I.  Dining with Love

Evil his heart, but honey-sweet his tongue
No truth in him, the rogue. He is cruel in his play.
Small his hands, yet his arrows fly far as death.
Tiny his shaft, but it carries heaven high.
Touch not his treacherous gifts, they are dipped in fire. Translation from p. 36
Of Mythology
By Edith Hamilton Haiichi Kaji and his band mate Nakamura Makoto were eating breakfast out at a café in downtown Tokyo. Both were slender, somewhat tall and fine featured. These two gentlemen were members of a small J-rock band or so they seem. The truth was much, much stranger than that, for Kaji was in truth Phoebus Apollo of the Greek pantheon and Makoto was actually Eros his nephew.

Since the Greeks had stopped worshipping the Olympian pantheon the gods' responsibilities have tapered off. Though their powers were largely unchanged since the Greeks, thanks to whatever powers that be other than gods, had made them immortal. The Norse pantheon had it worse since some have actually lost their divinity even. Not the Greek pantheon however, some are even better off like him, Apollo reflected. He didn't have to ride his chariot across the sky anymore and could do whatever and whenever he pleased without upsetting anyone. Imagine having the sun to set at noon because he had hot lunch date. That would upset the mortals and scandalize the pantheon!

Apollo looked over to the other table where his part his attention had wandered now and then. He kept a lot of his attention on his own table though, a wise precaution when sitting and notably eating and drinking with his mischievous nephew. People have found to rue being near the scamp. His nephew had found bow and arrows to be a bother to modern living and had resorted to invisible darts and a fast acting concoction. Argh! Food and drink are not even safe anymore. Kaji shook his head ruffling his blond hair with a hand at the thought.

The other table that had some of Apollo's attention held an American gentleman, a brunette in glasses and a tidy white suit. He was rather proud of this particular mortal since in a way he had some hand in the making of him. He had met Brad Crawford as a child. The precociously solemn child-mortal had impressed him enough that he had given the gift of foretelling to the little one on a whim. From the prosperous way Brad looked right now it seemed that he had made good use of the gift. ¹

Apollo noted approvingly that the mortal was reading a newspaper, looking for new opportunities to turn his gift into a profit no doubt. Somehow that didn't ring quite right to godly intuition. Curious but still on his guard Apollo began to observe the mortal patiently. His patience was soon rewarded when he noted that the blue eyes were actually peering just above the newspaper to look across the street. The view was quite clear since both tables were outside in the patio part of the café. Most curious, what could be so interesting in a flower shop? Apollo looked there to promptly fall into a pair of deep purple eyes.

By the Titans, it's Hyakinthos.²

The distraction of the moment gave Apollo's tablemate the opportunity. Faster than any mortal eye could follow Eros dump a vial-full of potion into his uncle's coffee mug. In Eros' opinion, his uncle hadn't had any excitement lately. Apollo's life was dull and well ordered at the moment, as the latter's nephew it was his filial duty to add some thrills in his uncle's existence.

Apollo raised his cup to his lips in an effort to regain his composure, drinking deeply as he did so.

Jackpot! Bells were almost physically ringing around Eros head in elation. He drank it.

Get a hold of yourself Phoebus, Apollo thought, you know it couldn't be him.

Apollo looked back upon the mortal with purple eyes and wondered how he could have mistaken him for his long dead Hyakinthos. The differences were there to see. Red hair instead of black waved in the light morning breeze, almond eyes rather than wide ones and the height, he was much shorter than Hyakinthos was when Apollo had met the latter. The slenderness and the eyes were the same though. Then the love potion kicked in. Apollo found himself cherishing the similarities and the differences. The coolness of the man's expression made him wonder what depth of the passion might lie underneath the façade. Redheads were usually very ardent lovers no matter how cool they tried to act otherwise.

Hmmm…

Apollo decided to use his powers to find out about "Purple Eyes".

Wait a minute…

The former sun god stopped himself short for a moment and gave his nephew Eros a suspicious glare which the latter met with an innocent face. Deciding that his nephew wasn't probably guilty at this time he continued on to his scheming.

Hah! I knew that would work. Thought Eros as he gloated on the way his uncle had dismissed his suspicions of his part of what was happening. The look he had used was one of his most practiced ones. He had always used it to disavow his usual antics when an older relative looked at him with suspicion for causing the strange feelings the latter felt. It wasn't fair that they should suspect him, there were times that it wasn't his doing at all. Well few times, but there were! The fun was about to begin. Eros knew that Brad Crawford was in love with the redhead. He'd be blind, deaf, numb and totally useless a god of Love if he couldn't sense it sitting not four meters away from the mortal. Indeed, let the fun begin then…

***

Crawford was looking in on the Koneko as always hidden behind his newspaper and the distraction of the obnoxious young clientele of the shop. Saturday mornings were always ideal for Aya-watching since the noisy crowd of fan-girls kept the Weiß bishounen too busy to even look across the street. Aya was currently glaring impatiently at everyone in general making Crawford weak in the knees, his redhead was so sexy when he was giving the Fujimiya Third Degree to someone.

Who am I kidding, my redhead? He isn't mine. I'd be lucky if he notices me outside of a fight.

It amused Schuldich to no end how Crawford insisted on being the one to fight Abyssinian on every encounter with Weiß. The German would not even let him forget about that one time when the latter caught him having a rather --interesting--dream involving the kitten and a pair of handcuffs.

Well, it's the only way I could ever be close to him…

Practically, Crawford knew that even with Estet gone, Schwartz and Weiß still didn't get along. They fought on opposite sides of the spectrum, light and dark and never the twain shall meet. He sighed and looked at the object of his affections again.

Be content with the view, Brad, it's all you can have…who's that?

A blond young man had just came out the door leading to the Koneko's back room carrying a potted plant. He was a handsome with aquiline features and a ready smile, more importantly his hazel eyes were trained on Aya with all the adoration of a puppy. Just looking at him made Crawford's hackles rise with jealousy.

The Weiß has a new member…?

~TBC~

¹ Precedence: Cassandra of Troy was given the gift by Apollo to foretell the future.

² The myth of the Hyacinth where Apollo kills Hyacinth with a misplaced discus throw.

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