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When I got up to go to the bathroom after a few hours nap, I heard the sound from downstairs.

Remembering how Colton had once done the same for me as I was surely about to do for Akio, and I went down to confirm what was already unmistakable: Akio was crying. Sobbing.

His hands over his face, and his body shaking as he cried so hard his breathing sounded more like he was swimming, it was as though Deke had died only minutes ago, not thirty years.

Wherever he'd gone today, he couldn't come home until he was ready. Ready to do what he'd done with the music, the drawings. Ready to look at the old one I'd found, to remind him of Deke's finest moment, or biggest disgrace, or both at once.

When I'd sat and cried on Colton's sofa in the early hours not so long ago, I'd only had a few months of stored up problems. Akio had thirty years of them, probably more, and it was as though Kaede were right: on some level, me being here had made him dive into himself and pull them all the way back to the surface, because it was like part of him needed them there, so he could finally either confront them or drown in them. He gave no sign he knew I was there. He probably couldn't have seen me through the tears even without his hands over his face.

He took them away. I moved out of the doorway just in time.

Hiding in his hallway and listening to him trying to stop crying didn't seem right, but it didn't seem wrong either somehow. He said something in Japanese, which from the tone of it I thought must mean 'Get hold of yourself for God's sake.' It didn't seem to work. One deep breath after another, Akio sounded like he was just giving up and letting his feelings do whatever they were going to do to him.

There was nobody in his life who was here to do what Colton had done for me during my version of this. Maybe Colton was right about me: I might just have been a good doctor, if compassion alone could get me though. Let Colton be right about that, I thought, as I stepped back into the doorway. Akio was looking between his knees at the floor, and didn't move.

'Kio?' I said, quietly. 'It's alright.'

He looked up slowly. 'Deke?' he said, his eyes wide.

Oh no. Just no. He'd gotten himself so stoned that he'd woken up still stoned, and now he thought I was my uncle? What if he didn't snap out of this?

Could I be Deke for him this time? Was it right? Where would it go if I did it?

Why had I called him Kio, like Deke did? Of all the stupid things I could have done to try and comfort him.

What the hell was I meant to do now?

'Oh,' he said, sitting back and lying his head back against the cushions. 'I'm sorry, Todd. For a moment there I....I'm sorry,' he said again, this time fresh tears coming to him that he tried to wipe away, but he didn't get up. It was like he couldn't. I was there sitting next to him before I knew I'd crossed the room, my hand on his head this time.

'It's alright,' I said. 'Let it all go. If you've got stuff you need to say, I'm right here to hear it. And I won't judge. Deke _or_you, or anybody else.'

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I woke you up.'

'No you didn't. And I'm glad I woke up.'

Akio sighed. 'You're such a decent boy, Todd. I'm sorry a foolish old man like me got you mixed up in his issues.'

'Don't be. Kaede told me I only came here to dig up the past, just for myself. She was right. Talking on the internet was one thing. Maybe it wasn't a good idea for you that I came here. I'm sorry I came to your home and made you feel like this. But it's okay. I'll go tomorrow morning.'

'Don't you dare go,' Akio said, strength back in his voice. 'She was wrong. Whatever she said to you, she was wrong. I needed you to come here? You understand? I needed this to happen. I tried to find this part of me since the moment you came in this house, and I couldn't. Until yesterday. So please, just don't go.'

'Okay,' I said, my hand still on his head. 'I'm right here. Tell me what you've gotta tell me. Even if it's nothing, and you just wanna sit here and think.'

'Oh it's something alright,' Akio said, sniffing a lot and holding a hand under his nose..

I reached into my pyjama pocket, glad I had a tissue, and that Akio took it and blew his nose. 'Thank you. Something tells me you've done this before.'

'Not exactly. But I learned from someone good.'

'Todd, I've done something unconscionable. I need to own up.'

'Okay. Take your time. What did you do?'

'This morning when I...I went out for the groceries. I decided I'd walk, and then I realised I'd forgotten my wallet. I left it on the kitchen table. So I let myself back in quietly, and I heard you and Colton talking. You'd just got to the part where you were waiting at the doctor's office, when you asked your mum if you'd get a lollypop.' He sounded like he wanted to smile, but he couldn't. 'I stayed in the kitchen. I listened to your entire story.'

Colton really had heard the door go, and Akio knew his own house so well he'd known how to hide, and quickly. And all through that hour long story he hadn't made a sound? Not so much as a sniff. 'It's...' no big deal? I really didn't know what to make of it. I just knew I'd taken my right hand off his head now, and put it in my lap with my left. 'Why did you do that?'

'I wasn't sure,' Akio said. 'All through it I really didn't know what was keeping me there. I knew I shouldn't be there, that you'd told me it was for your fox's ears only, but there was just..._something_making me stay. You tell a good story. You have a voice for it. And it was...heartfelt. And it just seemed to match you. Who you are. I loved the honesty behind it all. But I knew it wasn't that.'

'And you weren't...you know...erm...'

'Playing with my dick?' Akio smiled now. 'No, Todd. I wasn't. I won't deny it though, you're a beautiful young man. More beautiful than Deke was.' He touched my face and ran a hand from my right ear to my cheek. I let him. 'I did think of you as Deke in Blue when I first saw a picture of you, and even more the day you turned up on my drive. That was my private name for you. But I wasn't getting hot for you when you described your physical, or anything else. I felt like I should have been, but I was just plain old listening to a story, not knowing why. Just that it all reminded me of something. Some memory I couldn't place. I didn't know if it was you who sparked something, or your mother, or even Colton, the way he reacted to it. It was like you put a puzzle box right at the centre of my brain.

'And after I left the house, I got in the car and just drove, trying to work it out. I ended up parking up and walking down a boulevard where Deke and I used to go, his favourite place for coffee, still there after thirty years. And I sat there and I drank a cup, and I thought about how this place was only a couple of blocks down from the hospital. And that's when I remembered it, this memory I was trying to find to connect everything. This great big picture just fell into place. And I knew why I'd betrayed your trust for the sake of hearing that story. I don't know quite how I suddenly got it. Just that it was like Deke was right there in the room with me somehow and he wanted me to remember, like it was a way of saying sorry.'

'Sorry for what?'

'For leaving me in this world without him.' Akio got up, and found the picture he'd drawn of him and Deke together in their old age. 'All my life, I've tried to find someone else I thought would fit this picture. I never have. Maybe I was close sometimes. Ayala was the closest. A woman who married me even though she knew I was gay, because we just had something that was better than a sex life. I told her everything about Deke. Every last detail. She was the one I could finally open up to. Kaede ended up hearing about him too, when she was old enough. Only she doesn't understand the more complicated parts. What Kaede sees is the reason I couldn't stay married to her mother. A ghost in my past who I loved more than her. It wasn't like that. We loved each other, Ayala and me, we still do. But the way I live, the way I am, it just doesn't provide the life she really wants. When we got divorced she promised she'd stay close, and I told her not to promise that, but she kept it. Kaede ran off to Japan to spite us both, saying we were both selfish people, so she was going to be too. She was leaving home and she didn't need our permission and that was that. And the last thing she said before she stormed out was "Deke was a son of a bitch and you're still letting him fuck up your life? I just pity you, Dad."

'Ayala...oh you should have seen it. She was furious at our daughter for saying that. For meaning it. It took years before we sat down together when Kaede came home and we talked about it all. And it seems my daughter still doesn't quite get it, does she? She said more to you than just that you were digging up the past, didn't she? I can tell.'

'It doesn't matter right now.'

Akio sat silent for a moment. 'I'm angry with Deke, Todd. Still. For wasting his life. If he'd just taken more care of himself he might still be here. And even if he wasn't, we might have had more years together if he'd just listened when I told him I thought there was something wrong. He knew there was something wrong, he had to have known. And he just carried on. And he spread it to so many of the others. The day we got home from the hospital and he told everyone he had HIV, and that his cell count was so low they'd said no treatment would slow the virus...' Akio took a deep breath and let it out. 'We were scared. He'd had sex with all of us. Maybe he actually caught it from one of us, we didn't know, but him coming in and having to say it was confirmed, that he had the disease? It was like he was the one who brought it here. It was like him admitting it. And the row we had...imagine ten people who were suddenly all as full on as Kaede. Or Colton when he's in one of those moods you said he sometimes gets in.'

I didn't have to imagine much. I was looking for the picture of Colby with the gun in his mouth, and everyone around him thinking he'd do it, apart from Deke. I found it and picked it up.

'Yes,' Akio said. 'That happened. Exactly like that. Somewhere in the great big row, Deke told Colby to just go kill himself, and Colby decided to do it. Before he'd even thought about getting tested in case he didn't have the disease after all. And Deke realised what a godawful thing he'd just done, and he managed to talk him down. And then he was like that.' Akio pointed at the shame picture. 'Just like it. And everybody calmed down a bit and we all just managed to talk, and agree we should all get a test and just wait and see. All we could do. And then Deke said he wasn't feeling well. He went into the bathroom and started coughing, then vomiting, and then coughing a whole lot more until there was blood everywhere. Everyone simply ignored him.

'Except me. I went to him. When he got his breath back and stopped coughing he asked for a cigarette, and I refused. Then he started crying and hugged me until he was sobbing and he kept saying "I don't wanna die, Kio. Don't let me die." But what choice did I have? I could barely afford to feed us both. How could I pay for any treatment for him? And it wouldn't have worked by then anyway. But I tried, for him. I tried painting some stuff that might actually sell, so I could pay for him to get something, _anything_that might work. And my stuff started selling. And we got what medicine we could for him and it stopped him getting to full blown AIDS for about another four months. The poor guy. He never deserved what happened. Nobody deserves that. No matter who they are or what they've done.'

Akio stood up. 'Look at this place. What it is now. What I got lucky enough to be. And it all started because I was desperate to save Deke's life, knowing I couldn't, but I loved him enough to try. He was_a bastard sometimes. Yes, we had a row where he hit me. Two, in fact. Yes he could be nasty when things got personal. But I saw who he really was. All that music he made, I knew nobody with a rotten soul could do that. I'd seen all the nice sides to him. I knew he wanted them to win, over all the not so good ones. And I knew when he talked Colby down that it wasn't just so he didn't have to feel guilty. It was because he knew Colby might have a chance that he didn't have. And he cared about him living so he might get it. And...and never mind. You don't want to hear _that next thought. I think I need a cup of tea. Shall I make us some tea?'

'Maybe I would rather not hear it,' I said. 'But maybe you need to say it anyway.'

Akio sat down and sighed. 'Sometimes, Todd, on my worst of days, when all this feels like it's never gone away, I feel like Deke owes me an apology for not infecting me too.'

'What?'

'I know. It's an awful thing to feel like I wish for. And I don't, really. Except that sometimes, when I think about how I saw him suffer, I wonder if it might just have been easier for him if he knew I was going with him. And easier for me knowing I wouldn't be left without him. But I knew he was glad he never infected me. So glad. And when I think about it hard enough, that just makes it worse. Because it's like he didn't care about all the others as long as I was safe. But I know that wasn't true. Even if Deke himself told me it was. Before I went in to get my results he said "If I haven't killed you then I don't care about the others. As long as the world gets to keep you." And I couldn't answer him. I've never wanted to believe he meant it. Just that he was desperate to prove how much he loved me while he still had chance. He wanted me to live so desperately. To have everything I've ended up having in the years he wasn't here. But I'd return it all if that picture of us together with him still here could be real. Kaede doesn't understand it. I don't think she's loved someone that much yet.'

I sat there and waited, and when I got nothing else from him I wondered what I should say. Tell him Deke would be happy with the life he'd lived? Tell him Deke was probably still watching from somewhere and was happy with it all? Just tell him he was a good person for everything he'd tried to do? That last one was best. Then before I could put my hand on his shoulder, or his head again, he put one on mine.

'But I think you have,' he said. 'You do. That's why you get this. And there's something else. I meant what I said before: you don't remind me of Deke apart from your appearance. I waited for you to work out the rest, but maybe I should be fair and just tell you straight up. It's Colton who reminds me of him. In just about every way possible, apart from him being a fox. That's why I never dared stroke his head and tell him that hammock story.'

I laughed. I couldn't help it. Everything Akio had told me about Deke went through my head, and it made so much sense. Pointless asking why I'd never realised it, but I felt like I should have anyway. All week long, Akio had been getting Colton stoned every night and having a laugh, and now it was like he'd done it to put him to sleep, and enjoy time spent talking to me instead, because so long as Colton was on downtime the reminder of Deke was just that little bit more dormant.

I was probably thinking too much.

'Now, you foolish young raccoon, how about that tea? We've got about two hours until sunrise. How about we go for a walk with our tea and watch the sun come up and I give you the right version of who your uncle was?'

'Okay,' I said. 'But you still haven't told me why you listened in on my story. You haven't told me what you remembered, in the coffee house.'

Akio got a twinkle in his eye. 'No, but I will. And I think I've just realised how I remembered it too. You might be surprised. If you ever tell your father about this, he certainly will be.'

'My Dad? Why the hell would I tell him about _anything_that's gone on here? He already told me he doesn't want to know. He just wanted more pictures of Deke. That's all this was to him. I'm almost tempted not to give him any.'

'Now now,' Akio said. 'Don't jump to that just yet. I think he'd want to hear this. A lot of things might make more sense to him if he does. And it might make it a little easier for him to forgive himself for what happened in the family back then.'

'Why?'

'Because your grandparents need never have bothered disowning Deke and throwing him out. He was going to run away to San Francisco anyway. He was going to disown all of them. He practically did. He wouldn't tell me their names, where they lived, where he was originally from, nothing. But I remember him telling me that he came out to them because he knew exactly what they'd all do. It was his only ticket out of there.'

'Seriously?'

Akio looked like he was going to tell me the rest, then said 'I think we'd better make that tea.'

* * *

The block had a stillness about it, the street lights lighting our way while the neighbourhood slept. The place was still warm with summer heat, the sidewalk warm under my pads as I walked in my pyjamas, the tea Akio had brewed in my hand. We walked slowly, as if not wanting to run out of block, but at the same time not caring if we walked and drank tea together for hours.

'If you're comfortable with it,' Akio said, 'then would you call me Kio from now on?. Nobody's called me that for a long time. Doing that to snap me out of crying was the right thing. Our friendship is a good thing. I'm glad I told you Deke's name for me. Would you be okay using it?'

'Well sure, Kio.' I said.

He gave me a wry smile. 'What I remembered,' he said, 'was a time I was in bed with Deke, not long after that hammock story, where I tried doing to him what it sounds like you asked Colton for. I was lying with my head just under his arm, and for some reason I just felt like putting my head on his chest, so I did it and I heard his heartbeat. Probably not as healthy as yours, but when I recalled that memory it was like I could still hear it now. Talk about desperation for someone to be alive again. But Deke, he kept wriggling about like he was lying on a cactus, and then finally he put his hand on my head and said to me "Kio, please could you not do that?" And I sat up and I said "Do what?" I hadn't even realised what I was doing, really, until I found it so odd that he didn't like it. I guess I thought that most people wouldn't mind it, even if they didn't like it the way you do.'

'Yeah,' I said. 'It does seem kind of strange that he'd object.'

'I know. But he did, so I said it was fine, I wouldn't do it, even if I was sort of enjoying his heartbeat. And he gave me this look, like he wanted to let me but he just couldn't. I don't know why I never connected it back then, but a few months later he told me this story about how his parents made him spend a summer doing some sort of work experience in a hospital, and how disgusting he said he found it, and how he'd never liked doctors anyway because the one in their town he saw as a kid gave him the creeps. And he hated the sight of blood, and vomit, and the smell of surgeries and hospitals and even the look of doctors. It was a no-go area to him. Are you getting the picture here?'

'I think I'm starting to,' I said. 'When you realised he might be sick and you told him, he wouldn't go see a doctor. He was like me in reverse, it was a phobia.'

'That's part of it,' Akio said. 'The rest of it I have to guess, but I'll eat my hat if I'm wrong. Deke was smart. Sure, a not so careful choice ended up killing him, but book smarts? There was nobody sharper. I knew that and I wasn't even at school with him. His parents surely made him spend that summer doing the work experience because they thought ahead, to him putting it on a college application form, to read medicine and get an MD. When I remembered all this, sitting in that coffee house this morning, I remembered something else I read on your website. Your father said Deke wanted to be a doctor. I always knew that was wrong. But it was only this morning that I realised your father probably believed Deke wanted that, and so did your grandparents. They pretended it was true for so long that to them it became true. When really Deke hated the idea with every bone in his body.'

'You really think that's the reason he ran away? They were forcing him into a life he didn't want and couldn't handle?'

'I can imagine it all too clearly now. Your farming grandparents probably didn't have much, but they'd scrimped and saved to get enough for a college fund for just one child, if one of them turned out to be smart enough. And they weren't going to spend it on just any subject. It had to be something worthwhile, a ticket to the real heights of society.'

'Shit,' I said. 'So...wow, okay I think I understand_._ You listened to my story because somehow you were connecting all this without knowing it. And it was Deke's relative who...it was like a message Deke sent you himself somehow. Is that it?'

Akio looked sorry now. 'I should never have done that to a guest in my home,' he said. 'Even if the past is a powerful thing and I couldn't help myself. I'm deeply sorry, Todd.'

'Oh come on Kio, enough already.' I smiled. 'I don't care. The only reason I wanted to tell Colton alone was that I wanted us to fuck after I'd told him. I knew how hot he'd be for me. You stepped out before that could happen. And I know you would have even if I hadn't sent the fox to the kitchen for more booze. If you need to hear me say it, you're forgiven. But really, I don't care. So you know I'm a cardiophile who nearly came in his pants at a physical with his mum watching once. So what? It's like she told me, what's so terrible about it? The things we get hung up on that just don't matter. We've all this kind of shit in our life somewhere. And it's not even shit. It's just us.'

Akio smiled. 'I'm very glad it's a part of you, Todd. God forbid, if anything should happen to you, you won't be afraid to get help like Deke was. I wanted to give him his dream. He came here wanting to play in a band, to be famous, to only go wherever home was again if he stood on a stage. I thought I was the one who could help him get there. Then it all went wrong. Then he was just gone, and that was the story of his life. He never wanted to deal drugs, never really wanted to become an addict himself, never wanted to hurt anyone else, but it all happened. And that was that. But I'll tell you what else I remember. Because there's something I think I still might have to do.'

'Sure, go for it.'

'It was strange, sitting in that coffee shop this morning. I barely touched my americano. It took half an hour of me sitting and staring into space thinking about all this before one of the staff came and asked if I was okay, and I said I was fine, and I asked if they'd get rid of that cup for me and I'd pay for another one. And I drank that one. Because that's when I felt like I was seeing everything clearly.

'I was thinking about the night I called Deke an ambulance, when I knew it was all over and he did too. He was shivering and he couldn't breathe well, he couldn't get up and walk, and I tried to get him to take some water down but he couldn't hold the glass. So I held it for him, and I got him to drink, just about. And I put my arm around him and told him not to worry. They took him in, got him comfortable, got him on oxygen, and ran another count. Zero white blood cells. He wasn't going home this time. They told me right after they told him, because he asked them to. He said he didn't want them to call any family. Not to begin with. And they let me in to see him, and I couldn't believe it, he actually looked happy. And I told him it was all going to be okay. And he smiled and said "Yeah, sure. I'm dying, Kio." But he still smiled after that and he relaxed. And he just looked like he'd finally accepted it all.

'The doctor who was with us looked at his chart and took his pulse, and then got his stethoscope and listened to his breathing, then his heartbeat, like he could have put anything wrong right at that stage, but Deke, he didn't object to any of it. He just smiled through all of it. The phobia, the dislike, everything it had just all gone. I thought about that night he didn't want me to hear his heartbeat with my ear, and I knew this right here was as close to real peace as most people ever get in their life.

'And that's when he said it to me. He said "Kio, I don't want to die here. I want to die at home." And I thought he meant call his family and see if they'd come get him, if they could make it in time, but when I said it he just laughed and said "No, you idiot. I want to die in our home. I want to go to sleep in the hammock you put there for me one last time, with you there with me. Then I want you to bury me there, between the trees." '

I knew how this ended. I remembered my father's version of this story. Deke died in the hospital with my father holding his hand. Deke was buried in a cemetery.

'You didn't do it,' I said. Then after a moment. 'I'm sorry, I sounded like I was judging. I'm not. Really.'

'I wouldn't care if you were,' Akio said. 'I deserve to be judged. Deke made a dying wish, and I didn't grant it. The dying at home thing, I can almost excuse myself. I went to his doctors and told them what he wanted, and they said that if I took him home they wouldn't be able to care for him there, and his death would probably be painful, and harder for both of us. At least there they could relieve all that. And then....then I couldn't tell Deke that. I was a coward. I knew how it would play out, and it did: I kept telling him he was going home any day now. Then finally, he was so far gone and on such a dose of morphine that he just didn't know any better. And then your father came.'

'You met him?'

'No. I couldn't. I never even thought any of them would come, after Deke told the doctors what their names were and where they could call them. I never heard those names, or any of it. But I saw your father. I'd gone outside to get some air, and cry a lot, and then come back in and wait until it was time to say goodbye to Deke for the last time. And there he was. He held Deke's hand, he told him it was going to be alright, he did everything I should have done. And he never noticed I was there in the doorway, until I wasn't, because I couldn't take it anymore.

'That's when I got angry. So angry I didn't know what to do with it. And when I got over feeling sad for Deke, I got angry _with_him. For it all being his own fault. For leaving me here. So I didn't bury him where he wanted to be. I just told the hospital that he had family here now and they could do what they wanted.

'I only arranged his funeral because Colby talked just about sense into me. I think he only did it by telling me "I've got the disease too and when my time comes I want all my friends there." And he forgave Deke. It seemed easier for him. Your father was there, for most of it. He left before they buried Deke's ashes, probably just so nobody could tell him they were sorry for his loss and he had to try not telling them he didn't really give a shit. Or maybe he didn't have to look at all the people he blamed for it. I don't know. But it wasn't right. I should have done what Deke asked.'

It seemed like such a crazy question, but I knew it wouldn't go away. 'Could we still do it?'

'Oh no,' Akio said. 'His ashes were in an urn that's probably fallen apart by now, and the soil will have taken him. And even if I'm wrong, I just don't know if digging him up would make me feel any different now. Besides, when my time comes and I no longer own that house, how would anybody else visit him? I'm not the only one who remembers. I'm the only one left of the ten from that house, but I've seen other people there. Quite a few people put flowers down for Deke. Makes me wonder how many other recordings of his music there are. It's better I didn't keep his grave all to myself.'

'So what's the thing you might still have to do?'

Akio looked down the street. 'Finally tell him I'm sorry,' he said. 'Or get as close as I can to it. And I'd like you to be there. Will you walk with me to the cemetery? It's only a couple of miles.'

'Sure,' I said. 'No problem.'