--- Gary Kleppe <gary@garykleppe.org> wrote:

HIROSHI: I don't know about the rest of them, but
Daisuke and I are
just here to watch. Don't mind us.

AKANE: Some things never change even in an
alt-universe.

DAISUKE: Hey, if it ain't broke....

He smiled as he said it, but Hiroshi knew his friend's
hidden pain.  Altverse after altverse, they had
watched. And watched.  And very occasionally done
something, but oh so rarely.  Just enough to give them
a taste of power, a taste of what it was to actually
help those they cared about, or at least to enjoy some
of the pleasure that those who more often caused the
misery revelled in.

Time and again, they watched their friends suffer in
familiar patterns.  Some might have termed these
patterns "cliches", but only those who did not
personally watch their friend's matronly sister in
law warp into a dominatrix, who did not watch another
of said sisters become the embodiment of lust for yen
with all the obvious and subtle pains that carried,
who did not watch their best friend go through
torture after torment after...

Most of these situations came to positive ends,
fortunately.  Most of them.  And even when everyone
died, they were alive again later.  Sometimes it felt
as if only Hiroshi and Daisuke remembered all the
various adventures, yet they were never able to speak
out about them, to warn those they cared about of
what they knew was to happen.

So much pain.  So much suffering.  For not the first
time, one of them broke down into tears, and the
other held his partner gently.  They knew that this,
too, would pass, but they only found understanding
in one another...

---

Somewhere nearby, two girls drooled.  They knew what
was going on again.  Only the four had been fated to
remember.  Perhaps they had been meant to pair up by
now, but Sayuri always was a bit of a yaoi fan, and
even Yuka found these interludes...interesting.
Maybe they would ease the boys' comfort some day, but
probably not so long as Hi and Dai did not catch them
watching.

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