[fic] The Thief and his Lawyer [1/?]
When Shige gets kidnapped, he doesn’t realize it until his kidnapper very rudely calls him stupid and tells him to shut it. (“Moron. You’re being kidnapped! Now shut up!”). Shige opens his mouth and tries to object, but the short young man (whom he later finds out is named Nishikido Ryo) promptly slams the door to the isolated room Shige is in shut.
And really, it’s not as if Shige is actually stupid (otherwise, what the hell would he be doing in law school?), but he’s just a bit slow sometimes, and one can’t actually blame him for being onlybook-smart, and just sort of street-smart. He’s still smart. Really. He checks if the door is unlocked and if any windows are present, but finds nothing except for a bowl of bread and cup of cool water, and opts to settle on the uncomfortable bed in the corner of the small room. It occurs to Shige that he doesn’t know why Nishikido has kidnapped him, but he is strangely not scared, despite how he thinks that Nishikido looks a bit like a psychopath (albeit a very attractive one, but Shige would rather die than say that out loud) and may need some help. He gets his answer, though, two days later, when Nishikido bursts into the room randomly one day.
Nishikido’s eyes are wide when he reaches out and clamps his hand on Shige’s right wrist in a death-grip. “Come with me right now.” He doesn’t even wait for a response before he pulls Shige out the door and out of the old building they were hiding in, shoving a hat over Shige’s head and throwing cloaks on both of them.
Shige sputters and tries to ask where they are going, but Nishikido’s grip on his wrist gets tighter, and Shige understands that that means for him to shut up before Nishikido does any bodily harm to him.
A few streets and a suspicious alleyway later (“Act normal. Or else I can’t promise that you won’t have your arm back the way it was.”), Shige is once again shoved into a dark room, stumbling a few steps along the way, but this time, two other people are in the room. They’re about the same age as Shige-maybe a bit older; he thinks these people were also kidnapped by Nishikido too. “Um,” he starts to say, but is interrupted when Nishikido kicks him in the shins. Hard.
“Ryo-chan!” one of the other two in the room calls out loudly. Shige assumes that he’s wrong about these people being the kidnap-ees, and that these people are, in fact, Nishikido’s allies. Maybe minions. Who knows?
The one who spoke has longer hair than both Nishikido and the other one, and is dressed differently too, with a thin blade hanging at his hip, though it doesn’t make him very intimidating to Shige what with the bubbly persona he is giving out.
“What?” Nishikido snaps, a scowl on his face as the one with longer hair bounces up to Shige and inspects him. Shige stares back too, just so he can show that he’s not scared.
“Is this the person who is going to help you?” The boy pokes at Shige’s hair and then steps back to wave. “Hi! I’m A-” He is then interrupted when a hand clamps over his mouth as Nishikido glares, his scowl intensifying.
“Stupid. You’re not supposed to tell him your name. Idiot.”
The boy (whom Shige decides to call A-san until they decide to tell him to call the other otherwise) flails about, slapping away the hand and exclaims loudly, “Eh? But, Ryo-chan! You told him your name, right?” He turns to Shige again. “Right?”
“That’s because there are hundreds of Ryos out there,” he pauses for effect. “But, you, on other hand, are stupid enough to let the whole world know who you are.” Shige wonders if they ever considered that he knows his kidnapper’s family name as well.
“Hey! I’m not stupid! Pi!” A-san turns towards the one with shorter hair, and Shige makes a mental note to remember his name. “Tell Ryo-chan I’m not stupid!”
The one named Pi opens his mouth to speak, and dodges the kick Nishikido is sending his way, “What Ryo-chan means, Jin, is that you’re not supposed to tell-Kato-kun, was it?- your last name, since he’ll know it.”
A-san, now named Jin, draws his mouth open in an ‘o’ shape, and ends up pouting when both Pi and Nishikido ignore him.
The mood takes a drastic change though, when Nishikido turns towards Shige this time, and stares. He looks like he wants to say something, but the words are stuck in his throat, so Ryo ends up making a frustrated sound and throws Pi a pointed look that clearly said, “You do it!”
Pi sighs resignedly, and gestures for Shige to sit on one of the wooden stools nearby. Shige does so, and looks questioningly at the three in the room. He thinks that they are an odd bunch (well, what does he expect from kidnappers anyway?), but he is curious, and maybe they’ll let him go home safe and sound if he behaves. So Shige raises an eyebrow at Pi and waits for them to continue.
Jin is fidgeting, and his attention doesn’t last very long because Shige sees his eyes tracing the cracks on the worn out tiles. Nishikido looks away when Shige glances at him, and Pi has a look on his face, as if he’s trying to come up with a cool speech so that Shige would be impressed by whatever Nishikido had been trying to say. When Pi finally speaks, Shige thanks the gods, and listens.
“It’s very simple, ne. We need your help, Kato Shigeaki-kun!”
The pregnant pause lets Shige gather his thoughts, which he definitely needs to do because Shige had been expecting something more complicated to come from Pi, but the very short and very vague statement throws the law student off guard. He deadpans, “With what, exactly?”
Nishikido looks like he wants to stab himself this time.
*** *** ***
It turns out that Nishikido is a thief that has been falsely accused of murder, and therefore, needs Shige’s help. It doesn’t make sense though, because if Nishikido is on the run, why would he bother to go out and show himself in public? But the answer brings up even more questions, when Jin happily explains that no one (other than them) but the Very Important People know Nishikido’s real name, and that the general public does not know how Nishikido looks like. Shige asks why Nishikido would be on the run then, if they don’t know much about him, but Nishikido doesn’t say anything about that, and dodges the question.
Pi answers, but Shige suspects that he’s leaving out a lot of information. “See, the Very Important People will find Ryo-chan, sooner or later, ne. We need to make dig up enough evidence to make sure he’s innocent.”
But Shige doesn’t see why people would be after Nishikido since people die and are murdered every day, in the city they live in, unless the person that Nishikido had supposedly killed is someone of great importance. Shige isn’t stupid, despite how much Nishikido calls him that, so he figures that the person murdered is, in fact, someone of significance.
“Huh,” Shige says to himself, after processing that thought. He mauls over the situations and once again, wonders why people would think Nishikido murdered someone of the higher class when Nishikido is supposed to be a regular thief-or so Jin says. He asks, “Who did you kill?”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” Nishikido retorts, grumbling something along the lines of ‘not recently, anyway’ before speaking up again. “They think I killed him! Just because some mother fucker stole Uc-the man’s damned rubies, they think I did it!”
Shige blinks. It’s the most Nishikido had spoken since the conversation started. “Rubies?”
“Yes- oh fuck. You weren’t supposed to know that.”
“Wait a minute…” Shige’s brows are furrowed, and he briefly remembers how the day before he had gotten kidnapped, his friend had been talking about how one of the city’s nobles was dead and his prized collection of gem stones were gone when the authorities had gotten there. He tries to recall what else his friend had been babbling about, and wonders if his friend had mentioned anything about the victim or suspect. “You mean Uch- Uchi something? Uchi Hiroki, I think?”
Nishikido’s expression darkens, and, as expected, Pi and Jin move in to answer. “Well… yes.”
“Ryo-chan is a master thief though! He’s really good!” Pi smacks Jin on the side of the head, but the damage is done.
“Master thief? What?” Shige is looking at his kidnapper expectantly now. The law student squints a bit, like he’s trying to install some kind of lie detector on Nishikido with his mind.
Nishikido clears his throat and looks uncomfortable, unsure of whether he should say anything to Shige, but Jin continues to chatter enthusiastically, all the while skillfully avoiding Pi’s and Nishikido’s attempts to catch him. Shige thinks Jin is doing this on purpose, but doesn’t say anything because Jin might stop if he does. “-time where he stole an ancient scholar’s robe for this old man named Johnny!”
The comment sends Shige jumping out of his chair and pointing at Nishikido. “You! You’re the one who stole my family’s heirloom!” He is looking a Nishikido incredulously, and something clicks in his head.
“So?”
“’So’?! So?! You…!” Shige gasps. “You’re the Haruto?!” Somewhere in his mind, he knows he should stop, but he can’t help himself. To think of someone like Nishikido as the infamous Haruto, who had appeared so suddenly two years ago and threw the city into disarray, and put Shige’s father in the hospital for freaking out over the Kato family’s heirloom, baffles him a bit. Or maybe a lot.
“So what?” Nishikido says back, having momentarily forgotten about Jin, slightly offended at Shige’s reaction. He is a master thief, after all, and to have someone question his identity like that made a dent in his ego.
But Shige says nothing- he doesn’t have very much to respond to that.
“Look, Kato,” Nishikido says in all seriousness after some time. “You’ll get out of this scar-free- hell, I’ll even let you go home if you agree- if you keep your lips shut about this, okay? Don’t you dare go telling anyone about knowing the Great Haruto, because not only will you have me after your sorry dick, the government will be after your virgin ass.”
“I wasn’t planning on telling anyone,” Shige rebukes, eyes narrowing at this. He decides that he’s had enough of Nishikido’s verbal abuse. “I like my dick, thank you very much.” He doesn’t comment on his rear because, by now, he knows that Nishikido will say something about it, and he’d lose the argument (it doesn’t help that his ears are probably very red at the moment, and he’s quite grateful that the room is dark).
Pi lays a hand on Nishikido’s shoulder, and Shige can see the thief visibly relax versus how tense his shoulders were earlier. A sigh. “Okay, fine. Sorry. But, you will help, right?”
There’s a hint of something in Nishikido’s eyes, and he almost looks desperate, but in a flash, it’s gone, and he’s staring at Shige willfully.
“I don’t have a choice, do I?”
*** *** ***
“So you’re telling me you have no idea who did it?”
“Dammit, Kato, what the fuck would you be doing here if I knew?” Nishikido growls out, obviously losing his patience (not that he is very patient to begin with) as they continue circling on the same topic over and over again.
It’s just the two of them now, in a single room Nishikido had rented at a random inn. Pi had left to run some errands, and Jin apparently needed to get back home, wherever he lived. Shige suspects that Jin’s a swordsman of sorts, one with a wealthy host, so he’s probably pretty well off.
The two of them are discussing about their next move, and how Shige fits into everything because otherwise, he’d be useless, basically defeating the point of recruiting him in the first place. But Shige is starting to think that the situation is hopeless, and he really shouldn’t have agreed to it in the first place, with Nishikido not giving in enough input on the case.
“You’re a lawyer, right?”
“Well, technically, I’m only-”
“All you have to do is prove to them that I’m innocent.”
“I don’t think you understand, Nishikido-kun,” Shige cuts in firmly, before Nishikido says more. “First, I can’t help you if we don’t have enough evidence, and second, I’m a law student, not a lawyer.” He hears Nishikido curse and mutter under his breath, and wonders that maybe he should try other questions. “Do you know why they killed Uchi-san?”
Shige sees the thief flinch at the mention of the deceased lord’s name. “The rubies, probably.”
“Rubies?”
“…Yeah.” Nishikido nods and has a look on his face that makes Shige feel queasy and fuzzy, but it’s quickly replaced by a hard look, causing Shige to study Nishikido’s face to check if he’s missed anything. He has learned, in that small period of time they had spent together, that Nishikido isn’t one to openly speak or show his emotions, preferring to play it as the cool and (somewhat) brutal bully, but Shige likes to entertain himself with the thought that he can read the mysterious thief in between brief moments of transition. He is so caught up in trying to decipher yet another show of emotion that he only jumps back into the conversation when Nishikido mumbles, “…but as always, he doesn’t listen.”
Shige stares. “You… know him?”
He’s expecting Nishikido to turn away or maybe hesitate, but will end up telling him anyway. He finds himself in for a surprise though, when Nishikido glowers at him with a, “Mind your own shit,” and walks out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
Shige looks at the door knob, and knows that it would be easy to get out now; to go home and be safe, not having to worry about helping a group of people he barely knew.
But then he thinks of how disappointed Jin would probably be, and how Pi would be having a hard time playing babysitter for both of his friends. He thinks of how Nishikido had looked at him for help, but then grimaces at the thought of what Nishikido would do when he finds Shige curled up at home under his beige stripped comforter instead of helping him.
So he gets up with the intention of going after Nishikido to grill the thief until he spills out enough for Shige to aid him, or at least, to get some fresh air if he fails to find the boy (which is very likely, he reckons).
Shige immediately curses and calls himself an idiot and thinks that maybe he is really stupid, however, when he reaches the door, only to find that it is locked, and won’t budge an inch. He frowns, shaking his head as he scolds himself for thinking that Nishikido would be careless enough or trusting enough to leave the door unlocked for him to wander.
He can’t get out at all, and imagines himself kicking Nishikido back for once, just to make himself feel better.
*** *** ***
TBC.
Comments and edits, please?
And really, it’s not as if Shige is actually stupid (otherwise, what the hell would he be doing in law school?), but he’s just a bit slow sometimes, and one can’t actually blame him for being onlybook-smart, and just sort of street-smart. He’s still smart. Really. He checks if the door is unlocked and if any windows are present, but finds nothing except for a bowl of bread and cup of cool water, and opts to settle on the uncomfortable bed in the corner of the small room. It occurs to Shige that he doesn’t know why Nishikido has kidnapped him, but he is strangely not scared, despite how he thinks that Nishikido looks a bit like a psychopath (albeit a very attractive one, but Shige would rather die than say that out loud) and may need some help. He gets his answer, though, two days later, when Nishikido bursts into the room randomly one day.
Nishikido’s eyes are wide when he reaches out and clamps his hand on Shige’s right wrist in a death-grip. “Come with me right now.” He doesn’t even wait for a response before he pulls Shige out the door and out of the old building they were hiding in, shoving a hat over Shige’s head and throwing cloaks on both of them.
Shige sputters and tries to ask where they are going, but Nishikido’s grip on his wrist gets tighter, and Shige understands that that means for him to shut up before Nishikido does any bodily harm to him.
A few streets and a suspicious alleyway later (“Act normal. Or else I can’t promise that you won’t have your arm back the way it was.”), Shige is once again shoved into a dark room, stumbling a few steps along the way, but this time, two other people are in the room. They’re about the same age as Shige-maybe a bit older; he thinks these people were also kidnapped by Nishikido too. “Um,” he starts to say, but is interrupted when Nishikido kicks him in the shins. Hard.
“Ryo-chan!” one of the other two in the room calls out loudly. Shige assumes that he’s wrong about these people being the kidnap-ees, and that these people are, in fact, Nishikido’s allies. Maybe minions. Who knows?
The one who spoke has longer hair than both Nishikido and the other one, and is dressed differently too, with a thin blade hanging at his hip, though it doesn’t make him very intimidating to Shige what with the bubbly persona he is giving out.
“What?” Nishikido snaps, a scowl on his face as the one with longer hair bounces up to Shige and inspects him. Shige stares back too, just so he can show that he’s not scared.
“Is this the person who is going to help you?” The boy pokes at Shige’s hair and then steps back to wave. “Hi! I’m A-” He is then interrupted when a hand clamps over his mouth as Nishikido glares, his scowl intensifying.
“Stupid. You’re not supposed to tell him your name. Idiot.”
The boy (whom Shige decides to call A-san until they decide to tell him to call the other otherwise) flails about, slapping away the hand and exclaims loudly, “Eh? But, Ryo-chan! You told him your name, right?” He turns to Shige again. “Right?”
“That’s because there are hundreds of Ryos out there,” he pauses for effect. “But, you, on other hand, are stupid enough to let the whole world know who you are.” Shige wonders if they ever considered that he knows his kidnapper’s family name as well.
“Hey! I’m not stupid! Pi!” A-san turns towards the one with shorter hair, and Shige makes a mental note to remember his name. “Tell Ryo-chan I’m not stupid!”
The one named Pi opens his mouth to speak, and dodges the kick Nishikido is sending his way, “What Ryo-chan means, Jin, is that you’re not supposed to tell-Kato-kun, was it?- your last name, since he’ll know it.”
A-san, now named Jin, draws his mouth open in an ‘o’ shape, and ends up pouting when both Pi and Nishikido ignore him.
The mood takes a drastic change though, when Nishikido turns towards Shige this time, and stares. He looks like he wants to say something, but the words are stuck in his throat, so Ryo ends up making a frustrated sound and throws Pi a pointed look that clearly said, “You do it!”
Pi sighs resignedly, and gestures for Shige to sit on one of the wooden stools nearby. Shige does so, and looks questioningly at the three in the room. He thinks that they are an odd bunch (well, what does he expect from kidnappers anyway?), but he is curious, and maybe they’ll let him go home safe and sound if he behaves. So Shige raises an eyebrow at Pi and waits for them to continue.
Jin is fidgeting, and his attention doesn’t last very long because Shige sees his eyes tracing the cracks on the worn out tiles. Nishikido looks away when Shige glances at him, and Pi has a look on his face, as if he’s trying to come up with a cool speech so that Shige would be impressed by whatever Nishikido had been trying to say. When Pi finally speaks, Shige thanks the gods, and listens.
“It’s very simple, ne. We need your help, Kato Shigeaki-kun!”
The pregnant pause lets Shige gather his thoughts, which he definitely needs to do because Shige had been expecting something more complicated to come from Pi, but the very short and very vague statement throws the law student off guard. He deadpans, “With what, exactly?”
Nishikido looks like he wants to stab himself this time.
*** *** ***
It turns out that Nishikido is a thief that has been falsely accused of murder, and therefore, needs Shige’s help. It doesn’t make sense though, because if Nishikido is on the run, why would he bother to go out and show himself in public? But the answer brings up even more questions, when Jin happily explains that no one (other than them) but the Very Important People know Nishikido’s real name, and that the general public does not know how Nishikido looks like. Shige asks why Nishikido would be on the run then, if they don’t know much about him, but Nishikido doesn’t say anything about that, and dodges the question.
Pi answers, but Shige suspects that he’s leaving out a lot of information. “See, the Very Important People will find Ryo-chan, sooner or later, ne. We need to make dig up enough evidence to make sure he’s innocent.”
But Shige doesn’t see why people would be after Nishikido since people die and are murdered every day, in the city they live in, unless the person that Nishikido had supposedly killed is someone of great importance. Shige isn’t stupid, despite how much Nishikido calls him that, so he figures that the person murdered is, in fact, someone of significance.
“Huh,” Shige says to himself, after processing that thought. He mauls over the situations and once again, wonders why people would think Nishikido murdered someone of the higher class when Nishikido is supposed to be a regular thief-or so Jin says. He asks, “Who did you kill?”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” Nishikido retorts, grumbling something along the lines of ‘not recently, anyway’ before speaking up again. “They think I killed him! Just because some mother fucker stole Uc-the man’s damned rubies, they think I did it!”
Shige blinks. It’s the most Nishikido had spoken since the conversation started. “Rubies?”
“Yes- oh fuck. You weren’t supposed to know that.”
“Wait a minute…” Shige’s brows are furrowed, and he briefly remembers how the day before he had gotten kidnapped, his friend had been talking about how one of the city’s nobles was dead and his prized collection of gem stones were gone when the authorities had gotten there. He tries to recall what else his friend had been babbling about, and wonders if his friend had mentioned anything about the victim or suspect. “You mean Uch- Uchi something? Uchi Hiroki, I think?”
Nishikido’s expression darkens, and, as expected, Pi and Jin move in to answer. “Well… yes.”
“Ryo-chan is a master thief though! He’s really good!” Pi smacks Jin on the side of the head, but the damage is done.
“Master thief? What?” Shige is looking at his kidnapper expectantly now. The law student squints a bit, like he’s trying to install some kind of lie detector on Nishikido with his mind.
Nishikido clears his throat and looks uncomfortable, unsure of whether he should say anything to Shige, but Jin continues to chatter enthusiastically, all the while skillfully avoiding Pi’s and Nishikido’s attempts to catch him. Shige thinks Jin is doing this on purpose, but doesn’t say anything because Jin might stop if he does. “-time where he stole an ancient scholar’s robe for this old man named Johnny!”
The comment sends Shige jumping out of his chair and pointing at Nishikido. “You! You’re the one who stole my family’s heirloom!” He is looking a Nishikido incredulously, and something clicks in his head.
“So?”
“’So’?! So?! You…!” Shige gasps. “You’re the Haruto?!” Somewhere in his mind, he knows he should stop, but he can’t help himself. To think of someone like Nishikido as the infamous Haruto, who had appeared so suddenly two years ago and threw the city into disarray, and put Shige’s father in the hospital for freaking out over the Kato family’s heirloom, baffles him a bit. Or maybe a lot.
“So what?” Nishikido says back, having momentarily forgotten about Jin, slightly offended at Shige’s reaction. He is a master thief, after all, and to have someone question his identity like that made a dent in his ego.
But Shige says nothing- he doesn’t have very much to respond to that.
“Look, Kato,” Nishikido says in all seriousness after some time. “You’ll get out of this scar-free- hell, I’ll even let you go home if you agree- if you keep your lips shut about this, okay? Don’t you dare go telling anyone about knowing the Great Haruto, because not only will you have me after your sorry dick, the government will be after your virgin ass.”
“I wasn’t planning on telling anyone,” Shige rebukes, eyes narrowing at this. He decides that he’s had enough of Nishikido’s verbal abuse. “I like my dick, thank you very much.” He doesn’t comment on his rear because, by now, he knows that Nishikido will say something about it, and he’d lose the argument (it doesn’t help that his ears are probably very red at the moment, and he’s quite grateful that the room is dark).
Pi lays a hand on Nishikido’s shoulder, and Shige can see the thief visibly relax versus how tense his shoulders were earlier. A sigh. “Okay, fine. Sorry. But, you will help, right?”
There’s a hint of something in Nishikido’s eyes, and he almost looks desperate, but in a flash, it’s gone, and he’s staring at Shige willfully.
“I don’t have a choice, do I?”
*** *** ***
“So you’re telling me you have no idea who did it?”
“Dammit, Kato, what the fuck would you be doing here if I knew?” Nishikido growls out, obviously losing his patience (not that he is very patient to begin with) as they continue circling on the same topic over and over again.
It’s just the two of them now, in a single room Nishikido had rented at a random inn. Pi had left to run some errands, and Jin apparently needed to get back home, wherever he lived. Shige suspects that Jin’s a swordsman of sorts, one with a wealthy host, so he’s probably pretty well off.
The two of them are discussing about their next move, and how Shige fits into everything because otherwise, he’d be useless, basically defeating the point of recruiting him in the first place. But Shige is starting to think that the situation is hopeless, and he really shouldn’t have agreed to it in the first place, with Nishikido not giving in enough input on the case.
“You’re a lawyer, right?”
“Well, technically, I’m only-”
“All you have to do is prove to them that I’m innocent.”
“I don’t think you understand, Nishikido-kun,” Shige cuts in firmly, before Nishikido says more. “First, I can’t help you if we don’t have enough evidence, and second, I’m a law student, not a lawyer.” He hears Nishikido curse and mutter under his breath, and wonders that maybe he should try other questions. “Do you know why they killed Uchi-san?”
Shige sees the thief flinch at the mention of the deceased lord’s name. “The rubies, probably.”
“Rubies?”
“…Yeah.” Nishikido nods and has a look on his face that makes Shige feel queasy and fuzzy, but it’s quickly replaced by a hard look, causing Shige to study Nishikido’s face to check if he’s missed anything. He has learned, in that small period of time they had spent together, that Nishikido isn’t one to openly speak or show his emotions, preferring to play it as the cool and (somewhat) brutal bully, but Shige likes to entertain himself with the thought that he can read the mysterious thief in between brief moments of transition. He is so caught up in trying to decipher yet another show of emotion that he only jumps back into the conversation when Nishikido mumbles, “…but as always, he doesn’t listen.”
Shige stares. “You… know him?”
He’s expecting Nishikido to turn away or maybe hesitate, but will end up telling him anyway. He finds himself in for a surprise though, when Nishikido glowers at him with a, “Mind your own shit,” and walks out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
Shige looks at the door knob, and knows that it would be easy to get out now; to go home and be safe, not having to worry about helping a group of people he barely knew.
But then he thinks of how disappointed Jin would probably be, and how Pi would be having a hard time playing babysitter for both of his friends. He thinks of how Nishikido had looked at him for help, but then grimaces at the thought of what Nishikido would do when he finds Shige curled up at home under his beige stripped comforter instead of helping him.
So he gets up with the intention of going after Nishikido to grill the thief until he spills out enough for Shige to aid him, or at least, to get some fresh air if he fails to find the boy (which is very likely, he reckons).
Shige immediately curses and calls himself an idiot and thinks that maybe he is really stupid, however, when he reaches the door, only to find that it is locked, and won’t budge an inch. He frowns, shaking his head as he scolds himself for thinking that Nishikido would be careless enough or trusting enough to leave the door unlocked for him to wander.
He can’t get out at all, and imagines himself kicking Nishikido back for once, just to make himself feel better.
*** *** ***
TBC.
Comments and edits, please?