by Princess of Pain
NOTES: This one involves possible character spoilers for Gojyo and Hakkai--if you don't know about their various pasts, this will either make no sense or completely ruin you.
This fic's conception is related to "Thing", but only because of a similar challenging premise: write about a character from an anime without narrating from that character's perspective. In this case, I was writing about the Gojyo/Hakkai pairing without having either Gojyo or Hakkai as narrators or main characters. It's really hard to do, especially without wandering too much with my original characters. That would have been fun, but their purpose was to tell a story about Gojyo and Hakkai. Perhaps they'll pop up again someday.
*~*~*
"There’s a trick to it, you know."
Yukiko quirked one of her eyebrows at the insatiable blonde seated across from her. She was a newcomer to these parts, and to this particular bar. It had completely surprised her–that the ladies who occupied such a dump made it a policy to keep as clean and gorgeous as possible. Take Shiori, for instance; she was clad in a glitzy red dress that stood out in the dark bar like a ruby in a coalmine. Her long, blonde hair was meticulously curled and bleached; her face was carefully made up; her manicure was fresh, and her jewelry was surprisingly genuine.
She looked (although Yukiko was far too polite to say such a thing) like an extremely high-class call girl who’d gotten lost in the armpit of the red-light.
Pretty much all of the girls who weren’t cleaning-witches or bar-hags were dressed as good as Shiori. Their dresses and jewels glimmered in the darkness like the scales of some rare rainbow-fish. It sure made all the local men (who, naturally, put forth no such effort) happy… but for all of her, Yukiko couldn’t figure out what they bothered for. Were they actually trying to impress the clod-kickers and the fat merchants? Surely they had better taste than that.
“A trick to what?” she replied at last, taking a delicate sip of her ale. Shiori had immediately come over to her the instant that she’d sat down at the bar–whether because the curvy blonde sensed competition or companionship, she couldn’t tell.
Shiori dropped her a slow, mischievous wink. “Hunting for Gojyo. That’s what you came here for, isn’t it?”
Yukiko blinked. “Um… what’s a gojyo? Is it like a snipe? I did that when I was twelve, thanks.”
The stunning blonde practically cackled. “Oh, no. Gojyo’s not a snipe. He’s quite real, and he’s quite worth the hunt.”
“Gojyo’s… what? A guy? What a weird name.”
“It sounds better when you’re screaming it in the throes of passion, I assure you.” Her dark indigo eyes glittered.
“You don’t mean to tell me…” Yukiko made a gesture around the bar, where all the rare fish glittered in the darkness. “You can’t mean that ALL these women came here to fight over ONE guy, can you? What’s with him? Does he have chocolate-flavored spunk, or something?" (1)
Shiori laughed–Yukiko couldn’t decipher whether it was at her, or at her joke. “Better. Look, honey… are you a tourist, or what?”
“Are you kidding me? If you try and tell me that people come here to look at the farmers and the forest, I’ll laugh in your face. I just moved here last week.”
“Why? So you could stare at the farmers and the forest all the time, instead of just in the summer?” When Yukiko dropped her gaze and didn’t respond, Shiori continued. Her voice had the lilting, carefree tones of a child on his first day of vacation. “The only pleasure the men in this town hope to get is from their work. And the only pleasure we women have, lucky us… is Gojyo.”
Yukiko felt like making a smart remark about how men, generally, do not need encouragement to believe themselves to be the Buddha with a bullet. But… She was interested by the fact that a seemingly smart woman like Shiori, along with all the other women in this bar, were all so obsessed with one man. And it didn’t seem like the blonde was lying… thus, she held her peace, and took another drink.
“The rules are simple.” As she listed them, she ticked them out on her elegant fingers. “One, you never call attention to his hair or his eyes. I’m going to tell you right now, no one knows if he dyes his hair that shade of red, or what. The most plausible rumor about his eyes is that they turned that color after a fight, but we don’t know that, either. (2) He’s extremely sensitive about people mentioning the hair or the eyes. I heard about a girl who screamed out something about it right in the middle of The Act, and he actually got up and left her there. It’s the only sure way to drive him off, so don’t spoil it for the rest of us.”
Yukiko pictured a man with candy-apple-red hair and bruise-brown eyes. Probably a brawny guy, too, if Shiori mentioned his fighting so casually, and if he was that virile.
“Two. If you’re not interested, don’t come here. There are other bars, but this is the one he comes to every night. Again, don’t spoil it for the rest of us.
“Three. No hard feelings. Gojyo’s like a cheap carnival ride; everyone’s going to get a turn eventually, as long as you don’t have three legs or a penis. Even if you don’t get him one night… well, there are other options, aren’t there?”
Yukiko turned red.
“So don’t get bent out of shape if some girl gets him first. We don’t work off jealousy here.”
“So this guy DOES have chocolate-flavored spunk,” Yukiko said, trying to sound as carefree as Shiori, and not like she was dying of curiosity. “And the equipment of a god.”
“Absolutely,” Shiori said, and Yukiko struggled to decipher whether or not her sincerity was false at its core. “Number four: does smoking bother you?”
The brunette looked up. Cigarette, cigar, and cigarillo smoke curled in thick blue swirls around the dim lamps hung from the ceiling. The air was just as rank with tobacco as it was with spirit-fumes. “Not particularly, no.”
“Good. Even if it did, I’d advise against mentioning it around Gojyo. He’s the most determined smoker I’ve ever seen. He once nearly beat this guy to death for coughing in his face and telling him to put out the cancer-stick.”
Yukiko wondered if hunting for Gojyo wasn’t going to be hazardous to her health. “Is that all?”
The blonde nodded, her curls bouncing along. It made Yukiko think of a myth she’d once heard about a golden apple given to a goddess–This woman’s hair looks precisely the way that apple’s peel would seem, she thought.
“Oi, oi!” a heavily-accented voice at the door suddenly declared. “Who’s ready to lose at poker?”
Suddenly, all the women in the bar took up a unified battle cry:
“GOJYO-SAAAAAAAAA~AN!!!”
***
“I haven’t seen him around,” Hikaru said. Her violet-painted lips were pulled into a well-accomplished pout. She stirred a fingertip over the surface of her glass of merlot.
“Me either,” Shiori said. She was wearing a seafoam-colored dress this evening, and wore it well–although, as far as Yukiko could see, she could have worn a maroon-and-orange-striped toga and still looked stunning.
The brunette quietly nursed her ale. She had allowed Shiori to play dress-ups with her. She was sure she looked positively glamorous in the tight black number that her new friend had poured her into, but she really couldn’t care less. Sure, Gojyo was hot–probably the most attractive man in the entire village. But his weird hair and scars put her off. Not to mention that he had no fashion sense, and probably thought he was the gods’ gift to this lousy world… all of which, of course, she was too polite to voice.
“I heard,” the slender redhead declared, “that he’s living in sin with an out-of-town woman.”
“You never!” Shiori said.
Hikaru wisely nodded (looking wise was probably a huge strain on the girl). “I heard it from my ex-boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend’s niece. Her third cousin’s uncle-in-law is a nurse for Dr. Hiro. He says that Dr. Hiro ran over there a week or so ago to take care of some girl Gojyo picked up on the way home.”
“Who went with him that night? Wasn’t it Riko?”
“No one did,” Yukiko said. “That one girl broke the first rule of Gojyo-hunting, remember?”
“That stupid bitch!” both her companions snapped at the same time.
“But that doesn’t mean that he’d actually shack up with somebody, does it?” Hikaru said. She took a worried gulp of her wine.
“Of course not,” Shiori said. “Gojyo’s destined for bachelorhood. It would be just plain rude for some girl to keep him all to herself, don’t you think?”
“Or a man,” the bartender said, topping off Shiori’s Scotch. Yukiko rather liked him. She had no idea what his name was, or anything about him; but he was swarthy and tall–her usual type. Not to mention that he seemed to share her sense of humor… the one she was far too polite to voice.
Hikaru turned a color two shades deeper than her wine. “How can you say such a vulgar thing! Gojyo–“
“He’s straight-on as an arrow,” Shiori said, that carefree tone never vacating her voice. “What on earth would give you that idea?”
He gave a shrug. “Your ex-boyfriend’s ex-whatever’s got it wrong. That, or you heard what you wanted to hear. Dr. Hiro treated some guy Gojyo found on the way home last week, not some girl. A rather pretty fella, from what he said.”
Yukiko smirked. She could probably have fit her head into Hikaru’s mouth, it had unhinged so completely. Even Shiori looked mildly horrified at the very idea.
“Gojyo’s not a pervert!” The redhead drained her glass of wine, as if the proof of her love’s sexuality could be found at the bottom of the glass.
“He’ll be back,” the blonde said, ruffled feathers notwithstanding. “He never leaves for long.”
Yukiko tried not to laugh.
***
The bar seemed much dimmer than usual. Sure, the place was normally darker than a carload of assholes, but without all the glittering rainbow-fish swimming through the crowd in search of their prey, it was downright dismal. Yukiko noted (not without some measure of satisfaction) that almost all of the women who were badge-carrying Gojyo-hunters had stopped making an appearance here. The few who were left–Shiori and Hikaru among them, naturally–no longer bothered to dress their best. Even Shiori was only wearing a pair of jeans and a dark, simple blouse; Yukiko had been convinced, over the month or so that she’d gotten to know the other woman, that the blonde didn’t own anything but evening dresses.
And they all figured he’d come back, she thought–again, with an odd glint of satisfaction. Guess we can all make errors of judgment, eh?
Why she still came here, she really didn’t know. Maybe it was to gloat over the stupidity of the other women. Maybe because she just allowed herself to be dragged out here every evening by Shiori. Or, perhaps, because she kept resolving to give that cute bartender her number, before someone else snatched him up.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when that same accented voice piped up at the doorway: “I’m in the mood for hearts tonight, boys! Who’s ready to lose?”
Hikaru leapt up from her barstool, squealing (or so Yukiko thought) like a stuck pig. Even Shiori, the picture of placidness, looked for a second as if someone had jammed a good-sized hatpin up her ass. Both women–as well as the remnants of the hunting party–immediately surrounded the ever-popular redhead.
Yukiko gave Gojyo a cursory glance, blinking in surprise when she got to his face. “Did he actually cut his hair ?” she murmured in surprise, despite herself. “He looks like a complete dork with it short. What’d he do that for?”
The tall-and-dark bartender switched out her empty bottle of ale for a freshly-opened one. “Mourning, or so I heard.”
“Mmm?” She didn’t care about what Gojyo did, really she didn’t, but at least the ‘tender was talking to her.
“Remember that guy he was shacking with?”
Yukiko nodded. She had never seen this infamous ‘boyfriend’, but gossip had revealed him to be a younger man with short brown hair, green eyes, and apparently, a willingness to get his ass thoroughly kicked.
“Disappeared.”
“Why? Lover’s quarrel?”
He gave her a quiet smile. “No one knows. But Gojyo’d been buying for two for the last month. Then, suddenly, he’s only shopping for himself again.”
“How’d you find that out?”
“Most of the food-stand owners are regulars,” he said. “It’s part of my job to listen, don’t you know?”
“Oi, Gojyo, why’d you cut it all off?” Hikaru whined, loudly enough to draw Yukiko’s attention. The redhead had failed to highlight her hair over the last few weeks, revealing Hikaru’s locks to be as brown as Yukiko’s. She was drawing her fingers through what was left of Gojyo’s flaming-red locks… which wasn’t much.
He gave her a grin. “Don’t you like it, lovely?”
“Of course I do! But I miss running my fingers through your–“
“It was like power-steering for oral sex,” Shiori said, that same carefree smile on her face, effectively cutting Hikaru off before she broke Rule One. (3)
“Ah, Shiori, I missed you, too. Got a light, sweetheart?”
“Guess it must have been a lover’s spat,” Yukiko said to her ale before draining it dry. “Plenty of chicks willing to be the rebound, though.”
***
Months passed, as they tend to do. Gojyo didn’t move to another bar; after a time, he began to frequent his old one every night, as per his old habit. Yukiko considered clearing out and finding a new hangout, but then, she noticed an interesting phenomenon that made staying there worthwhile:
In the first two months or so, Gojyo rarely took a woman home. After that, he never took anyone at all.
Yukiko found this to be incredibly amusing. Much of what was happening around the flame-haired man was amusing her. So many of the bubble-headed bitches that hung onto him like white on rice deserved to have their hopes ruined, at least a little, and that was precisely what was happening.
She and Iyoichi (that was the tall-and-dark bartender’s name, which she only learned after drinking at his establishment for four months) both traded idle gossip on the subject. Gojyo wasn’t the only thing they talked about, but he got brought up a bit, usually in response to Gojyo going home and being forced to listen to his harem whine about who broke what rule.
Apparently, Gojyo began buying for two a couple of weeks after he showed up with a close-cropped hairdo. After another couple of weeks, his new roommate began doing the shopping… and taking out the trash… and practically everything else. “The woman’s-work,” Iyoichi had said with a smirk. “And it’s been my experience, my friend, that two men who live together are never just roommates.” (4) Yukiko had not been able to suppress a cackle.
The food-stand owners said that his name was Hakkai, and even though such a name was sinister (and probably false, in Yukiko’s opinion–who the hell named their child “destruction”?), all of them talked about how he was the kindest, most polite young man they’d ever met.
Most of the men who drank there had nothing bad to say about Hakkai, either. He was apparently the man to go to if you needed help, for almost anything at all–you merely had to ask, and he’d probably try to move a mountain for you, stranger or friend.
All of the women conceded that he was polite, kind, pretty, and helpful. But all the ones who drank in Gojyo’s bar would violently bitch the instant that the object of their affections left.
“I hope that green-eyed, panty-waist bastard fucking chokes!” Hikaru was heard to spit out on more than one occasion. (5)
***
Six months had rolled by–spring shifting quickly to summer, then to fall. Specifically, it was at the end of October when Shiori made her final declaration on the subject. Previous to this, she’d remained the portrait of calm and resolve, certain that eventually, Gojyo’s libido would get the better of him and that he would cave in to the call of the Wild Thing. Apparently, though, he had become a sexual camel: no one had seen what color the sheets on Gojyo’s bed were in four entire months.
Shiori made her declaration when the three women were busy making their Harvest Eve costumes. Harvest Eve was a charming festival native only to tiny spit-towns like this one, where hayseed traditions ruled the day. From what Yukiko had deciphered, it began when everyone dressed up in silly or scary costumes. The kids ran around, got candy and pulled pranks. The adults ran around, got drunk and pulled boners. Yukiko had never been much of a seamstress, but she knew enough to make a simple green body-suit, which she was currently stitching up.
Hikaru wasn’t smart enough to do anything with a needle but prick her fingers; Shiori was working on both their costumes. Hikaru–who was going heavy on the dye-bottle now, and had turned her hair a dark plum–entertained them by complaining about the fact that Hakkai existed.
Suddenly, Shiori looked up from her needlework. Her face was perfectly made up, from the pink lip-gloss to the shimmering stuff about her eyes; even when she’d slacked in Gojyo’s absence, Yukiko had never seen the blonde without fantastic makeup. “We’ve got to do something,” she announced.
Hikaru stared at her, utterly puzzled. Yukiko didn’t blame her. The purple-haired woman had been mid-bitching-sentence, and was not capable of switching gears so quickly. “…huh?”
“We can’t just go off quietly into the good night,” the blonde said. “I’m certainly not willing to surrender him so easily. Are you?”
Hikaru, probably still not sure what the hell Shiori was talking about, nodded. Then shook her head. “Um, no. Right?”
“Right,” Shiori said. It was beyond Yukiko how the blonde kept her patience around Hikaru. “Yukiko?”
“Working on my costume,” the brunette said.
“Come on, Yuki-chan,” her friend said, smiling coyly. “What do you say?”
She sighed. “More hunting for wild Gojyo?”
“Precisely. We’ll flush him out at the festival. We can at least get an answer as to why he’s ignoring us.”
Maybe he doesn’t like girls anymore, she thought. But, of course, she was too nice to say that out loud. “I guess I won’t have anything else to do. What are you two going as, anyhow?”
“A couple of yamanba," she replied. (6) For the first time in a while, her happy-go-lucky voice didn’t sound like an act. “You?”
“A kappa.” She held up her body-suit, which was almost done. “All I need is a bowl to strap on my head.”
***
Shiori and Hikaru, she supposed, were still running around the festival. Yukiko had done the sensible thing, based on what little she knew of hunting. It’s one thing to run around a forest, trying to track an animal–any at all. It’s another to find their stomping-grounds and lie in wait. Most animals like having their lairs, and if one can find it, it’s practically written in stone that said animal will run straight into one’s sights.
It made things easier, knowing where he lived.
Why she was doing this, she wasn’t entirely sure… nor was she sure why she didn’t share this bit of info with her friends. If she was honest with herself, she supposed that it was because she wanted to prove–if only to herself–that Gojyo wasn’t going to be coming back to be their walking, talking dildo. He was like a lion, one that had run away from his pack of lionesses to set up house elsewhere.
Iyoichi had even put his finger close to the pulse of the matter the last time they’d spoken. She’d said something about how she really didn’t care less about the flame-haired man, and he’d responded with, “Of course you do.”
“What are you running on about?”
He’d shrugged, as was his habit. “You can’t hate Gojyo, no matter how much you try. That’s all. Deep down, something stops you. You, Yukiko… You just don’t think you’re one of the dumb whisky-whores that hangs on his every fucking word. You think you’re smarter than that, so you dump on him whenever you can. But you pick at him too much to not give yourself away, don’t you think?”
She’d sputtered and blustered. It was true, of course, which didn’t stop her from denying it any more strenuously.
Maybe I want to prove I can’t have him, and maybe I want to prove that none of them can, she thought, rubbing at her neck. Shiori, who thought her costume was hilarious, had insisted she actually put water in the bowl on her head, and holding her head erect was taking its tool.
From her vantage point in the bushes, she could see into one of the windows of Gojyo’s glorified hovel. Hakkai was sitting at a table. Apparently, he was about as excited about the Harvest Eve celebration as she was; he was sans costume, reading from a book–she couldn’t make out the title. The infamous, wild Gojyo was elsewhere. This room was clearly a combo kitchen/den, and was surprisingly neat and clean. Before she’d struck out on her own, Yukiko had lived with a boyfriend for five months, and she couldn’t recall his half of their bedroom ever being as tidy as Gojyo’s house. Not that the redhead could take credit. If Gojyo had cleaned this place at all before the green-eyed man moved in, then she was a pink-feathered duck.
Yukiko waited for the flame-haired man to make his appearance for about twenty minutes. She was amazed at how… docile Hakkai was in that time; all he did was turn pages, breathe, and smile. It was almost creepy. He didn’t do any of those things that people do in the comfort of their own homes, when no one else is around. He didn’t grab at his crotch, or “scratch” his nose, or squirm around in his seat, or (as the old boyfriend had been fond of saying) sit on any barking spiders–things which, in Yukiko’s experience, no man could go without doing for more than thirty seconds. (7) It was almost as unsettling as the fact that his smile never wavered, like his book was one long joke… or like he was practicing the expression. There was something inhuman in his Zen-like state of serenity–
Both Yukiko and the man she observed nearly fell out of their respective seats when Gojyo slammed the front door open.
Great goddess, he must move fast! she couldn’t help but think. And quiet. I didn’t see or hear him coming!
The red-haired man was in full costume. Somehow, it didn’t surprise Yukiko to think that Gojyo would relish this rather silly holiday. He was dressed as the sort of devil the nuns of her childhood had scared her with: not nuns in togas, but in habits, preaching the virgin goddess and her Son, rather than the Buddha. His mask was a hideous, skeletal thing, the same color as his now-chin-length hair. Above it, he had somehow gelled his hair and twisted it into approximations of horns. The rest of him was in some tight red material. Yukiko suspected that he had sacrificed a pair of longjohns for his nefarious desires.
Hakkai said something–what, she couldn’t hear. Gojyo didn’t seem to, either. He completely ignored his roommate and marched over to the kitchen area, out of Yukiko’s viewing convenience. When he returned, he was carrying a large, slender knife.
She never could read lips, but she didn’t have to understand what Hakkai was saying; she wondered it herself. What the fuck is he doing with that knife?
Gojyo sat himself down at the table next to Hakkai, pulling off his mask as he settled. Gin blossoms were beginning to bloom in his cheeks, and his mouth was pulled into that easy, stupid, charming grin which Yukiko resented. With the mask gone and the horns still in place, he looked a fool. Yukiko could clearly hear what he said: “I need to make this fucking thing more functional.”
She watched, unsure if she was bemused or put off, as Gojyo used the knife to dig a small hole in the hideous false visage. He slipped it back on, revealing that the hole he’d made was placed around the creature’s mouth. He parked a cigarette in the hole and lit up. The cigarette bobbed as he spoke: “Aaaah… now that’s better.”
Yukiko had to clap one of her hands over her mouth (no mask here; she’d painted her face to give the appearance of green and blue scales) out of paranoid fear that one of the men would hear her hysterical giggles. She might not like Gojyo, but that was rather funny. Hakkai must have thought so, too–he appeared to be laughing. One pale, pretty hand was cupped around the green-eyed man’s mouth, like he didn’t want to show his amusement.
“What the hell are you laughing at?” Gojyo said. She couldn’t tell if his words were slurred from the beer in his blood or the mask on his face. When Hakkai responded, his voice was so soft and unassuming that, unlike Gojyo’s drunken drawl, it didn’t project through the window. It gave Yukiko the odd feeling of listening in on half a phone conversation:
“It’s a perfectly reasonibible–reashun– ree-son-ay-ble–thing to waste my time on, fuck ya very much. What? Oh, about twenty bucks. You like it? It reminided me of you. Yeah, that one time when I woke you up by–hey, now, that’s unfair, iddn’t it? Swearta God I will. Seven. I think. Maybe ten. I dunno, man, y’ start to forget after the fourth or so. I like oblivion, actually. ‘s quiet. How come you c’n read the same damn book five times? Ya already know how it turns out, don’t’cha? I will not. OK, fine.”
Gojyo suddenly arose from the table and walked off, back towards where he’d gotten the knife before, presumably. Hakkai looked off after him, his lips moving in a quiet dance of speech.
Yukiko was beginning to lose interest, when a loud crash jolted her out of her apathy. Both her and Hakkai’s eyes flew wide open at the noise. While she tried to crane her neck to see what the hell Gojyo had done, Hakkai nearly killed himself trying to get out of his chair and over to where his roommate had fallen.
That drunk is gonna break his fool neck! she thought, leaning ever more precariously to the side. Or stab himself to death with that stupid kni–
Her lap was suddenly filled with cold and wet.
"YIPE!"
***
Yukiko took a long, healthy swig from her glass of ale, like all her talking had made her thirsty. It was good stuff–not as good as the hooch at Iyoichi’s bar, but neither was it Budweiser. In fact, she rather liked this watering-hole. It wasn’t dark, and most of the inhabitants here were a bit closer to her age. It also had a band, rather than a worn-out juke that only played warbling folk songs.
It amused her to note that this aquarium now held most of the rainbow-fish that used to swim in Gojyo’s bar.
She looked over the edge of her ale-bottle at her audience of three. Her eyes were sparkling with some private joke… or, perhaps, at the looks on their faces. Iyoichi, Shiori, and Hikaru were all practically falling out of their seats. Their drinks (DisAronno, mint julep, fairy’s blood) were forgotten at their elbows. For the moment, it seemed that nothing existed beyond their quiet collection of chairs, and whatever it was that Yukiko was going to say next.
Shiori broke the silence. “So what happened?”
The brunette took another sip of ale. “Well, I nearly got caught, standing up and swearing like I did. You would have, too, if you’d dumped a bowl of ice-cold water into your own lap. Neither of them noticed, as it turned out. Also as it turned out, standing was the best thing I could have done for myself. It helped me notice that there was a kitchen window.”
“And you, being curious, snuck on over.”
“Of course.”
“Women,” Iyoichi said, an affectionate tone in his voice.
“Was Gojyo okay?!” Hikaru asked. “What were they doing?!”
Yukiko smiled. She was too polite to say.
~TBC~
~POSTSCRIPT: Can you say "sequel"? I knew you could!
Can you also say "footnotes"?~
1 - My homage to “Ten Things I Hate About You”; though the original question was about whether a girl was possessed of beer-flavored nipples.
2 - If one is struck hard enough in the eye, the iris will turn either dark red or brown, from burst blood vessels and a permanent contraction of the pupil, I believe. The most famous example of this is David Bowie.
3 - A direct theft–er, reference–to Ghastly’s Ghastly Comic.
4 - I know this from personal experience. Oh, God, don’t I know it.
5 - It took Hikaru three weeks to come up with a sentence that long.
6 - A Japanese mountain-witch.
7- “Sitting on a barking spider” being a slightly more polite and colorful description of “farting”. Call me crazy, but I couldn’t bring myself to put the word “fart” in any sentence involving Hakkai in any way… then again, I just did. ^^;;