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          Koichi was on his hands and knees under his desk, swearing up a storm, “TEO YOU LITTLE ASSHOLE! WHERE’S MY RING?” Running his hands on the carpet along the wall, he bent down to look under the filing cabinet. “You little shit! I can’t leave anything out without you coming in and stealing shit off my desk…WHERE IS MY RING?”

          Sitting up, he turned to look at the little black cat, who wasn’t bothered by the swearing, as he calmly washed his face. Koichi got up and walked down the hallway towards the kitchen, his eyes scanning the floor as he went. “Where the hell could it be? You didn’t swallow it, it’s too big! Tatsu’s going to be pissed!” Entering the kitchen, Koichi dropped back down to his hands and knees, to start looking under the appliances. With more swearing and a heavy sigh, “Shit, not under there either.” Sliding his legs out behind him, Koichi laid on the floor, his head resting on his arms. His wedding ring, the only piece of jewelry he cherished above everything else, was gone. Stolen by a little black thief, whose antics were sometimes costly.

          Totally engrossed in his misery, Koichi didn’t hear his husband come home, nor did he hear him walking into the kitchen. “Um, Kou babe…why are you sleeping on the kitchen floor?” Tatsu squatted down next to his husband. “Teo stole my wedding ring off my desk and I can’t find it anywhere,” came the muffled reply. Koichi raised his head, his eyes filled with tears, “That little shit took my ring, I’m sorry.” Laying his head back down on his arms, Koichi’s body started to quiver.

          “Babe, it’s only a ring, we can replace it.” Tatsu said softly, reaching out to rub Koichi’s back, “No, it can’t be replaced! You gave that to me…it’s the only one in the world.” Tatsu pulled Koichi up and into his arms, “Kou, it’s a ring… a symbol that’s all. Yes, I gave it to you, but if it’s gone, are we any less married? If you’re not wearing it does it mean that we’re not married anymore?”

          Koichi whimpered, “But I don’t want another ring, I want that one.” Tatsu got up off the floor, helping Koichi up as well. “Let’s look together, ne?” For the next hour the two searched for the small wedding band. “It’s not like he could have swallowed it, but where the hell is it?” Tatsu sifted through the litter boxes, and Koichi was pulling everything out of their closet; still no ring.

          Dinner that night was less than exciting, Koichi still moping as he pushed his food around on his plate. Tatsu finally shoo’d him out of the dining room, “Go find a movie for us, we can just stay in tonight.” Koichi went down to the bedroom, getting in his pajamas and grabbing a blanket. Tatsu worried about Koichi’s mood, could the loss of the wedding ring send him back down into his depression?

          Handing Koichi a cup of tea, Tatsu sat next to his husband and pulled the blanket around them both. “It’s going to turn up, Kou, don’t worry we’ll find it.” Koichi wasn’t that confident.

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          Koichi peered around the corner, watching anxiously as Tatsu sifted through the litter boxes. “I’m pretty sure Teo didn’t eat the ring Kou, I think we’d know by now because he’d be in extreme pain.” Tatsu tried to explain to Koichi. “I know but I want to make sure we check everything.” He whined. Tatsu kept sifting through the litter, praying that they would eventually find the ring, but knowing if the ring was truly gone, he would have an emotional husband and the fears of his depression returning.

          That first night had been rough. Koichi’s depression was in full swing, Tatsu holding him throughout the night as the young man cried over the loss of his wedding ring. “I can’t believe he took it, what else would have happened to it? I always take it off when I type because is slides around too much, I swear I was only gone for not even ten minutes.”

          Tatsu stopped trying to comfort Koichi with words, instead wrapping his arms around him and letting him cry, and keeping Teo out of the bedroom. He knew Koichi didn’t hate the small cat, but Teo was persona non grata at the moment or until the ring was found. Gordy was oblivious to the drama, only concerned with being fed on time and being allowed to sleep with the couple. “Be the hero, Gordy…go find Kou’s ring.” Tatsu kept telling the cat.

          Tatsu woke before Koichi, creeping out of bed quietly. “Come on you little shits,” he whispered to the two cats, Teo not understanding the words Tatsu was saying, but his tone of voice was clear. As he made his way to the kitchen, he scanned the carpeted floor, looking behind book cases, tables and the couch. “You already looked there, dummy,” he mumbled to himself.

          Watching Teo and Gordy eat, Tatsu ran through the places where the ring might be stashed, and the grim possibility that it may not be found. The latter of the two worried him, Koichi would be devastated if the original ring was lost forever. Tatsu knew he’d have to come up with something special to ease his husband’s grief, what that would be he had no clue.

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            “Thank you!” Koichi closed the door, carrying his purchases to the kitchen, putting them out on the table. “Hmm, probably should save one box for him, but just one!” Sorting the boxes, Koichi kept one aside, “Milk…gotta have milk.” Grabbing a glass, Koichi grabbed his box and headed for the couch. It was cold and rainy, the perfect day for a binge watch of his favorite show, in an attempt to get his mind off the loss of his wedding ring, which they still had not found.

          “Tadaima,” Tatsu closed the door quickly then toed off his shoes, “Okaeri’, he heard Koichi in the living room. Walking in he stopped dead, “Uh…what are you doing?” he looked at his husband. “Watching a movie,” Koichi held out the box, “want some?”

          Tatsu frowned, “Where did you get those?”

          “Where you think?”

          “Did you mug them, or did you actually pay for them?”

          “MUG THEM? What the hell kind of question is that? Who the hell would mug Girl Scouts! Of course I paid for them you asshole! FINE! You’re not getting any.” Koichi hugged his box of cookies close, “Really? How many boxes did you buy, Kou?” Tatsu turned to walk to the kitchen.

          “NO!” Koichi jumped off the couch, running towards the kitchen and shoving Tatsu out of the way. “These are mine! Fuck you if you think you’re getting any!” A tussle ensued over the boxes of Girl Scout cookies, a lot of handsy grabbing that had nothing to do with the situation, Koichi alternately screaming and giggling, “Stop it! It’s not fair…no tickling!”

          “Alls’ fair when it comes to cookies, Kou, you know that!” Tatsu huffed. With one last effort, Tatsu grabbed his husband around the waist and hoisted him up and over his shoulder, “Wait…what the hell? Tatsu put me down!” Koichi was thumping his husband on the back. “Oh, I’ll put you down, but where I want you!”

          Tatsu reached up and rubbed Koichi’s ass, sliding his hand between the man’s legs, Koichi’s breath hitched. “So you think having sex is going to make me give up the cookies? Pfftt. Hardly.” Tatsu took his time convincing Koichi that having sex was much better than any box of cookies.

          Koichi laid on the bed and cried. They had torn every room apart, even rooms they knew Teo couldn’t possibly get into. The ring just wasn’t to be found. “Why the hell can’t we find it?” he sobbed into his pillow. Tatsu was sitting on the side of the bed, rubbing small circles on Koichi’s back, “Babe, it will turn up at some point. It’s in the house…there’s no way it got out of the house. We’ll probably find it when we deep clean the house in the summer.” Tatsu tried to convince Koichi, but it was of little use…Koichi knew his ring was gone forever, and it tore his heart apart to think he’d never see it again.

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          “Why can’t it just show up? I keep having dreams about finding it, like last night…I dreamed we found Teo’s horde in a corner of the laundry room. My wedding ring, some weird hair clips and ties, and some tiny pieces of plastic that I didn’t know what they were.” Koichi and Tatsu had just finished tearing apart their bedroom. Tatsu had decided that they would go room to room and move every piece of furniture until they found Koichi’s wedding ring.

          Koichi laid back on the bed, frustrated but not angry any more, he couldn’t be. “Well, at least we did early spring cleaning…I’m sorry that we didn’t find it, babe. But we still have the guest bedroom and the office to go through.” Koichi had lost all hopes of finding the ring, “I’m sure it got thrown out in the trash, I just know it!”

          “I don’t think Teo would carry the ring in his mouth and then just randomly drop it in the trash, Kou. That’s giving Teo a lot of credit.” Every time the tiny black cat crossed his path, Koichi would hiss at him, “Teo, where’s my damn ring you little bastard!” Teo of course would just look at Koichi with the eyes of an innocent babe, if he knew anything, he wasn’t talking.

          Tatsu laid down on his stomach next to Koichi, draping himself over his husband’s chest, “We’ll find it, it’s just going to take some time. Maybe we should give Teo something, then follow him to his horde!” Tatsu leaned down and kissed Koichi, “Hey,” he wiggled his eyebrows, “since we got all dirty and stuff… wanna get dirty in the shower with me?” Tatsu nuzzled Koichi’s neck, causing him to giggle, “This was all just a ploy to get me to have dirty shower sex with you, wasn’t it? You don’t care about the ring, you just want my cute little ass.”  Koichi was half right, Tatsu did want his husband’s cute little ass.

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          “Um, what are you doing?” Tatsu walked into the living room, finding his husband on his knees in front of a small shrine. “Praying to St. Anthony to help find my ring.” Koichi answered as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “Saint who?” Tatsu had just gotten home from retrieving some music from DCR. “St. Anthony, he is the finder of lost things, and children too, he’s a Catholic Saint.”

          Like a dog on a bone, Koichi wasn’t ready to give up the search for his wedding ring, even though they had torn apart the house more than once. “Where did you get the candles?” Koichi clapped his hands twice and bowed, “From Christina, the girl I met in Los Angeles, when we were on tour together.” In addition to the St. Anthony candle, there was a Blessed Lady of Fatima next to it.

          “Not sure who she is,” Tatsu walked over and picked up the long slender candle. “I met her when Mucc played at the Wiltern, her family is from Mexico. We’ve stayed in touch by email and chat, I told her about my ring being lost and she sent me these candles and explained how to set up a shrine.”

          Koichi had meticulously followed the girl’s instructions on assembling the altar, and added her suggestion of incorporating his own religious practices, including a small onyx Buddha, some incense and a small bell.

          “Christina said if we pray to St. Anthony for a week, my ring should show up in the least likely place.” Koichi could see that Tatsu was more than just skeptical. “Before you say anything, doing this can’t hurt. We’ve torn apart the house twice, we know neither Teo nor Gordy swallowed the ring…so it still has to be in the house somewhere.”

          Tatsu smiled softly, “I’m not saying a word, whatever you want to do is fine, I understand that trying something different may just work.” Happy that his husband wasn’t going to criticize his attempts, Koichi got up from the floor and sat in his husband’s lap. “Thank you for understanding. I’m not going to be a troll or a spoiled whiney brat, but I still want to look for my ring, and before you ask… no, I don’t want a replacement. If we never find it, it doesn’t mean I love you any less, and everything we have is enough for me. I love you.” Koichi leaned into his husband’s chest and tenderly kissed him.

 St. Anthony 

Our Lady of Fatima

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          “I give up.” Koichi said in frustration as he sat down on the step, “we’ve looked everywhere possible and still haven’t found it.” Tatsu sat down next his husband, gently twining his fingers in Koichi’s. “I can always get you another ring, it’s just a symbol after all.” He knew in his heart this was not what Koichi wanted.

          Koichi sighed, “Maybe just a super plain ring, nothing fancy.” He leaned his head on Tatsu’s shoulder, a single tear sliding down his cheek, “I can’t really be mad at Teo, we knew he liked to carry things around, I was just hoping…”

          “It most likely will show up when we least expect it, it has to be somewhere in the house, we don’t allow them outside,” Tatsu reasoned.

          “Come on, I’ll take you to Ojisan’s, I need chashu pork and a beer, I think you do as well, we’ll take the train so we can both drink.” Tatsu kissed Koichi on the side of his head.

          “Okay, maybe some yokai will find it and leave it out in the open, or maybe a random kami will take pity on me.”

          Tatsu started to laugh, “Yokai? Okay… I’ll go with that for now.”

          Standing in the genkan, Koichi scolded Teo one more time for being naughty, “Go find my ring, Teo!”  Teo just looked at his owner with no expression, then turned and walked away, “Little brat.”

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          “Koichi, I found your ring.” Kyo held up the ring, extending his arm just out of Koichi’s reach.

          “Oh my god! Where did you find it?” he reached out, yet not quite far enough to take the ring from Kyo.

          “It was in my leather jacket,” Kyo smirked.

          “Wait…how did it end up in your jacket? Teo took it off my desk…” Koichi was confused, this didn’t make any sense at all.

          Kyo threw his head back and laughed, “Nope, it wasn’t Teo. I snuck into your house and took the ring.”

          Koichi grabbed for the ring, “Why the hell would you do that?” Although he was slightly taller than Kyo, the man easily kept the ring out of Koichi’s reach.

          “I’m not giving it back, if you want it, you have to marry me.”

          “WHAT?”    

          “NO!” Koichi jerked and sat up straight, whimpering over the demand by Kyo.

          “Kou, what’s wrong?” Tatsu was jarred awake.

          “He has my ring.”

          “Who does?”

          “Kyo, he said he found it in his jacket, but…”

          “Babe, you’re dreaming, Kyo doesn’t have your ring.” Tatsu sat up, putting his arm around Koichi’s shoulder.

          Looking at Tatsu, with tears streaming down his cheeks, “He said if I wanted my ring back, I’d have to marry him,” he sniffed. Tatsu pulled Koichi into his arms, “Babe, it was a dream, you don’t have to marry Kyo, and he doesn’t have your ring.” He laid them back down in the bed, pulling the blanket up.

          With a heavy sigh, Koichi buried his face in Tatsu’s neck, “It was so real, why would I dream of Kyo, I don’t understand.”

          “Not sure,” Tatsu said sleepily, “call him in the morning.”

          Closing the bedroom door softly, Tatsu padded out into the kitchen. After Koichi’s dream, the young man was restless the remainder of the night, so he had decided to let him sleep.

          “Just give me a minute!” he scolded Teo, Gordy and Moofie, who were screaming to be fed. As he went through the routine of dishing out the cat food, Tatsu tried to make sense of Koichi’s dream. He had honestly believed that they were past the ring issue. Koichi hadn’t mentioned it in months, so why now, and why Kyo? Grabbing his phone, he sent a quick text.

          “BTW, Koichi might call or text you later. Just be supportive, it’s about his wedding ring.”

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          There was just no point anymore. The HBG had closed its doors forever. The death of Uta’s friend Yume had cast a pallor over the close group of intimate friends, and Uta’s guilt over refusing to search for the girl after she ran from the hospital, had been eating away at him. Die was no longer speaking to Uta, casting accountability purely onto the already distraught younger man.

          Taka was occupied with getting the small bar ready for sale, his heart aching over the demise of a local institution that had brought him into the life that he now enjoyed.

          Koichi had secluded himself in his office, the coolest room of their home. Japan was in the midst of a heat wave; the temperature had sored to 40.2c, which was unheard of for the month of June.

          “Why is it so damned hot?” he whined as he rose from his office chair, his legs damp with sweat, “need something cold.” Opening the office door, he peered out, “Tatsu, will you bring me a cola please?”

          No answer.

          “Crap, he’s at the studio.” With a resigned sigh, Koichi headed towards the kitchen, muttering under his breath about the heat and why Tatsu wasn’t there, and other unpleasant things that irritated him. Reaching out he opened the fridge, and grabbed what was unexpectedly a lukewarm can of cola, “What the hell?”

          It wasn’t just the cola that felt warm, everything in the fridge was warm.

          “Shit”.

          The refrigerator wasn’t working. Closing the door quickly, Koichi rushed back to his office and grabbed his phone.

          “Hi, I know you’re busy but the fridge is broken, everything is lukewarm. Okay, I’ll call and hopefully they can come to fix it today. Maybe you could pick up a few bags of ice on your way home?”

          Three hours and two bags of ice later, Koichi was back in his slightly cooler office and Tatsu was in the kitchen with the two repairmen, trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with the refrigerator.

          “Do we need to buy a new one?” Koichi hoped not, as much as he loved shopping, appliances were at the bottom of the list.

          “No,” Tatsu said, “they said it was just a broken temperature sensor, they should have it done soon.” He bent down and kissed his husband on the forehead, “I’ll let you know when they’re gone.”

          How was he going to do this? He briefly thought about calling Kyo; but knowing how the man felt about Koichi, that thought was quickly rejected. Shaking the small basket in his hand and watching the contents bounce, Tatsu knew it would be cruel to do anything other than going straight to Koichi.

          He didn’t get the chance.

          “Are they finished?” Koichi shuffled into the living room, red faced and sweating, ungracefully flopping down on the couch.

          “Yep, and they left us with a few gifts.” Tatsu shook the basket

          “Gifts?”      

          “All of this was found under the fridge,” he handed the small basked to Koichi, then sitting down next to him.

          “Eww,” Koichi wrinkled his nose as he held up a very dirty catnip mouse by the tail, “this is gross.”

          A metal straw.

          Three milk carton tops.

          Two more gross catnip toys.

          Someone’s collar.

          Koichi gasped, covering his mouth with his hand.

          “My ring?” he whispered, stunned at what he was seeing. His had trebled as he carefully reached for his wedding ring. “How?” he looked up at Tatsu, happy tears shining in his eyes. “We looked under the fridge…it wasn’t there.”

          “Babe, the repairmen had to pull the fridge all the way out, so they could reach the back. One of them found it against the wall, you know how violent Teo can be when he plays. He must have been chasing it across the floor and it rolled all the way back.”

          Koichi inspected the ring carefully, “It’s missing one of the small side stones.”        

          “We should take it to the jewelers and have it inspected and cleaned.” Tatsu suggested.

          Koichi slid the ring on his finger, then fell over into Tatsu’s lap, “It’s been three years, how could we have not checked behind the fridge?”

          Tatsu stroked Koichi’s hair, “Well, maybe it stayed lost for a reason.”

          Koichi snorted, “Alright Mr. Smart Ass, and what reason could that be?”
          Tatsu moved Koichi over, then stretched out along side of him, “That the ring itself is not the definition of our love for each other, it’s just a symbol.”

          In his heart, Koichi new this to be true, and hummed in agreement, but for him, the ring was so much more.