Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 13:11:47 -0800 (PST)
From: Toji Suzahara <tsuzahara@yahoo.com>
Subject: Alone Among Friends, VIII

Hello all there! I want to thank everybody who has written me so far
:), and want to apolgise if I was not able to reply every mail yet, but
will do reply certainly every mail I get. Let the mails keep on coming!
But for now, let me get rid of the disclaimer: Don't read this story if
your law forbids you to do so, if you are homophobic, if you think you
already know what will happen, if you can float and walk over water and
have religious concerns, if you cannot read about men loving each
other...
The story is mainly narrated by Kaneda, the narration alters when it is
necessary (3rd person/1st person)


"There's no point in living if you can't feel alive"
(Garbage, "The world is not enough", 1999)



"Alone Among Friends, VIII"

This episode's dedicated to A.


It was pretty hot inside the club and I felt like turning back right
now and leaving the club, but Georg, who was walking behind me with his
hands on my back, was pushing me softly inside. Okay, it wasn't that
bad inside, but I still hated the thick air in such clubs. Or rather I
couldn't stand it. The girls were following us, talking to each other,
and Kevin, who looked like he was on cloud 9 was just looking into his
girls' eyes. Nobody else seemed to be more interesting than his Sabina.
Good for him, I thought. I had Georg.
I looked back at Georg and smiled which he returned instantly with one
of those killer smiles. Daniel was talking to this girl, or rather this
girl was talking to him. I couldn't see where Jens or Yilmaz were
roaming around but they must have been somewhere in the club. And it
was likely that they might be regretting the fact that they went into
the club not waiting for Sabina with us..  The music was playing very
loud, but I wasn't feeling like going to the dance floor yet, so I just
took a seat at the bar and Georg sat down next to me.
"So stud, wanna drink something?"
"Yeah.. what about some tequilas?"
"Not for me, ya know I'm going to drive." I ordered a tequila for
Georg.
We were both watching the people on the dance floor which was totally
packed. 'Hate me now'
from Nas was playing and the crowd was really wild. Wasn't that song
produced by Puff Daddy - again? I mean, wasn't he producing everything?
God, that guy was loaded with money, and he was still making more with
covers of covers..
"Hey.. look over there, there's Jens!" Georg said, laughing. I turned
my head to the point Georg had pointed to.
Jens was doing the weird one again and turning off nearly every chick
who was in close
proximity.
"He'll never get a chick that way.. we should probably tell him, huh?".
I shook my head, "Well, what can I say, looks like he's happy this way.
He isn't even paying attention to anybody, look!"
"Yeah I'm seeing that. But look at Yilmaz over there.. now that's
something," Georg said.
I tried to find him but I couldn't instantly. Then I noticed him. He
was dancing in a pace of his own, very slow, and at the first glance it
seemed to be asynchronous to the beat for it was simply too slow. But
the longer I looked at his dance the more it looked like the best one
on the floor. It was weird. He moved so little and still expressed so
much.
"Yeah man.. that guy has the vibe.. Georg, have you ever really spoken
to Yilmaz? I mean like more than just two sentences?" I nearly shouted
over to him, looking right into his eyes. Georg's face got a bit
clouded, as he was thinking heavily about what I had asked him.
"No, actually not, now that you mention it.. Weird! Hey Kaneda.. you
know, Yilmaz just hangs with Jens.. never with the rest of us... not
that I'm very interested in getting to know him, but I think you get
what I mean," he said and grinned.
"Yeah, same here.. he's really different than most of the guys I know."
I was thinking about Yilmaz when Georg suddenly shook me out of my
thoughts.
"Look over there!" he said, pointing to a spot on the floor.
I looked at the direction Georg's finger was pointing to and saw Daniel
dancing with that chick.
"God!"
I nearly fell off the chair. Daniel was dancing far too close with her,
it wasn't actually dancing, it was more - it looked like more, it
looked damn hot. The girl was grinding herself into him, holding him,
then parting again, holding him, moving around him and so on. I rubbed
my eyes, I could not believe what I was seeing - Daniel was doing the
same!
"Kaneda.. isn't Daniel ..ahem..?"
"I thought so.. I think I'll talk to him later on.... Georg, let's join
them now, what do you think?"
"Okay!"
We stood up and walked to the dancefloor trying to find some space for
ourselves.
I noticed how this one girl who had given me that certain look started
to dance closer to us. I just smiled and she continued her little
voyage.
Georg noticed that the girl was trying to get closer and I thought I
was seeing some sort of disliking in his eyes, but I knew at the same
time that he couldn't really block the way. He still blocked it for
some seconds, though, pretending like he didn't notice her which I
found pretty cute of him.
After some seconds Georg moved away and the girl came closer. Okay she
was really cute, but..
was I interested in her? Not in the slightest. God, what was I supposed
to do? I looked over at Georg who was grinning. He wasn't much of a
help. To top it off, the DJ decided to put something more mellow onto
his player and R. Kelly started to sing .. or rather cry if he could
turn back the hands of time. Corny song.
Georg started to mock the song just as we did the last time with Toni
Braxton and I thought about it for a split second and joined him
mocking the song. Kevin, who was also pretty close to us, was dancing
very slowly with Sabina, resting each others heads on their shoulders,
making a cute couple.
Daniel was apparently enjoying himself with that girl and Georg and I
were also enjoying
ourselves, only that this other girl was trying to get in between us.
Not that we were dancing close to each other - it wasn't more than fun
we were having, but this girl was drop dead serious in getting closer
to me.
I thought a couple seconds about what to do. And then I had an idea.
I went up to her, grabbed her arm, spun her around a couple of times
and held her close to me.
"What's your name?"
She looked at me completely puzzled. "Sandra".
"Nice name.. well listen Sandra. I already have a gf. We can just dance
for fun if you want but nothing more is going to happen."
Sandra looked at me for some seconds, her eyes opening wide. "Who do
-you- think --you-- are, moron?" She said, rolling, her eyes, "I wasn't
paying attention to you. It went on my nerves being too close with that
guy!"
Being totally embarrassed, I looked at the spot she meant. It was Jens.
"Uh, sorry!"
"Shove your sorries up your butt!" she said, slapped me right in the
face, and walked off pushing some guys aside.
Georg started to laugh and he must have had laughed loud for I could
hear him clearly. I held my face and rubbed it a bit, god, that girl
certainly had power. She went up to Sabina and whispered something into
her ear. Georg came from behind and held me for a split second.
"What did you say to her Romeo?" he shouted into my ear.
"Something she apparently didn't like," I said and looked into his
eyes. Georg returned the look by smiling to me. We ignored what
happened and continued to dance, but this time I danced closer to
Georg. Throughout the dance we were looking at each other, smiling,
trying to be as careful as possible.
The rest of the night went on quite uneventful and it actually sucked
that neither Georg nor I could ever dance real close together. But I
think it was good that way cause I was not too cool with letting
everybody know how I felt for Georg.. and probably he had the same
feeling.

At around 1.30 A.M. we decided to return back to our apartment.
"Is everybody here?"
"Yeah, think so," Daniel said, who was standing next to that chick. I
grinned at him and looked deep into his eyes. He returned my grin. We
certainly had a lot to talk about later on.
"Jerks, I'm taking the ride with Sabina."
This was a little ambiguous and we all started to laugh.
"Hey I didn't mean it that way!" he said and blushed, the first time I
had seen Kevin blushing at all. Sabina seemed to be the reason for this
reaction.
"It's okay, we're the perverts," Jens said.
"Speak for yourself, will ya?" Georg said, and we all laughed again.
The ride back home was nice and uneventful. Daniel, Jens and Yilmaz
were sleeping in the back seat and from time to time, Georg would hold
my hand while I was switching gears.

Back in our room, I nearly jumped onto Georg.
"Hey, hey..!" he said, with a huge smile on his face.
"Man, I love you. Can we continue from where we were interrupted
earlier on?"
"Sure.. I'm all yours!"
Georg stood there, and I wrapped my arms around him, holding him tight
to myself. We kissed for what seemed like a little eternity. Then I
slowly started to undress him. He again was like a puppet.
Georg didn't move at all, just smiled at me, while I was doing my
work,.. hell, it made a lot of fun, him being totally passive. After a
couple of minutes I had got ridden of his shirts and he stood in front
of me only in his trousers and socks with his sexy chest revealed.
"Kaneda, how can I.. ugh!" Daniel said who had entered the room for the
door wasn't really closed.
"Uh, sorry guys, didn't mean to interrupt you!"
Georg looked at him, a little embarrassed but trying to keep cool.
"No worries sporty," he said smiling.
I could see how Daniel closely looked at Georg's pecs and abs and
laughed a little.
"What did you want Dan?"
"Uh, I better leave.."
"No come on, just say what you wanted."
Georg started to flex his muscles. That little show-off, digressing
Daniel totally and making him confused.
"Ignore Georg, he likes to show off," I said, and grinned over at him.
"Uh... didn't you tell me of some chat client? I wanted to try that
out, now that Kevin is not in the room..."
"Ah okay, that's mIRC.  The URL's www.mirc.co.uk. - use that to connect
to a server, it's pretty easy. You wanna chat, huh?"
"Yeah Kaneda.. thanks," Daniel said and left the room in a hurry,
shutting the door behind himself.
"Uh.. actually I wanted to ask him about earlier..?"
"Forget about him for now Kaneda..." Georg said in a soft voice.
I locked the door and wondered aloud where I left off.
"Okay, let me continue where I stopped..," I said and kissed Georg.
I looked at him, and ran my hands all over his chest and then resting
my head on it.
"Georg, I love you so much..," I said and felt like staying like that
forever.
"I love you too."
After enjoying the silence for a couple of minutes, I broke the lock,
and started to slowly kiss him all over his face. Georg went again all
passive and let me do what I wanted to do. I  kissed him on his neck. I
loved to kiss him on his neck, somehow I found that place at the moment
to be the most interesting one, and I licked and bit it delicately.
Georg's response to my doings were a couple of moans in which one could
hear the pleasure he was feeling. He still wan't moving a bit and I
loved this game we were playing. I continued to work on his body,
kissing his pecs slowly, lowering myself down to his abs which were
greatly defined. Georg was breathing lightly and I noticed that he had
a noticeable bulge in his boxers. I decided to let everything linger a
bit more, so I got up and wrapped my arms around him, giving him a soft
kiss and pushing my crotch against his. I ran my arms over Georg's back
and let them travel down.. I went down again, so that I was just above
the hight of his boxers.. I ran my hands over his thighs up to the band
of his boxers, slowly lowering them, which revealed his lovely
sevenincher.His dick was hard by now and I moved closer, licking the
head of it with my tongue.
"Kaneda.. this is so good, " Georg said as he ran his hands trough my
hair.
"Hey .. you're supposed to be still..," I said and smiled at him.
"I cannot resist anymore, I need to share these feelings with you," he
said, lowering himself, dragging me closer.
He kissed, and started to undo my shirt. Soon my chest was revealed and
he kissed me all over, then continued to undo my pants. Georg was very
hot by this time and I stood there, with only my boxers on, which were
the only thing hindering my rod from standing upright. He smiled at me
and held his dick with his hand moving it into one of the holes of my
boxers. Georg pressed himself against me and our dicks grinded into
each other and we both started to gasp at the feelings we were having.
After some time he broke apart again and I wanted to kiss him on his
pecs but he was faster and had already started to move my boxers down.
My sixincher stood there in full erection and I stepped out of the
boxers. Georg looked at me and then started to lick my dick. He slowly
moved his mouth around the shaft of it, slowly making it all wet and
slick. His moist mouth was a sensation and I started to moan lightly.
Precum was flowing heavily already and Georg licked his way back up to
the head and started to suck on my dickhead.
I felt the sensations running trough my body and I knew I would be
cumming soon if he continued what he was doing. It was just the time
when he took my dick all in his mouth, sucking me hard. He ran his
hands all over my butt as he started to stroke himself with one hand. I
moved back from him, causing him to stop licking my dick. He had a
puzzled look on his face and his mouth formed the word 'What?'.
I smiled at him, pulled him up and guided him to my bed. He got what I
wanted to do and we both positioned each other in the right way. I
started to lick the head of his dick and Georg continued to suck my
cock. Georg's dick was leaking heavily and I licked the head, mixing
his precum with my saliva when I took his dick into my mouth. We both
went on sucking each other and the feeling was undescribeable. Precum
was flowing heavily and Georg hungrily sucked each drop out of my dick.
I felt the feeling growing and knew that I was reaching the climax, the
point of no return. I shot my load in 3 eruptions right into his mouth.
Georg swallowed it all and I sucked him harder and felt how his first
load came and then the others, filling my mouth with his cream.
We both stayed like that for some minutes, relaxing from our orgasms.
Then I turned around, moving myself closer to him, giving him a soft
kiss. He put his arm around my waist and smiled.
"I love you a lot Kaneda. I never felt so great with anybody. I will
always love you."
"I love you too Georg, I am so happy to have you, you're -the- man."
"Same for you, you're THE man aswell!"
We both giggled a bit and looked into each others eyes until we both
drifted off into a doze and finally a deep slumber.


Daniel went over to his room and fired the PC up. It didn't take him
long to download that chat client, but his mind was on what he had just
seen in Kaneda's room. Georg really had a great build, and he somehow
felt embarrassed that he had stared at him. Was it the same phenomenon
with Kevin.. he liked Kevin's body.. but not his face? How could that
be? Was he too picky? Suddenly he felt bad for thinking this way about
his friends. For getting aroused by them. But what else could he do?
There wasn't anybody he could be together with. Kevin had Sabina,
Kaneda had Georg, Jens had.. well .. Jens had himself he thought. And
Yilmaz.. well Yilmaz was also alone.. So.. at least another guys was
alone - it wasn't that bad, after all, was it? But Daniel knew that it
would take him longer to find someone, provided that he found anyone.
He fired up mIRC, entered his nick and started to join some gay
chatrooms.
There were so many channels, and he was hardly able to decide which one
to join, but Daniel was certainly not going to join the ones with
strange, obnoxious names.. some of the channels were major turnoffs for
him and gave him a sudden feeling that he did not want to belong to
this group. To be gay.
He shrugged, clicked the list of channel names away, and joined channel
#gay. Plain and simple #gay. Lots of guys were hanging on the channels
with different, sometimes bizarre nicks.
"Care to chat?" Someone messaged him.
"Sure," Daniel typed.
"What would you like me to do?" the other person asked. Daniel was
puzzled. What did the guy mean and he stated this question to him.
"You know what I mean, okay - understood, playing innocent? *grin*"
"Where are you from?" Daniel asked, trying to straighten the
conversation.
"How do you look like?" he replied. Definitely not the answer to his
question.
"I am 6 feet, brown hair, blue eyes," Daniel typed, wondering why he
was telling him his details the first place.
"What about your dick?"
"What?"
"Come on, tell me how long it is, my dick's 8", longing for your ass
:>"
Daniel felt uncomfortable - who was this guy? And how could he just
tell such details to somebody he did not know? It was giving Daniel a
weird feeling chatting with thise guy.
"I don't want to tell you, bye," he typed, closing the messagebox,
hoping the conversation to stop.
"Come on boy, let's meet up and have it," a message re-opened.
"Listen I do not want to talk to you, do you get it?"
Apparently the guy got it after that line, and Daniel was sweating a
bit, not thinking that people could be like that. He hoped for somebody
else being a bit more decent on the chat. There were loads of people
online, and he did not know with whom to chat. Probably he should
narrow down the list of guys with whom to chat by their location. But
how to find out where the guys are without asking? Daniel clicked
around in the application until he found out how to use the 'whois'
command and immediately started to 'whois' the people on the nicklist.
There were so many different places the people had logged on. People
from all over Germany were in that chatroom. Up to now there was nobody
from his city. Then, he found a guy being in his city and the moment he
double clicked on the nick, he read the nick again. "FstFcker43" it
said. Whoops. That certainly suggested something and he continued to
browse the list. So many people and nobody from his damn city? His city
was big - how could it be that there was noone around?
Daniel decided to get himself a drink and went to the kitchen. There
was absolutely no sound in the apartment, and one could hear the low
sounds of cars passing the road below from time to time. Daniel was
standing in front of the refrigerator not really knowing what he wanted
to drink. Some of Kevin's cans of beer were there, then there were
juices, coke, milk and a turkish yoghurt-based drink called "Ayran".
Standing there with the door of the fridge open, he did not notice
Yilmaz approaching him.
"Daniel, would you give me the milk?"
Daniel squeaked and looked over to the door where he saw Yilmaz
standing, this time only wearing his red shorts with the white crescent
on it. Yilmaz's chest was smooth to Daniels surprise and he immediately
noticed the thin golden chain on Yilmaz's tanned skin.
Yilmaz raised his left eyebrow and walked towards the fridge, grabbing
the milk-pak.
"I did not notice you at all," Daniel said, still being a bit out of
breath.
"Didn't mean to scare you," Yilmaz replied and poured some milk into a
glass which he then placed in the microwave, giving it a 20 second
warmup.
"You're still awake, can't sleep?"
"No"
A typical Yilmaz-Oneliner. Daniel felt uncomfortable.
"Uhm.. okay..," he mumbled, not knowing what to say next. It would be
best just to get a drink and get back to the room, he thought. Daniel
grabbed a can of coke and walked out of the kitchen towards his own
room, leaving Yilmaz behind himself. What a weird scene. Daniel
wondered about Yilmaz. That guy was strange to him and he could not
figure out what bothered him. It was just Jens who hung around with
Yilmaz the whole time.. both of them seemed to understand each other
pretty well. Daniel placed the can next to his mousepad and decided
that it was definitely not Yilmaz he wanted to think about right now.
He'd like to get to know some guys. Some nice guys, to be precise.
"Any nice guys around here?" he typed on the main channel for the sake
of it.
After some seconds someone replied that everybody there was nice.
'Yeah, complete BS' he thought, sipping on his coke. Nobody around. Was
this a way to find somebody? He did not feel like chatting up guys
anymore... 'chat up guys...' that lingered in his mind. What was he
doing there actually? It seemed so absurd to him all of a sudden and he
decided to close the chat. The second the window closed somebody parted
the channel. And in that split second he felt like the internet address
was familiar. Could it have been that it was the IP of his CS
department? What was the nick? What was the nick...??! He was unable to
remember it.
Daniel stood there freezed for a couple of seconds and then he switched
off the PC. He took off his T-Shirt, and slipped under the covers of
his bed.
Was there another gay guy from his university? He could not stop
thinking about it. Hell! The university had 40.000 students.. so it was
very likely that there were other gays. Daniel drew the covers over his
head, taking the fetal position and trying to stop thinking about his
difference.

The next day came and it was one of the most ugliest days of the year.
It was far too dark, the clouds were hanging very low and it looked
like it could snow any second. Daniel opened his eyes for a split
second and looked at the roof for a while. He liked to stay in his warm
bed, half-awake, half asleep and since he had no need to wake up early
or prepare himself for uni, he enjoyed his bed as much as he could.
"Anybody wanna join me having breakfast?" Georg shouted from the
kitchen. Daniel instinctively pulled the sheet over his face, smiling.
Georg just ruined the absolute silence and beauty of the moment.
Nobody replied his answer. Apparently everybody else was asleep. Daniel
did not think that Kaneda was sleeping and likely he would be joining
Georg soon. He stayed there for another minute when he noticed that he
needed to go to the toilet badly. The tent in his boxers could not be
denied or ignored. He needed to get out of bed quickly. He stood up and
was instantly shocked by the chilly air in his room so he grabbed his
sweatshirt and put it on. After the bathroom ceremony he felt like he
was going to starve, so he went to the kitchen, finding only Georg
there, in a pair of blue N.Y. Yankees shorts and a gray G.A.P. T-shirt.
Georg's thighs, arms, and the rest of the body which were exposed,
looked outstanding and Daniel had to stop himself once again from
staring at him.
"Morning sporty," Georg said, flipping crepes in the pan.
"Morning. Wow, you can cook?" Daniel asked him, with true
ustonishement.
"Sure, nothing much about it. My sis and I - we used to make breakfast
for ourselfes whenever mom wasn't around. Believe me, she's the better
cook."
"Can you make one for me aswell, would be really nice of you..?"
"Man sure, you did not need to ask, just sit down there."
It smelt really great and Daniel's mouth was watering already when he
realized that Kaneda was still not around. He went closer to Georg.
"Where's Kaneda?"
"He's still sleeping. I didn't want to wake him up."
"Ah okay... So man, I actually always wanted to know: Do you live in
this town or do you come from somewhere else?"
"Well," he said, putting a done crepe from the pan onto a pile, "I live
in Würzburg, but for studies I decided to come here. There was no
faculty over there. Actually there was no other university left which
would take me - with my grades," he said and laughed.
"Man, don't exagerate. You're not bad at uni."
"Come on, you know I suck, you are just too nice to tell me that. But
let's forget that. Where do you live?"
"I thought you knew that?"
"No, Kaneda might know it, but I don't."
"I come from a small village in Schwarzwald [That's Blackforest for all
you readers out there :) ]"
"Oh nice, I bet it's small and not very thrilling."
"Exactly," Daniel said and giggled.
"Georg,"
"Hmm?"
"Do you know actually anything about .. Yilmaz?"
Georg put the pan on a cold stove and turned to Daniel.
"No, actually not. I mean, I do not know nothing about him. Just know
that he hangs with Jens.. Hmm.. no nothing, Kaneda wondered about him
aswell yesterday. What about you? Do you know something about him?"
"Don't know nothing about him.. he seldomly talks though.."
"..but when he talks it has some effect. Rememeber that incident in the
refectory?"
"Yeah man, how can I forget that..well we'll get to know him better. "
"Yeah, ...anyhow, your crepes are done. What do you want on it?
Chocolate or Jam?"
"Jam, thanks!"
Georg smeared a massive amount of jam onto the crepes and served it
Daniel.
"Crèpes à Chef de ugh.. la maison!" Georg said and started to laugh
loudly.
"Hope you like it."
Daniel devoured the pile in front of him telling Georg trough his bites
that they were fantastic. After they had breakfast they kept on sitting
there, talking to each other about this and that.
"Did somebody tell you that you have a real great body?" Daniel
suddenly blurted out.
Daniel did not know if it was good or bad to tell him that, and he did
not know at all -why- he said that in the first place. He was actually
confused for he was unable to sort out what he was feeling right there
in the  moment. He liked Georg, but not in that way... or did he? He
was unsure.. was it just the look of his body right now? Why did he
give him this compliment? 'Oh man' he thought, 'how could I give him a
compliment like that?'
"Thanks for the compliment Dan, but I think you're exagerating."
Daniel kept silent. 'Now get this', he thought, 'Georg is even modest.
Kaneda really had luck with this guy.'
"Ugh.. well.. Georg, don't get it wrong.. okay?"
"Na, sure," he leaned in closer," I won't misinterprete it but getting
such a comment from a gay guy must mean something," he said smiling all
over his face. Georg did not want that Daniel felt uncomfortable but it
seemed that he did with that comment.
"..."
"Sorry Dan.. oh well.. "
Daniel felt uncomfortable so he stood up, excused himself and went back
to his room.
Georg remained silent for some time, wondering what was going trough
Daniel's mind. He knew that Daniel only lately accepted his sexual
preference and that it must have been a hard process for him to do
this. Kaneda had told him about how Daniel had tried to commit suicide
and it gave Georg the shivers that Daniel could have been dead.
"Oh well!" he said, sighing out loud.

It was a usual university day and Daniel was hanging around with his
friends, sharing the same courses, watching, overlooking them as they
had fun and chatted with each other. He paid very much attention to
Georg and Kaneda who would be cheery and happy the whole time over. It
seemed as if there wasn't a single dark cloud for them in the sky, they
had themselfes, they had found their luck.. their love. But what did he
have? Nothing. Nobody to share himself with. Even though Kaneda offered
him to speak about everything, he seldomely felt like that recently.
Kaneda was in his own world and Daniel did not feel like invading his
perfect dream with his worries.
He had so many worries. His parents would never approve of his
sexuality, would they? No. They were good christians. They believed in
the bible, they went to church every sunday. How could they ever
understand that he was gay? Wasn't it one of the reasons why Sodom and
Gomorra was destroyed by God? Wasn't he one of the sinners, who would
never receive God's mercy?
Daniel had always believed in the bible, but now that he knew that he
was different.. was he able to continue believing in a being which
condemened him for being born that way? He was born that way.. wasn't
he? Daniel didn't seemed to be too sure about it. He wondered if there
was any key incident which probably made him gay. He tried to rememeber
everything which was different than normal, but he could not think of
any incident which would support the theory that he'd been driven into
gayness.
"Hey Daniel! You look so thoughtful - I don't want to interrupt you
from your.. I bet wet daydreams.. but we have to finish that shit off,
you know?"
Daniel turned around and saw Pawel standing behind him, one of the guys
in his teams of the practical.
"Uh, was just in thoughts. Have heard that this makes one look
intelligent," Daniel replied, grinning over his face.
"Well must be - you looked very intellingent, indeed - looking right
into the screensaver," Pawel said and all of them started to laugh like
mad.
"Okay, better get that stuff done," Daniel said and fired up the
C-Developer Environment.
The 3 of them, which were Pawel, Sven and Daniel sat there for another
3 hours trying to implement a slightly different version of quicksort.
It was about 5 p.m. when Daniel walked out of the pool, his eyes
burning from staring at the monitors which were too old and couldn't be
replaced because of the lacking money in the departments funds. It was
best to take the way trough the different buildings of the university
cause this way he could save himself from the chilly wind outside. The
other students which had shared Daniel's fate of staying this late in
the university seemed to have all the same idea and most of the floors
were packed with people. Daniel looked around trying to see some
familiar face, but he thought that most of his friends must have been
gone home or be back in the apartment already. Nobody he knew was
around as he looked at the people, walking trough the corridors. Daniel
quickly drifted away in his thoughts and he moved automatically. He had
gone this way a million times and by now he was able to pay very less
attention to where he was going. Daniel elegantly avoided collisions
with the little groups of students standing everywhere, the guys who
were passing him, or the ones who were walking too slowly which he
overtook to keep his pace.
Completely absorbed in his thoughts Daniel did not notice a particular
guy who was running in his direction. The enevitable happened and they
both collided, Daniel falling backwards right on his butt, his bag
spreading it's contents over the floor.
"Damn! Can't you watch out?!" he said getting up and rubbing his
behind.
The other guy hadn't had more luck and was also lying there on the
floor. To Daniel's surprise the guy wasn't moving and his eyes were
closed. Not knowing what was with him, Daniel bent down to help him.
The moment he wanted to reach out to help the guy, he stood up.
"Sorry dude, will make up for this, am on a rush," he said and before
Daniel could add anything to it, he was gone.
"Strange guys," he said to himself and continued his walk.

Monday. It was Monday. I hated monday! Why do Mondays exist? Who
invented them? Damnit! I hated Mondays! It went especially on my nerves
that some of the courses were put so oddly that some of my friends had
pretty huge gaps in between. The one who had to suffer most was Daniel,
he had chosen to take that programming practical to learn a bit of C
and it started in the afternoon. First lecture was 8 a.m. and the next
in the afternoon, it totally sucked. I always wondered who made up such
schedules for first-semester students - and then the worst day was
Monday!
Georg was sitting on his bed, reading some sports magazine and I really
wondered what was so interesting in it. I decided to digress him from
reading that.. but before I did, I went to the door and locked it
quitely. Georg was so cute, being completely absorbed by his mag. He
did not notice at all what I was doing. I went over and sat on the bed
right next to him.
"Hey hunk, what's so interesting there?"
"Huh? Well there are some stories about ... and ... and you know.. and
bla bla bla.." was all I got. He was so in to it. God, it was cute. He
babbled so much about it, and I got half of the things he said.
"I think you're not much interested in what I am saying, are you?"
I just smiled at him and put my arm around his waist, drawing him
closer to me.
"Have I told you today that I love you?"
"Yes, but I always love to hear it from you.."
I moved my lips very close to his ear.
"I... love... you," I whispered into his ear.
Just in that second somebody pressed the handle of the door down.
"What the fuck?!" I could hear from the other side. It was Jens.
"Why is this door locked?"
I looked at Georg pretty puzzled at what to do now. How to explain it..
I never thought about that actually. I had to think about something
reasonable quick - I did not know if it was worth a penny, but I tried
it anyhow.
"What? The door's locked?" I said, went to the door and unlocked it.
Jens rushed in and looked around suspiciously.
"Why was it locked?"
"How the hell should I know? Probably one of us locked it in mental
absence, whatever, don't make such a scene."
"Hmm.."
"What did you want in the first place Jens?"
"It's monday man, wanted to ask you guys if you wanna join us watching
the X-Files?"
"Sure, I am not doing anything, what about you Georg?"
"Yeah, I am with you guys."
"Cool, then let's get going, starts in some minutes," Jens said and
went out of the room.
I looked over at Georg and grinned at him. He was not looking too happy
though. I shut the door and went up to him, kneeling in front of him.
"Hey.. hey.. Georg.. come on, nothing happened!"
"Yeah I know.. I just don't want them to get suspicious.. maybe it
wasn't such a good idea to come here at all?"
"Yeah maybe.. but you and I, we both know it that back in our seperate
rooms we weren't able to share so much time together as we are right
now, isn't it?"
"Yeah... Kaneda, you're right.. they would have wondered why we would
always be together.."
"Exactly.. well I think we're pretty safe here, I mean.. we live in the
same room, so if we hang around together very much, they won't get too
suspicious.. we're roomies man!" I said, fake-punching him, trying to
get him to laugh a bit.
He smiled shyly and looked right into my eyes, his face turning serious
again.
"Kaneda.. I just don't want them to know.."
"I know.."
I took his hand and held it.
"I won't let anything happen.. if it's in my control, everything will
be okay.. does this sound good to you?" I said to him and smiled. Georg
looked right into my eyes and a small smile formed on his face. It was
so little but that was all I needed to see.
"Come on hunk, let's get into the living room and watch the hot couple
chasing aliens!"

The whole bunch of us sat in the living room; Georg and I were on the
floor, Kevin, Daniel and Jens were sitting on the couch and Yilmaz was
on a chair right next to it. The episode they were airing was one of
those which did not have much to do with the overall plot of the
x-files, so we all were not too much into it.
I somehow had sensed that the evening would be different than the
others, that it would be a bit special.. probably a lot special? I
couldn't exactly tell how I got those vibes, but something was in the
air, it was nothing rational, I knew it, but it was how I felt. I did
not know if Daniel or Georg were feeling it too, but my feeling was
strong.
It was probably like a "deja vu". Everything seemed a bit bizarre,
already known.. or wasn't it like that? Daniel and Kevin joking on the
couch, Yilmaz being still as ever on his chair. It looked familiar..
Was it familiar?
'Deja vu's are errors in the matrix - they happen when they reprogram
the environment'. That comment out of that movie lingered in my mind
somehow..
I couldn't have known at the time I had these thoughts what would
happen in the very near future - and even if I look back from now, I
would have never guessed it.
This night was meant to be a crucial one, I was about to find out who
really was my friend and who was not, everything was at stake, by a
little statement, a statement which pierced my mind when I heard it
first.
It was somewhere in the middle of nowhere when Yilmaz said it. He said
it very soberly, slow and in a low voice. As he always used to do. But
this time the sentence had a huge impact on us. On a little group of
us. Especially on me.
Daniel was chatting with Kevin and Jens was absorbed by the TV when he
said it. It was just a sentence. But what a sentence. A sentence which
had the power to change and which did change the athmosphere in this
home we 6 had created for ourselves.
"Someone here is gay," Yilmaz said - just like that, out of the blue.
Silence.


To be continued
----------------

Okay, this is it for part 8, I hope you guys liked it, please send me
all comments and critics to tsuzahara@yahoo.com - I really appreciate
every email I get :)

Toji
:)