to.

Chaz had been trying to put Wren off but subtle mind tactics were lost on the dark-haired android. He knew enough that Chaz was avoiding him, and he knew the reason why but couldn't allow the scenario to continue. The hunter had said before that the most important thing that they had was each other, and if this coldness grew they would be unable to function as a team. The fears that Chaz held about Rika were being reproduced here and now, except that Chaz was the one doing the freaking out and Wren was being made to feel like he was nothing at all. Did Chaz even notice that?

"You have not forgiven me." Wren murmured softly, then effectively allowed all hell to break loose.

Chaz's steel-wall defense was nowhere near as reinforced as he had allowed Wren to believe. It broke as he heard those words as if it had been made of nothing more than dry forest twigs. It had been a wall that had kept all his emotions at bay. Now that it was broken everything came rushing out in a flood of bad feelings. In the end Chaz was only palman. His colour rose and he whirled about angrily, his sword drawn and his eyes full of fury and confusion. "Of course I haven't forgiven you!" He cried. "How can I forgive you when I don't even know which way is up anymore? I came to you for help, Wren, I let you know my deepest problems and you took advantage of me!"

"I wanted to help you more than anything that had been plaguing my mind at the time. You told me your problem and for you I processed an answer. But you�" Wren had been speaking calmly even after he found that he had Chaz yelling at him, but upon those words his voice caught and changed a little, as if a tiny sparkle of emotion was trying to fight its way through. "You do not want to be helped. You just want to sit in your indecision and complain. You suffer, and I do not want to see you suffer. You may be confused, and you may be angry at me, but in your hatred you can no longer feel the pain."

Just listening to Wren try to reason his way out of things only made Chaz feel angrier. It was mostly because in a way Wren was telling the truth, he had stopped aching over Rika as often as he had before, but dammit, couldn't there have been an easier way? And Wren hadn't negated those thoughts about Rika so much as he had practically taken their place, which was both wrong and frightening. It was all because of that damned kiss! "You don't know anything," Chaz muttered in a lower tone, "you only like to think that you do. Do you really think that I enjoy living like this?"

Wren's response was nasty in its words but not in his tone. He hadn't known until now that he could be so cold-hearted, especially to a friend. "Then you have spoken to Rika yet? No? That is what I thought so."

He couldn't help it. Tears formed at the corners of his eyes. He wanted to wipe them away but he wouldn't allow Wren the satisfaction of seeing something like that. "You know I can't. Why would you bother bringing that up when you already know the answer? You just enjoy messing me up inside. You're not as good-natured as I first thought you would be, Wren." The tears spilled down his cheeks and he raised the back of his wrist to his face to rub away the tears anyway so they would be gone. "God," Chaz groaned, "I should have swallowed my pride and spoken to Rune. He would have made fun of me but at least he wouldn't have hurt me."

The android glanced away from Chaz, guilty. "I do not deny the fact that I hurt you." He said, unable to meet Chaz's eyes and gauge his reaction. "I wish that I hadn't, but I have. I should have known better and the fault rests with me. But I cannot change the past more than any other can. All I can do is apologise and admit my shame, but if that apology is not accepted what else can I do? What more can I do?" He looked back at Chaz and saw the flushed look of anger that was spent. Wren put his hand on the hunter's armored shoulder. "Please tell me what I can do to earn your forgiveness."

Chaz wanted to flinch away from Wren's touch but didn't. Despite the bad thing that he had done it wouldn't be fair to not offer him a chance for forgiveness. He wanted to forgive Wren, but didn't know if his heart would hear the apology as well as his head did. His gaze dropped to the floor, staring at his white boots. It all came back to one simple, scary truth. "The problem isn't that you kissed me, the problem is that I liked it more than I should have, even though it was wrong. You're not only an android, but you're a male android at that, and yet I still enjoyed it." Chaz laughed harshly at himself. "It's not right. Is there something wrong with me?"

In the end Chaz truly believed that he was sick in the head. Just as he had lovesickness for Rika, he also had his worrying doubts about where his true sentiments lay. It was probably best that Wren remove his hand from the boy's shoulder. He did so carefully, not knowing what to say. He didn't know how it had happened, but a simple kiss had turned into Chaz's nightmare. "You love Rika and that is never going to change. What has transpired between us is meaningless and shall remain that way. It would be best for us to forget that that night ever happened."

The youth nodded, his head hanging low. His opinion was slightly different, though. Chaz rubbed his nose with the back of his hand and sniffed. "The thing is that I know it wasn't meaningless. I felt something for you and it scared me. I've been trying to forget that night for days and I just can't. It was my first kiss and yours as well. That makes it special in itself. I wish it wasn't so." The hunter peered up at Wren who was looming over him. The android looked sad. "What we need to do is to make that kiss meaningless, that way I won't have to keep on obsessing over it and we can get on with our lives. Do you follow me?"

If Chaz had an idea Wren was open to listening to it. He would do as Chaz dictated if it meant that his penance would be served. Nothing would feel right anymore unless this issue was resolved properly. "I think I follow you." He answered the boy, not sure if this was entirely true or not, but he was willing to cut corners if it would get him through this conversation at a faster pace. Never before had he allowed himself to do something like that. "What can I do to help you?"

He had a desperate, almost frantic look in his eyes. What he was about to say sounded like absolute madness to one half of his brain and yet made perfect sense to the other half, a well thought out and logical thing to do. Which side was correct and which side was misinformed? Chaz didn't know, but what Wren had said earlier had struck a chord deep inside of him; he couldn't just sit in his indecision and complain forever. He was nowhere near prepared to accept the streak of bisexuality that may have been hiding inside of him, but for what it was worth he wasn't convinced that it didn't exist either. "You have to kiss me again," he babbled, "that way I'll realise that it wasn't special at all and I can get over it. That's what you have to do."

It sounded like sheer nonsense to Wren. How on Motavia could that be the answer? It was madness! Chaz wasn't thinking correctly. Two wrongs did not make a right and repeating what had happened on that night was the last thing that Wren wanted to do. He didn't want to make matters any worse than they were and Chaz's idea seemed like the quickest route to that end. Wren knew that palmans were complicated, but he never would have thought that they would be this complicated. He shook his head in negativity. "I cannot comply. I do not want to hurt you again, even if you request it."

"Please?" Chaz persevered despite knowing that it was crazy himself. "I think it's just like facing your fears. The first time is scary and always leaves you traumatized, but if you're brave enough and come back for a second time you'll find out that it's all in your head. Please Wren, I just need you to let me be a little brave�" He stepped towards the android, holding one hand out to him as an offering, or if he was about to pat a dangerous or bad-tempered animal.

Wren raised his hands a little, his free one and the one that bore his hand-held cannon and took a step away from Chaz, backing away from the young boy. He was greatly alarmed by Chaz's unpredictable actions and wanted no part of it. There was no way that this could be beneficial for him, the android just wished that Chaz would be able to see that for himself. He had never stood down against any manner of ferocious or deadly beast, but for Chaz he stood down. This was frightening him in a way that no monster had managed before, because it would not be his life that would be forfeit, but Chaz's psyche. "No." He said firmly. "I will not."

A flicker of disappointment passed across Chaz's face and he paused for a few moments, perhaps finally noticing how badly he was beginning to startle his companion. Wren looked like he was only a hair's width away from drawing his gun on the blond hunter. "I see. Well, if you won't kiss me, I'll just have to�"

He didn't sheath his sword, he just let it drop to the floor as if it was so much dead weight. It clattered as it struck the aged stone and Chaz ran forward as quickly as he could, hoping to catch Wren by surprise. The dark-haired machine had good reflexes and could have dodged Chaz easily had he been able to predict the move, but this was not how Wren had expected Chaz to react.

Chaz was a lot shorter than Wren but this didn't prove to be too much of a problem once Chaz put his mind to it. Wren took another step backwards and yet before he knew it Chaz had trodden on his feet and threw himself upward at him, managing to loop one arm about Wren's neck as an anchor and hold him there. Chaz may have been short but that did not make him weak, he was comfortably able to support his own weight. Wren opened his mouth to say something but was effectively silenced by the young hunter in an incredibly intimate way. He had gotten his request after all. Wren could do nothing else but give in.

When it felt like Chaz's hold on him was not as firm as Wren had originally been led to believe, he lowered his arms and awkwardly put them around Chaz to prevent the boy from slipping away. It was only then that he noticed Chaz was trembling slightly and that there were tears running down his cheeks. He had been right, this was hurting him even more and he was allowing it all to happen. Wren felt something that was almost akin to sickness and pulled away from Chaz, breaking their kiss.

He was holding Chaz away at an arm's length, high enough so that they were both of an equal height and looking at one another in the face. Chaz couldn't feel any kind of strain in the arms that were holding him, Wren was so strong that it was like being held by a crane, except that a crane couldn't look as passively horrified as he did right now. The horror was not on his face but behind it, somewhere deeper inside. Chaz had his hands on Wren's forearms and felt misery and dread claw at his heart, trying to pull it away from the only other emotion that truly mattered. Desire. Gods and goddesses, where did he go wrong?

"You should not have done that. It could not have possibly made things better, and now you are crying again. I am sorry." Wren said softly as he carefully set Chaz back down on the ground again. The youth allowed it without question, his hands sliding off the android's large arms. He walked forward and picked up Chaz's dropped sword, the usually heavy weapon as light as a wooden baton while in his care. He didn't know why he was talking when the situation didn't call for it, but he felt that he needed to cover up the silence that Chaz was creating for the both of them.

He reached out for his sword and took it from Wren's hands. Alys had always told him that a hunter who dropped his sword did not respect it or the lifestyle that they had chosen to uphold. She had said that they should be ashamed of themselves. These words came back to him like the breath of a ghost, Chaz grabbed at the enamel grip and held onto it as hard as he could, a dozen things going through his mind all at once. The blond youth sighed deeply in an attempt to loosen the tight bands of pressure that had bolted down around his lungs and heart, then admitted what he thought was true. His voice was a raspy whisper. "Don't be sorry. It wasn't your fault this time, it was mine. I'm only crying because I'm confused. You didn't hurt me."

That was a relief. Wren anxiously glanced down the corridor. He knew they should have progressed much further than this by now, and yet they could not continue on until this was resolved. "What possible conclusion or answers can we get from having this conversation?" He asked.

"I don't know." Chaz replied honestly. "You were the catalyst for this problem, but the problem itself is one of my own issues. Maybe I'm just doing a little soul-searching and I'm using you as a tool to help me. No, that's not right�" He shook his head gently with his gaze lowered towards the floor. "The truth is that whenever you kiss me or I kiss you I get the same feeling whenever I'm thinking about Rika, except for you. I don't know whether that makes the things I feel for Rika not as unique as I initially thought, or if it means I simply feel affection for you in the same way. My problem is that I'm afraid I like you, Wren."

What could he say to an answer like that? Wren cared greatly for Rika, almost as much as Seed had but he could not place himself in the same category as her, not even in a thousand years. But Chaz was admitting here and now that in his mind they were practically placed side by side. Wren stared at Chaz for a few moments, trying to see if he was serious or not. Chaz seemed to be too distraught to be a liar, and he wouldn't lie in the first place if it meant he would tangle himself up deeper in this mess. "You like me?" He said at last, lifelessly.

He couldn't go back now. He didn't want to, either. "Yeah." Chaz muttered.

Wren appeared to think this over very carefully, as carefully as he had done so when Chaz had once asked him to use his imagination and guess what it would be like to be the boy. Perhaps he was doing the same thing all over again, but differently. This seemed to take an eternity for Chaz who was waiting impatiently for a response, but eventually Wren's mind seemed to clear and he put his hand on Chaz's head, a mimicry of something that Rune liked to do. The hunter flinched, wiping at his eyes. Wren managed to smile slightly. "Very well. If that is how you feel then I have no problems with it. You may stop worrying about it now."

It sounded so silly that all Wren needed to stop Chaz from fretting was to merely request it out loud, but for some reason it worked. Chaz was only very young and unused to coping with things on his own, like an adult, so it felt so much better to just give up and allow Wren to do the coping for him. His feelings were not fully resolved, not yet, but that was enough for today. It was enough until next time. Chaz nodded. "Alright. Thanks Wren."

"This is not the time nor the place for idle chatter. We can speak of this more at a later date, when we are both out of harm's way. Please understand that I wish to see you in reliable mental health again, so take it easy until then." For a few seconds he ran his metal fingers through Chaz's short blond hair in a friendly manner, then pulled away and continued down the corridor, this time taking the lead. Feeling a little better about himself Chaz smiled and followed him, trying to clear his mind in the same manner in which he had used before.

He wondered if Wren had really accepted Chaz's admittance of his feelings or if he was only trying to remove the bitterness between the both of them. An acceptance was only a very basic acknowledgement of a notion, it was not a true understanding. If that were so then there would be a lot less prejudice in life. Chaz didn't know if Wren truly understood what Chaz had meant when he said 'like', but sooner or later he was going to find out. Chaz just had to keep it together until then. He saw that Wren was disregarding the contrasting light and shadows and was just walking straight through the both of them, so they couldn't have been that dangerous. No need to worry.

Chaz had gotten himself back together enough to be humming and muttering an old song under his breath by the time that he heard the scream. It had been a folk tune from the town he had first lived in, a low and partially butchered rendition of 'Danny Boy'. It cut off immediately as the scream resounded through the air, both Chaz and Wren raising their heads like small animals scenting a predator in the grass. The hunter's mind suddenly screamed 'Rika!' at him through a megaphone, but no, that did not sound like Rika's voice. It was the sound of a woman nevertheless.

"Kyra." Wren said solemnly and did a complete one eighty of his path, running back the way he had came. If it was not Rika, then it had to be Kyra. But Kyra was with Rika, wasn't she? That meant they could both be in great danger. Wren almost nicked Chaz's side as he ran past him but then Chaz was not far behind, running as well, as fast as he possibly could. What had they encountered that would be horrible enough to make the esper girl scream? Another thought touched Chaz with fingers of amazing coldness, scraping at his heart. Rika probably didn't scream because she was already dead.

His heart leapt into his throat at that thought and Chaz nearly choked on it as he began to pant a little, the corridor somehow seeming longer than it had been before, stretching out like a reticulated python. It could have either been because of magic or merely his panic, but Chaz didn't care. He became mindful of the red flush on his cheeks and the way that his eyes burned and felt a little sore from crying previously, his nose slightly blocked and making it harder to draw in breath. Wren had made him cry but that all seemed dim now, paling in the light of that terrified scream.

Light flashed all about them and they were in the courtyard again, fleeing from the dark airy hallways of the Air Castle. His eyes did not have enough time to adjust properly and Chaz squeezed them shut before he could develop burning after-images all over his vision, listening to the tread of Wren's feet as he ran ahead. Soon enough he believed a stitch would develop in his side and slow him down. Wren yelled out both Rika and Kyra's names. If they had been able to hear the scream then the two girls should be able to hear Wren's shouts. Rune too, if they were lucky.

As for Chaz, he hoped to God that the esper and the numan were alright.

Because if anything happened to Rika, Chaz would never forgive himself.
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