"So... it was him all along?" asked Chino after he had unwittingly gotten front row tickets to see the unannounced show. Antonio only nodded. It became apparent earlier in the conversation that there was one person before Sage who knew in real life. That was Chino. It was quite ironic though. He'd seen Chino in most of his classes since preschool. He had been to a few of his birthday parties. He'd even been to his house once in forth grade. But he began to realize that although he knew of Chino, he never really knew him.

Chino turned out to be gay--just like Antonio, just like Veronica, just like Ellen Degeneres, just like... well the word gay was going about a lot now... it just began to get stuffy. He'd cleanse it of its fullness like the cellphone he still hadn't gotten from his mother.

"I guess it was," Antonio nodded. Sage had chosen to slide so far down the recliner that he was on his back on the seat. That unofficially meant he was the unofficial listener of the conversation--he was going to exempt himself from the speaking role. And he did. Until Chino asked him: "So how long did you know?" It proceeded down De Nial.

"Did I know what?"

"That you were gay?"

"I'm not happy--Antonio was shot right in front of me!" (One would think it would be horrible to bring it up at such a time, but these two were normally not ones to hide from each other with words.)

"I meant homosexual."

"Who's homosexual?"

"You."

"I know you are."

"I meant you."

"You mean Yu from school? She transferred. I didn't know she was gay."

"You know what I mean."

"You mean Yu knows what you mean."

Chino got so frustrated that he tugged at his mop of hair (it was big and poufy enough for him to lose himself in). "You know damn well what I mean! Stop playing hard to get!"

"I kissed Antonio... I guess I would be a little hard to get for you."

Chino stared at Sage with a face that reminded him of a skull with evil eyes. He sighed. "I knew since earlier today when you made the surprise show."

"Ooh, I see," he said. "Try-it before you like-it thing."

"More like have a dream, space out, watch it come true," Sage admitted. He hadn't expanded on the dream part. No one brought it up, but Antonio and Chino traded knowing looks. At the end of their talking (and Sage learning there actually WAS a difference between bisexuality and homosexuality and that it wasn't usually used by a closet homosexual) Chino announced that he had to get home. Before he left though, Sage took him outside the room and thanked him.

"What for?"

"For being there for Tony," Sage said. He was thankful that there were others looking out for him when he couldn't be there.

"No prob. When Tony gets better, you should hang out with us and Veronica... You know, she's bisexual too. I think..."

"No, no, no, no, no. Mira, if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, then you might as well try to straighten me out with a curling iron," he folded his arms and planted his feet. "But I haven't seen her in a while. She cute?"

--(o)--

Two months pass and it turns out that Antonio is practically a newborn babe--health-wise that is to say. He healed perfectly and there wasn't a scratch on him. Now that he thought about it, there were never really any scratches or scars on him. He always swore he used to have them but they were nonexistent to the naked eye. Even when he had the infected ear for a couple of weeks it left no mark. Even the hole itself was closed up. Sage had always disapproved of earrings in guys for some odd reason.

Since they left the hospital (Sage visited nearly every day since he had to start going to school after a few days) he and Antonio slowed down with the touchy-touchy, kissy-kissy. When he was in the hospital, Antonio needed tender, loving care. And with his power of words and understanding, it justified what Sage and he were doing. Sage, on the other hand, felt that regular friendship wouldn't work to get him out sooner. His best friend needed advanced friendship and he was no one to deny him of this. But now that he was out...

Halloween was fast approaching and neither of the two had costumes or any parties to go to. When they went to Party Town, it turned out that all the costumes were taken. ALL of them. There was no time to make any and... everything was just gone wrong. For three days, Sage had to help Antonio out with classroom concepts that were missed (he didn't have to make up homework or classwork due to the nature of the situation). For two days and a half, they did no such thing. They just continued to make sure the other was as well as the doctor and school consoler (who Sage had to see on the regular) said they were with their own methods. They were. It was a good thing Antonio was a good study under pressure, for he aced all the tests the next day.

"So you want me to skip out on some generic Halloween party of some dude whose name I don't and probably won't know so that I could go out to the movies with you two and Chino Guevara?" asked Veronica, just to straighten things up. When both boys nodded, she did too. It was the beginning of a beautiful thing.

"So, Chino, I see you're not as chubby as you used to be," said Veronica as they sat on the bus to Court street in Brooklyn. "Your ass used to be bigger than most of the girls'--including Paulina. And she was the only other sistuh in the class."

"Hey," he responded coolly. "If it wasn't for you I wouldn't have anything to aspire to."

They began bickering and Sage and Antonio saw the beginning of another beautiful thing: The beauty of love. They watched as love swore and threatened and made rude gestures.

Later in the movies, Sage found himself holding Antonio's hand. During the supposed-to-be-scary movie, Sage found himself not caring about the chick being shreaded to bits but instead caring about getting home with Antonio. Lately, they've been frequenting his house because even though Papa Tony accepted Antonio, he was in the dark (along with Mama Tia and Mama Melia) about the boy's relationship. That was just as it had to be for now--until they were ready.

It occurred to Sage that he never saw Antonio--or even Chino for that matter--acting gay. They didn't go around waving their hands like prom queens or saying "heeeey" and "honey" at every time they got a chance. It began to disturb him that he could not tell who was gay and who was not. It wasn't such a big deal before. It wasn't a big deal now. But still, now that he was more at center with himself he couldn't help but want to be able to identify those who were like him. Was gaydar a myth?

After Chino said he'd see Veronica home (she pretended to protest but didn't say anything that would actually deter him from doing so), Sage and Antonio got into his house. The lights were off, but since they knew the way upstairs in the dark, they both ascended. Rather than going to the attic-room for fear of difficulties and noise, they went to Sage's other room on the third floor.

When the door closed behind them, neither one of them turned on the lights. The streetlights through the open blinds was enough light for them to get by doing what they were doing. That doing was not actual sex, but mouth and body re-exploration. Sage found that during these times, his senses were odd. They seemed sharpened to everything--he could hear Antonio's heartbeat and snippets of conversations outside and on the next stoop over; he could smell Antonio's fading cologne and the bath soap he himself used earlier; he wasn't sure without verification but he could see THROUGH his eyelids into Antonio's angelic face; he could feel every cell on Antonio's body as his hands went under his shirt and around him to his back and he could feel Antonio's every gentle caress as he did whatever hoodoo it was that made his back arch and his front force into Antonio's body--being met with equal force, of course; and he could taste... well, Antonio was beyond description, but it was the core concept of "good".

Antonio pulled Sage onto his lap as he gently fell onto the bed. They continued to kiss and grope each other until hands just began to get in the way. They stopped with them all together and used them for support on the bed as Sage leaned into Antonio so that the Italian was lying back propped up only by his elbows. It was just so very passionate but full of the love of ten years. It was also a good thing that both of them played woodwind instruments and knew the art of proper breathing because otherwise they would have had to stop every minute or so and would not have been able to keep their personal record of six minutes. But it was not breathing irregularities that stopped them this time. It was lighting.

The streetlights yielded to a bigger, brighter, closer light source. It was like the stars suddenly giving way to the sun. Both boys looked up to see the white-yellow light of a mostly-unused light bulb filling the room. Sage did not have clap-on and Mama Melia was at the hospital on duty. That could only mean one thing: Taikoro Uchiababa, otherwise known as Papa Tai.

--(o)--

For the benefit of the reader, this bit of the story will play out like a script.

--(o)--

Papa Tony: So they're gay shudder for each other?

Mama Tia: Give him a break--at least we know Sage rather than some two-bit low-life who'd try to take advantage of our baby.

Papa Tai: But it's... it's... something in Arabic or Japanese... it's not natural. No other mammals show signs of homoseh... homoseh... the thing.

Mama Melia: Everything cannot be explained by your degrees in biology. If our son shares the love for Tony-boy that we share for each other then they should be allowed to... well... sex is simply out of the question at this age, but they're old enough to--

Papa Tony: Ah, ah, ah! No you don't Melia. These boys are in a phase right now. One we can't encourage. Every girl at this age thinks she's a lesbian or bi...whatever. Every boy thinks he's gay shudder. Ain't no Italian ever been accused of such a thing.

Mama Tia: Hush! Now that we all accepted them for who they are and we're all happy and whatnot, we need to talk about--

Papa Tai: Happy? Who's happy? The Uchiababa bloodline will stop with my son because he wants to deny some potential mate out there his genetic makeup so that he can make love with another male?

Mama Melia: The Uchiababa name didn't even start until you wanted to give respect to both your heritages at once and combined your Japanese middle name with your Arabic surname and force it on your family. Aaaaand, stop referring to those boys like they're test animals or something.

Papa Tai: Call him by his given name. This Sage-crap is irking me.

Mama Melia: Ignore Now how do we break the news to the boys?

Papa Tony: That they can't see each other that way? Let's just tell them outright.

Mama Tia: No, Tony. That they can see each other, just that they have to take things slowly.

Papa Tony: Oh. never.

Mama Melia: They're old enough to know who they want to love. And even if we try to stop them, who's

really going to win? We all know they like adventure. If we tell them no, they'll find a way. They go to school for eight hours in every class, they stay for after-school clubs and go places and we don't see them until maybe eight or nine at night. They live a few blocks from each other with many checkpoints in which to vanish in between. To be honest, they're going to probably want us to say no so that they could have the thrill of an adventure of seeing each other on the down-low as they say.

Besides, if we say no now, they'll probably never trust us with something like this. They'll just feel they were right to hide this from us. They'll keep to themselves and drift away from us. The most we can do is tell them how we feel about it and let them decide if they want to keep seeing each other. And we'll be having to educate them on safe sex...

Papa Tony: Twitch

Papa Tai: Sigh

Mama Tia: Capital! Clapping Simply capital! We'll take the boys out to dinner and tell them exactly how we feel and deliver the good news!

Papa Tai: Well, I still love my son despite all this... I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have another...

Mama Melia: Cocks eyebrow You must have lost your mind in one of those marine biology dictionaries. Do I look like I'm about to have another one? I don't think so.

Papa Tony: Egh... No dinner. If we were congratulating them, then we would do it. But since we aren't, they can have regular old meals like everybody else.

Mama Tia: Says low so that only Melia could hear Let's just give it to him so that he could feel he has some degree of opinion.

Mama Melia: Okay, you're right. No fancy dinner.

Papa Tony: Good.

--(o)--

"I'm glad they've come to an agreement. We would have stayed together anyway," Antonio bragged as he buckled up the seat-belt. He snapped Sage's on.

"Yeah," he muttered. "I think your dad was just glad you weren't the femmie one."

"Well you aren't either," Antonio shrugged.

"I know, but I guess non-gays don't understand that gender roles are... well... Let's just be glad we've got equal force," he chuckled.

"Speaking of force, the force of gravity is going to come by any second now."

"No it is'iiiiiiiiiinnnnnnttttt!!" screamed Sage as the free-fall pod fell with both Sage and Antonio inside holding on for dear life. It bungied up a bit and finally stopped at the bottom at a platform where the pod was opened and a large man took them both out and sent them dizzily on their way.

"I take that back," Antonio said. "You are kind of bitchy."

"Good," Sage nodded. "Then that means you wont mind carrying me on your back."

"Ah, ah, ah. You ain't that much of a bitch. And besides, that's key," he hinted. Sage made a quick yowl of I-almost-got-caught-ness and slid over a bit away from Antonio, who'd pretended not to notice.

The November Festival was in full swing by the time they arrived. As being the children of members of the Village community who helped set up the festivities, they both got tight yellow bands slapped and clipped around their wrists that allowed them to go on any ride for free. They still had to pay for games and food and drink though.

Scouting around, they spied Veronica and Chino in a heated debate. Moving closer, it was obviously about who contributed more to society: Men or women. Veronica milked the double-standard argument for all it was worth and had it been anyone other than Chino she was going against, she would have won. It was a shame Chino knew his stuff just as well as she did.

They walked about together pointing out people they knew and avoiding ones they didn't. When they saw Jarvis they eagerly led Veronica and Chino around the other aisle entirely. He still owed them an ass-whooping. As far as Sage was concerned, Jarvis could keep the money and the change.

Suddenly, Veronica and Chino had some thing they were supposed to be doing at her house so Sage and Antonio had to go to the fortuneteller's house by themselves. It would have been relatively faker had it not been that Genevieve was sitting right behind the booth with the purple shawls.