I loved this story. Cia captured so the haunting homesickness for want of a better word that Niel always carried around with him.  For most of the story it was like you could taste his need to be home but on the other hand ,everything he did was subtle subterfuge because he had to stay hidden and three steps ahead of what or whoever was after him.

You knew Niel was different but you don't find out til near the end why.  When he met chris he's torn between his wants of what is behind him and what is in front of him.  Chris is persistent and is just what Niel needs. Laughter, suspense, a little mayhem but the ending was perfect. It was a beautiful story and everyone should get the premium membership. Burden of Secrets is just one of the many excellent stories that you will find there.

Oh BTW Cia - Surprise!   ;-)

Yeah Cia, surprise!

I might become a member if I had a way to pay. I don't own a credit card (and I never will) and Paypal just doesn't work for me. But that's not just this site. It's a lot of English sites I have this problem on. I usually use a payment method that allows me to authorize payment by visiting my bank, puts it on my cellphone bill or allows me to pay for it at a nearby convenience store. I don't think any of those options are very common outside of Japan, so I just put up with it and wait for a day when a more flexible system comes along.

In the U.S., you can get prepaid Visa gift cards in grocery stores, where they carry other "gift certificate" cards - is this an option in Japan?

There's lots of other types of prepaid cards, like for iTunes or specific videogames and movies and the like, but unfortunately nothing of that sort. At least I've never run into them. Maybe I could find something like that at an army base, but as far as I know regular Japanese aren't allowed into those without a good reason.

I found one company that seems to offer Visa debit cards, but as most of the page is graphics in Japanese, I can't read it (but found the page via doing a google search for "prepaid Visa debit cards in Japan" - so not sure if this helps, but:

http://www.surugabank.co.jp/surugabank/kojin/service/benri/visa_debit/

That was so very nice of you to look, thank you!

Unfortunately, what you found is not a prepaid card, it's pretty much a debit card that you use as a member of Suruga Bank, which I am not. You can get the VISA logo added to your bank card here, but in order to do that you need to have a steady salary job for at least a year and I'm afraid that's a big problem as I don't have that type of job.

Thank you so much for trying though! I'll be sure to purchase Premium status if I find a way to do so!