Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Glowing ❯ Intimations ( Chapter 8 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

door clicks shut, the slight noise a rattling sound. A reproach. A crash loud enough to send a sharp pain through my temples and leaving me strangely immobile.
“You shouldn’t have promised.”
I lean back against the couch. Numb. My breath returns in a slow lethargic fumbling for air.
“To ignore you, I’d have to be aware of what you’re doing. Do you need something?”
A flat voice, deadpanned. The stale sound of the door closing.
I rummage through my pockets until I find a cigarette. Fuck it. Lighting the stick, I lift it to my mouth, taking a long slow drag. The smell of smoke is oddly comforting as I watch the white tendrils curve up towards the ceiling, colorless whorls giving shape to the air.
“I refuse.”
Well, no one can accuse Aya of not having his own warped sense of honor.
It doesn’t sound like him. Aya doesn’t get entangled. Or attached.
I wonder what Aya sees there to keep him involved.
A limp sweaty body curled up on itself, pale in the fluorescent light. Asleep, Tsujii looks as if she’s made of wood, some strange immovable icon.
I put out the cigarette, grimacing at the sick feeling in my stomach, the sensation of bile rising in my throat.
Is it, like so much else, a distraction? The need to be lost in something, to be occupied, to take one more hour to practice our arts and explain our lives.
What a gift.
Grinning eyes, soft palms, so many things I can not purge.
“You want some more?”
Asuka’s short hair tousled, her cheeks smeared with botched cake batter, eyes shining down at me as she lobs another spoonful.
“What can I say, I’m a wonderful cook.”
Waking up three hours later in a sticky heap, an apron fused to my chest and eight missed calls blinking, an angry digital number on the phone. And we didn’t care.
“You know, you’re supposed to do that upright.”
Michelle’s smirking face, her hair hanging down in loose strands glinting in the sun. A moment more and she extends her hand towards me.
“You’re okay right?”
A brief flash of concern across her features. A humanity I’ve come to think of as rare.
The two of us hobbling over the cobblestones to a bench where we removed the skates, tossing them into the grass behind us.
“No!”
Aya’s shocked face as he wraps his arms around his head, hair hanging down between his elbows.
“Oh come on Ayan……..it’ll be pretty.”
“You are not putting ribbons in my hair.”
“What else am I going to do with them? They’re left over from that church arrangement.”
“Shove them in your mouth. Maybe then I can get some peace and quiet.”
A blur, the both of us breathless as we hit the ground, a grudging smile on Aya’s face as I thread the ribbons into his hair.
“Bastard!”
A spitting Aya slaps at my hands, trying to shred the ribbons before they can be added to his by now, rather colorful hairdo.
Once finished, I pull myself off of him and laugh as he sits up, yanking the ribbons- as well as good chunks of hair- out of his scalp, cursing me loudly all the while.
“What in the hell is the matter with you!”
“I looove you.”
I draw the words out as sickeningly sweet as possible. With his hands clenching several inches of ribbon he bursts out laughing.
“I’ll remember that.”
Another moment and there’s a strange weight propelled into my stomach. Looking up from a new prostrate position on the floor, I can’t help but smile at a grinning Aya, tying my hair in pigtails.
“You shouldn’t have!”
Michelle’s shining face as I coil the necklace around her throat, fingering the clasp.
“It’s beautiful.”
Both voices merging in a reverent whisper, even though they never met in the same room, or even the same country.
Aya’s awed eyes staring out at the ocean, his features still in the shock and wonder of seeing something so magnificent for the first time.
“I told you that you’d see it.”
His wet hands pressed against my chest.
“You shouldn’t have promised.”
I flick the cigarette butt into an empty trash can.
Whether or not I should, I’m still not going to go anywhere. I stand up, absently straightening out my clothes.
It’s funny, I’m almost looking forward to the typical cold shoulder, the sudden yell when he stops trying to control his anger.
We can clean out our toxins together.
With an unfamiliar surge of hope, a tingling weight in my chest, I head for the door.
Demanding my promise, he promised too.
If he’s not around, how am I supposed to know where to stay?
Smiling, I feel oddly relieved. The memories of Tsujii’s skin fade, bleached out by my step forward. Blood seems to fade with them, shrinking down to small soft traces nestled between my fingers.
It doesn’t matter, the lightheadedness. The nervous feel of being too high, in too rarified an air.
I pull the door open. The smile drops, falling back into a more familiar saturation.
________________________

He doesn’t look up as I practically knock him over. His arms are folded around himself, his eyes closed. The rest of his expression is blank without their light to illuminate the intent behind those features.
Gently, I reach up and settle a hand on his shoulder. No response.
“Aya?”
I keep my voice soft, a whisper.
“Hn.”
At least he’s aware that I’m here. Biting my lip, I wonder how long he’s been standing behind the door, doing nothing. Or waiting.
Aya’s stoicism is a good match for a catatonic‘s. You can never tell if he’s in shock or just upset.
Finally, I spit out anything, the first words to rise up on my tongue.
“What did you mean?”
The words are still quiet. He inclines his head towards me, flicking his eyes open in a violet mass of raw accusation, dazed rage toppled over by hurt. His eyes look gored, a shining sort of intact horror.
I am such a fucking bastard. If I was to say nothing else for eternity, I don’t think I could affirm that enough.
“Are we dependent on our promises?”
I stare blankly at him, robbed of thought, of speech by his words as they trail off into silence.
Its such a fragile question, such an absurd thought. It’s a devastating effect, the feeling of my lungs suddenly detached.
To what extent is what we are formed and held together by our word?
By the boundaries we form around us, the firm bonds to others.
I wonder how far I have been saved by promises.
I lift my hand to brush his cheekbone, furrowing my brow as his gaze shifts firmly to the floor.
His words ring back at me.
I should not be dependent on him.
It is a great tremulous realization, the freezing of blood, my shaking hands. The sensation of being deflated, of falling from a great and untenable height.
He does not want my dependency.
Flinching, I let my hand drop as he turns away, sudden, with a flat hard look on his face.
I cannot catch a glimpse of his eyes as he leaves, storming out into the afternoon with a graceful stride, a slow retreat.
I can’t imagine where he’s going.
I stay still, immobile as the door closes again, leaving him to emerge into a sun which breaks the moment, drowning us in our confusion.
This time, its nothing at all.
___________________________

“Promise me you won’t let anything happen to you.”
I grind my teeth together as I dart through traffic, focusing on license plates, the turns I have to make, what demands I expect, to keep my mind blank.
A promise I cannot be absolved of, a thick chain binding me to life, forcing my hand around my blade, my heart to beat.
Could I even breathe without those words to force my lungs?
My own words thrown back at me, a childish voice.
And what kindness has shown me!
True to form, I still feel it!
My hands tighten around the wheel, I press my foot down on the gas pedal, driving the speed of the Porsche ten, fifteen, twenty miles over the limit. I don’t care.
I wonder if your dependency dissolves once they’re broken.
Cars screech out of the way, I am trailed by angry curses, streams of profanity, gestures, horns trumpeting my continued integrity of being.
I swallow, slowing down as I near the turn.
Yohji, anyone, would say that promise is in shreds behind me, a sheath, a shield that has been cut through and shattered.
And no fault of mine, so torn by events, by incurred injuries, the fury of experience and its stains.
“Promise me you won’t let anything happen to you”
Nothing has. My head is filled with the same memories, the same needs and withdrawals, the same responses.
I have never stopped being horrified at a kill, terrified of the dent this must make in my being, and sickened further when no such dent appears.
The fundamental I, still unbroken.
The worst curse of all, the very meat of my suffering.
I doubt I would have such taste and capacity for guilt if something had warped what I was.
A small boy hunched over his bed, hair falling in his eyes. I am gripped with the strange fascinated elation one gets from dreams, the odd sense of watching yourself. A detached sort of joy as nothing is immediate and still, so much clearer. His arms move about frantically, engaged in some unseen motion.
A smaller girl bounds into the room, her mouth wide in an indignant pout.
“Ran” as always the name is drawn out, a sort of wail,” where have you been all day?”
The boy glances up at her shyly, a frown on his face.
His hands move apart to reveal a doll in two parts displaying evidence of some attempted repair.
“I’m sorry.”
He mutters the words, staring at the floor, half wincing at the memory of knocking it over earlier, at the guilt he feels in revealing it to her.
He looks up stunned at the sound of her laughter.
“Why are you upset? I never liked that one anyways.”
Still confused, he lets her pull him away from the bed and outside, laughing.
I felt even worse because of her sanction.
Funny how the trend reforms itself. I hit the brake violently, turning sharply in front of a huge skyscraper, a pillar of white blocking out the sun.
I don’t have to look up to register the sign.
It is permissible for me to kill. That is why it turns my stomach.
White is a good show for guilt. You don’t expect it. Transparency is the best obscurant.
I pull myself out of the car, striding slowly into the building to meet my sanctifier, the maker and resolution of my sins, the breather of the criminal air that I’ve been made to thrive in.
And still, I walk in the same manner as a child I don’t want to recognize.
As I wait for the elevator to rise, I wonder what absolution breaking her promise would lend me. What weight relieved from suffering.
I may as well die. It would be more honest. More honorable.
A word I’ve haven’t said in a long time.
A conviction I can’t allow myself to doubt, steeling myself as the doors slide open.
___________________________

Takatori smiles as I enter his office, throwing the door open.
With a sour look, Rex leaves, standing at the door to keep our privacy.
I can hardly contain my rage at seeing him, so smug, so at ease in this lush hell, this den of snakes constantly shedding their skins.
I could not ask for a better example than him, in the last throes of his transfiguration.
The eyes that meet mine are for a moment soft, an eager joy at my presence; then eclipsed by a shrewd cruelty, a tangible poison that resurges in his eyes. They appear suddenly darker, a dirtier hue.
“I was wondering when you would come.”
His voice once had a strange melody to it. Now it falls flat, a tuneless song that will not cease, and should not persist in being any longer.
I have killed a thousand with this face, this vapid smile and festering eyes.
I do not answer, knowing that he’s already planned his offer. Instead, I glance around the room, taking in the same expensive furniture, the same paintings. My eyes flick down to his desk.
That frame wasn’t there before.
We are both silent as I lift the picture, stunned at the sight of our smiling faces, of Ken and Omi standing close, a huge grin on Omi’s face, Yohji’s hand lifted behind his head, his lips curved up. I remember he was laughing as we took it. I almost smile myself, remembering how he abandoned his midriff shirts after getting a terrible sunburn during a festival. I smile slightly in the back of the picture, holding a broom. My old orange sweater glares out at me, a veritable eyesore as it was always affirmed to be. I find myself unconsciously picking at the thin white cotton of my sleeve, missing the heavy wool.
When I set it down, he gives me a strange rueful smile.
“I never thought it would change either.”
There is a bitterness in his voice that does not belong to Omi, but also an earnestness, a simple honesty that could and does. I know better than to say the name.
His eyes soften again, flickering back to a lighter blue.
“I’m glad you’re continuing.”
Something unfamiliar wells up in my chest. Shoving the feeling down for later, I nod, turning to leave the office.
“Aya!”
I glance back at him, standing behind the desk, his body framed by the glare of light through the blinds, his hands poised on the desk like his father’s had been.
“Just……….be careful.”
I nod again, a curt movement that brings a smile to his eyes again. The repetition of a ritual among all of us.
Leaving, I close the door behind me, hardly registering Rex’s scowl as I step into the elevator.
____________________

I frown, letting the empty bottle drop from my hand.
Words flash through my head, feeling so old even if I read them only a few weeks ago.
“Tis a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
The faces, the voices, all merged together.
Would oblivion really be so bad after all? Aya, wouldn’t you be better off if I just forgot?
I promise, I won’t even go away. I just won’t know the difference.
And not even like that Algernon book, I won’t know what I’ve let fall from my hands, let slip from my fingers.
No doubt.
The words mix in a drunken haze, colors and the metallic tang of the wine dripping from my chin, a sticky residue on my tongue.
And bodies. Bodies and bodies and bodies all falling together, a procession of limbs.
Her pale form spread out on the bed, a lush soft sprawl for my enjoyment. Sickening. Compulsive.
His stiff form curled up against the wall, knees pressed to his chest, his hair dark in the sterilized light of the hospital. Insensible.
Her body crushed, limbs shattered and twisted apart, a pendent on her broken throat. A peaceful repose, an odd relief in her limbs. Incomprehensible.
Her stiff silhouette, an arch, a dark shadow, her body somehow stripped of color, spreading streaks of blood through the airless earth, a slow liquid spread. Light embalms her shocked face, pure confusion marked in her features. Betraying.
So much compromised. Why?
There is no respite. I fall back on the bed, the sun a blurring pain in my eyes.
Their faces merge into one terrible image, icon of my dreams. I have torn a path of bodies to escape that face.
I wonder if finally I have become too weighed down to run, encrusted with blood as I am.
So much for stains fading.
I reach for a cigarette, no longer concerned with the smell, with Aya’s inevitable anger at coming home to a bed reeking of smoke.
His body held close, warm smooth limbs, a strength I can enclose in my arms.
A strength that is no longer willing to support me.
His words tear a senseless repetition through the drink, their sense enfolded in every swallow, every drag of the cigarette.
Its as if I’m swallowing him, glutted as I feel, thick and oversaturated with the pressure in my throat, at my temples.
Tears leak out from the corners of my eyes, involuntary. I bet they smell like merlot.
Nothing left to do but drown in this doubt. How facetious. How disgustingly inevitable.
_____________________

Can you fight your own transformation? Is the will strong enough to counter itself?
I drive blindly on, trying to hold onto the image of Omi’s face again. Omi, strange and alien over the collar of a suit, his eyes bright with a sort of pleading concern that still hits at me with a familiar sting, a reproach of my acceptance of suffering.
I wonder if he found the relief he wanted.
Rays of light shoot through the plate glass windows, picking up sparkling dust and wrapping around his head in a sort of dusky halo.
He closes his eyes as he speaks.
“Look, guys, I need you to understand what I’m doing. Please, even if we can never speak this way again, just try and see why I‘m doing this.”
All of us silent, mingling among the abandoned arrangements. A sickly sort of perfume rolled over us, absorbing into our skin and Omi’s bags, forcing us somehow apart from everything before or after the moment.
Ken’s voice shoots out bitter from where he stands half-hidden by the register.
“So what should we call you now? Persia? Or Mamoru?”
A brief pain flashes across Omi’s eyes, one of the last he will show to anyone. I know, from my meetings with him since. He has no time to make such demands on himself, even subconsciously.
After a moment it dissipates, melting and reforming into a look of cold cordiality.
“Persia.”
Ken snarls and leaves the room, pushing Yohji back as the blonde tries to grab his arm, make him listen to the rest of Omi’s speech. I could still call him by that name then, that name I promised him years ago and affirmed simply by staying.
It’s funny the ache that thought brought then.
Omi let his face fall once more as the door slammed behind Hidaka. Yohji, a soft look on his features, a reassuring smile, stepped over to the kid and drew him into a hug.
“It’s alright, chibi. Do what you have to do.”
Flashing him another grin, Yohji left also, shooting me a concerned look as he did.
The room shrunk down to the two of us, Omi forced his face into a light sober smile, the sign that has hung over all of our subsequent meetings.
“Aya.”
He stands still, stiff, fluctuating in and out of two beings.
I do not move forward from where I stand, inclining my head towards him.
“If…….if I can ever help you….”
His voice breaks
“I hope that whatever I can do for you will make up in part for what my family has done to you.”
Wordlessly, I let him leave, his bags clutched in his hands as he steps out into the blinding sunlight, a body shed behind him. A body we must bury but instead leave unearthed by preference, by an earnest hope that is voiced in Ken’s early retreats, his slow withdrawal, Yohji’s clear resentment of Sena.
In my recollection of this and in his eyes earlier.
“Though we cannot reclaim that hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower”
The remembered words float up into my mind. Innocent faces, and yes, back then, so early, we could bear our name honestly. Our unanalyzed suffering had left us shallow and left us afloat in a sea of miraculous finds, discoveries, mysterious unions and provocations. A sort of danger that bet not our souls but our skin, expendable tissues. We were hardly conscious of souls then.
Half-lucid, my mind blanks as I stop the car, pulling surprisingly smoothly into a parking space. Glancing up, I am hardly shocked at the high white walls of the hospital, its sterile smell filtered through gasoline.
“We will grieve not, but rather find
Strength in what remains behind.
In the primal sympathy,
Which having been, must ever be.”
Her limp pale hands, pale face that I’ve baptized red. How well her skin absorbs it, how fluently!
What can’t innocence contain?
“In the soothing thoughts that spring,
out of human suffering”
It is a slow lull, a soft familiar melancholy that settles over me. By rote, I call up visions of her destruction, of her paralysis. I imagine the scene of her resurrection, the confused glory that must have been her smile.
And disappointment at my absence. My death she will not conceive of.
This sorrow that couches the present, that justifies everything.
What absolute shit.
Slightly sickened at this pattern, this resurging diatribe, I start the car, pulling out of the parking lot and back onto the road, away from that bleached place of death with disgust. I have always believed in the necessity of memories, in the comprehension of self and situation through recollection.
It fails if you use the past to forget the present as it unfolds.
“In the faith that looks through death,
In the years that bring the philosophic mind.”
As the rest of Wordsworth’s immortal words ring through my brain, I rush back to the apartment, to clarify what I can between the two of us.
Before I forget.
________________________

When I head upstairs, the apartment is dark. Strange, it’s still before midnight. At least Ken should be up, watching TV or playing video games.
Not that I mind, I can’t stand the sound of that goddamned box.
I flick the light on as I step into the kitchen, pausing when I notice Ken hunched over the table, his head buried in his hands. He bolts upright, looking at me straight in the eye with shrewd critical look I wouldn’t normally associate with Hidaka.
“Funny isn’t it?”
His voice is husky, low, warped with an obvious and morbid curiosity.
I don’t respond, meeting his look simply, blankly.
“You’d think we’d be used to being prisoners.”
I stare at him, still dazed from earlier. Not answering. The tension between us forms suddenly, inexplicably.
Suddenly he rises, slamming his fists on the table.
“Damn it Aya! Why is it that even when we have the chance for a reprieve, for some freedom even, that we lock our own cages back again and hand the keys to our jailers?”I shrug. His face contorts itself.
“Fuck, you saw Rex. If Persia really wanted us out she would have forced you, or threatened you. They just wanted to bait us.”
“Perhaps.”
“Perhaps? Fuck that!”
He sinks back down into his chair.
“What are you trying to do Aya?”
Blindly, not understanding why, I leave the kitchen without a word.
I wonder when he’ll release that we’ve held ‘the keys’ the entire time.
We suffer, we let it fell us, distance us from what we were.
There are no cages here but those imagined. Even with the consequences of leaving without warning, they cannot force us to stay. They can recapture us, bleed us, brainwash us, but they can not keep us here, cannot make us kill.
We render reality ourselves and close ourselves in it, no matter how unconscious we are of our will.
Ignoring Ken’s continuing questions I make my way down the hall, by now familiar enough with it that I can move without light.
Yohji is in so many ways a child, a sort of terrible lost being. He clings to everything.
Involuntarily, I clench my eyes against any images, a method that for once works.
I open the door to our room to find him sprawled out on the floor, leaning against the wall. I do my best to ignore the obvious reek of tobacco and spilled liquor as I kneel down beside him, tapping him on the shoulder.
Groggily, he opens his eyes.
“Aya?”
The word is heavily slurred, his eyes glazed over and quizzical.
“What’re you doin’ here? Is e’rything okay?”
He has such an innocent, calm look on his face that its hard to resent the drinking. If it does this for him, it’s no mystery why he returns to it again and again.
A sort of succor I can’t give him.
His eyes flicker open and close. Silently, I rest one of his arms on my shoulder and lift him up, half carrying, half guiding, him over to the bed. He weaves back and forth as I pull his clothes off. He prefers to sleep naked.
With a smile on his lips he collapses on the bed. I watch him for a few moments, his chest rising and falling. There is a sharp sense of absence in watching him like this, an easy smile on his face, an open cast to his features.
I’m sick of missing catatonics while I look at them.
I undress, quickly, and slide under the covers next to him. He is already asleep when I throw my arm across his chest, letting my head drop against his shoulder.
_____________________________

I roll over, annoyed, as someone nudges me in the shoulder.
“Mmph. Go ‘way”
Fucking persistence. They poke and prod at me until I sit up, forming a glare.
Fuck!
I clutch my head tightly, trying to block out every scrap of light permeating my eyelids. Temples throbbing, I look up slowly at whoever was a dick enough to wake me.
Aya stands, fully dressed, over me, a bottle of aspirin in his hand. A mug of coffee rests steaming on the nightstand.
A little belatedly I register the lack of a shrieking alarm clock, and the fact that the blankets are wrapped up around me, rather than bunched around my ankles.
The hell?
“Take these.”
He drops a pair of aspirin in my palm and then shoves the coffee at me. He watches seemingly exasperated as I swallow both and lean back into the pillows.
“We don’t need to leave for an hour. Ken made breakfast.”
He turns around, presumably to go have his own breakfast.
How did he know to give me hangover things?
Vaguely I remember him coming in and dragging me to bed.
I doubt it was really much of a shock.
“Hey. Wait.”
Aya pauses at the door, turning around.
“Do you need something?”
He sounds perfectly cordial. A step up from the infrequent grunts I’ve only been able to elicit from him since the last date with Tsujii.
“No……just, thank you.”
He nods, turning out the door again.
“Aya.”
“What?”
He turns around, the first signs of irritation plain on his face.
“Could you sit down for a moment?”
Clearly annoyed, he settles down on the edge of the bed, nodding for me to continue.
“What was that last night? With the orders and running off…and what you said?”
Less than persuasive, but since the aspirin hasn’t quite kicked in yet I could give a fuck.
“Why should I explain anything when you have made it your business not to?”
His voice is cold, empty. A barb shot out from his lips.
There is a sinking feeling in my stomach directly discernable from the nausea.
I take another stab at getting him to talk.
“Well, will you just talk to me damn it!”
“What would you like to talk about?”
“Would you cut that shit out! God damn, I may as well be talking to a fucking wall.”
A vaguely shocked look passes over his features, softening them momentarily.
“Look. You and I both know that we can’t fix anything if you won’t tell me what’s wrong.”
His eyes are deep, an absorbing violet.
“I have.”
Well. Shit.
“Aya- I-”
He lifts his hand, interrupting me.
“No. Listen for a moment.”
His voice is quiet, wavering a little with either upset or anger. I can’t tell.
“Why is it that I’m always the emotionally crippled one? The one that just needs to say what’s wrong and everything’s in the open. Because you Yohji, always share everything. I think its too easy for you to let yourself deteriorate.”
He pauses.
“I know. It’s damned easy.”
Absently, he runs a hand up my leg, playing his fingers over the bare skin. Suddenly, the hand stops, a flat light weight.
“But I am not going to carry you anymore. I am not going to let my trust be played with or abused.”
He stops again, apparently considering what to say.
“You say you miss so much, you miss Asuka, you miss when we were closer.”
His features close off with her name, something I should be used to. He continues
“You miss Omi, you miss having your own practice. Are you going to realize that nothing holds you here that you haven’t imposed on yourself?”
He removes his hand.
“Or is this because you have realized that?”
Gracefully, in a single fluid motion, he stands to leave. Once more, he pauses at the door, this time without me saying a word.
“I miss things too.”
With a pointed look, he leaves, closing the door behind him.
I sit still on the bed, puzzled by his last remark.
He misses what? Does he mean to imply that he misses me?
It was easier then. I believed in redemption, I still thought that I could absolve myself of Asuka’s death.
All I did was buy myself a closer hold on it.
Shaking my head clear of thoughts, I stand, pulling on the closest clothing I can find. Glancing in the mirror as I pass it, I register that the shirt is Aya’s. I think. Can’t really tell anymore.
Deciding that the hangover is a preferable alternative to this train of thought, I trudge out to the kitchen, and to another cup or three of caffeine.
__________________________

A slow smile spreads over his face as he opens the book, brushing a reverent finger down its spine.
I feel a little strange watching him, but I want to catch him off-guard, maybe when he won’t be so disposed to run off.
Casually, I move out from where I’ve been hiding behind a column and head towards where he’s sitting.
Almost instantly, I am swamped by a crowd of students on lunch break.
“Kudou-sensei, what are we going to be drawing today?”
“Can we do fruit again? That was fun!”
“When are we going to draw nudes?”
Shaking my head, I answer their questions as quickly as possible, looking up furtively to ensure that Aya hasn’t moved.
When they finally leave, I head over, moving as quietly as I can.
The bastard is hypersensitive to sound, I swear.
He doesn’t look up from his book as I sit down next to him on the bench.
Absently, he drops one hand to his lap, leaning forward slightly as he turns a page. My heart beating with a strange excited pressure, I slip my hand up, settling it into his.
He whips his head around to look at me, hissing.
“Not here!”
The hand is pulled away and clenched firmly around the book’s cover.
“Fuck, does it really even matter anymore? I mean, we’re not here officially or anything.”
He scowls at me, furious.
“We are still on a mission Yohji. I know that might be difficult for your wine addled mind to grasp, but we cannot risk being exposed! What if Tsujii was to come out here and see us together?”
“I thought you were pretty certain that we’d already been exposed.”
“We still cannot afford to take chances.”
Rigid bastard.
“Then can we at least go somewhere to talk?”
“Fine. We’ll speak in your classroom. Follow me in ten minutes.”
With that icy concession he stands up and leaves. His braid sways as he walks. Its almost funny, watching it.
I stare down at my watch, counting as one minute clicks forward, than another.
I have no idea what I mean to say to him.
Maybe I should apologize. It hasn’t really worked too well in the past.
Aya hunched over an arrangement, wrapped in that lurid orange sweater.
“Aya, I’m sorry.”
Silence.
“I said, I’m sorry!”
I touched him on the shoulder. He whipped around, eartails bright around his seething face.
“Fuck off!”
“Aya-”
“No!”
“Will you just let me explain!”
“No.”
I latched my hand around his wrist and dragged him back to the supply closet, locking the door behind us and leaning against it to block his escape.
“Move.”
He stared at me as if he could make me let him by through sheer force of will.
“No. Whether you like it or not, I’m going to explain.”
He glares at me.
“I am sick of chasing you down. God forbid, I try to make up for it. Yes, I fucked up. I’m a huge asshole-”
“Leave me alone Yohji.”
“No. I’m going to finish. After that, you can do and think what you want, but you’re going to hear me out first.”
“Fine.”
The word is grudging, dripping with an icy contempt.
“I have to admit, I had no fucking clue at first why you were upset, since you’d been practically ignoring me anyways. I thought it was because of the stress with Esset. I felt, well I felt frustrated and needed something. Anything. She was just there.”
He narrows his eyes.
“I’m sorry if I happened to outstrip your patience.”
The words are spat out, cold and angry. Bitter.
“There’s mo-”
“No, Yohji. There isn’t.”
“Aya!”
“Just because I’m distracted does not mean that you have to go and fuck Manx!”
His shoulders shaking, he turned his eyes to the floor.
“Now. I’ve listened. Let me go, I need to see if there’s been any updates on my sister.”
Feeling sick, disgusted with myself, I moved aside, watching warily as he stalked towards the door.
Desperate, I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him close.
“Damn it Aya, just because I’m a bastard don’t deprive yourself of the only thing in your warped little life that brings you even the slightest bit of pleasure.”
He struggles against me, trying to pull away.
“Why not? This hurts, just like everything fucking else!”
“And its going to hurt! I’m not going to lie, I’ll fuck up now and later and believe me, you will too.”
He went still in my arms, giving me a strange look. I decided to take one last shot at it.
“Look, Aya. I’m not going to force you to forgive me. Or pretend that it can all be good, but why ignore the only shot either of us have at happiness?”
Quickly, before he could react, I grabbed his jaw, pressing his lips to mine.
“I love you.”
He nodded, letting me hold him before leaving.
I smile slightly, remembering the hell he put me through up until that last night, at the Elder’s museum. Not that I hadn’t deserved it.
I’m not sure that would work again. Aya’s not so emotionally stunted as he was then, these things will no longer be revelations, only more promises thrown back in his face, more breaches of trust he’d no doubt prefer to leave buried.
From the look on his face a minute ago, I have the feeling that despite my promise, I’ve committed a far worse betrayal.
Glancing down at my watch, I count eight minutes as having passed.
Close enough.
Rising, I make my way as quickly as possible through the halls to the classroom. The sooner I get there, the more time we have.
Finally, after what feels like an excruciatingly long time, I push the door open, and step in to where Aya is waiting.
______________________________
Quickly, once the hall is completely empty, I slip into the bright room. It reeks of paints and turpentine, the tables littered with stacks of drawings, smeared palettes, sheaves upon sheaves of paper. Stools are clustered in a wide circle in the center of the room, clipboards resting on the seats of most of them.
Near the window is a large easel.
I walk over to it, wanting to get close enough to study its details.
Immediately, I recognize Yohji’s work, the thin deft strokes, the soft colors, the careful attention to the slope of the neck and shape of the eyes.
I’ve never noticed that Tsujii’s eyes are purple.
The way Yohji drew, you can make out the sharp lines of her figure through the loose clothes, the curve of her breasts, the swell of her thighs on the chair.
The clothes may as well not be there at all.
My jaw clenches at the thought. Peering at the picture, taking in the soft high cheekbones, the lithe neck pale in the light, the splay of delicate fingers, all I can see is the light in his eyes, the eager movements of his hands. My ears echo with his voice rung out in low moans, names carefully pronounced.
I wonder if he looks her in the eyes.
What the hell does he think he can say to me?
Does he think he can just fuck with me, abuse my trust and then it’s simple, we can just talk; I can just yell a bit and everything is suddenly rectified?
I don’t want to think. I wonder if I have enough time to make it back to my classroom before he gets here.
Serendipitous, the door opens and closes, almost a single sound.
I close my eyes to the picture, keeping my back to him.
Yohji remains silent, watching me. Didn’t he want to talk?
My patience breaking I turn around, looking him in the eye. He looks surprised that I noticed he had come.
“Are you going to say anything?”
My voice is sharp, demanding. A look of consideration flashes across his face culminating in a grotesque twisting of his lips, a horrible forced smile.
Then enough.
Quickly, I move towards the door, past where he leans on the wall. I almost miss it as he reaches out and takes my hand, pressing it up to his chest.
I pause, questioning the lack of anger in my reaction, and look up at him. His eyes are clouded, swimming with a dark hurt, a sort of doubt as well as misery.
“Aya-”
My names slips out from between his lips and ends abruptly. His forced smile drops, shattering between us. Shyly, his hands shaking, he lifts mine up to his mouth, pressing his lips against the back.
“Say what you wanted to say Yohji.”
My voice breaks through the moment sharply, a curt reminder of where we are. I’m half surprised at its abruptness myself. Yohji takes on a sort of wounded, apologetic look, like a child.
It’s better to say it now.
He stammers a bit.
“I’m, I’m not going to try and write it all off as the mission. It’d be a cheap excuse.”
He sighs, dropping my hand.
“You’re always distant. Or gone. I don’t know what the hell preoccupies you, I bet it’s the same reason we’re standing here of all places. It’s probably my fault for that too. I’m not, though, going to apologize for Germany. That’s over, I’m not really sure what it was myself. I don‘t want to think about it.”
His voice quiets, becomes pleading.
“This thing with Tsujii, I just need you to know its not like that. That doesn’t make it right, but damn it, that means something. She’s probably our best shot at getting this resolved. I want to end this as much as you do, finish this mission and get the hell away from here, as far as we can. If I can finish it faster like this, then I will.”
Suddenly he lets out a choking sound, a cross almost between a laugh and a sob.
“But that’s not it either, not really…..You ever feel so crushed, so drowned in everything around you, like the roof is caving in and you can’t get out? You’re certain that you’re going to be buried by it. So you bury yourself down deeper, all on your own, in whatever you can find so maybe, just maybe, you can delay the hell you face that much longer. Maybe its worse to prolong it. I don’t know.”
A sort of helpless look spreads out from his eyes, a terrible frightening apprehension shot through with guilt.
“I have so many memories. So many promises I made, so many things to miss or to drown in. But at least it isn’t that temporary oblivion that you have to convince yourself works. That’s all Tsujii is. She’s blank, a dull sort of static where I can just lose everything and become hollow, really hollow, instead of just feeling like I am and knowing that that very feeling of emptiness invalidates itself.”
A small smile flits across his lips and vanishes again.
“It seems sometimes that all my memories spring from you, that they all begin and end with your eyes and that’s terrifying Aya. Its horrible.”
A pause.“I don’t want you to be mixed up with those other faces.”
Swallowing my original instinct to walk away, to leave and just let it break away, finalize the gap that has been yawning between us, I let him twine our fingers back together.
“I love you.”
It’s a desperate collection of words, shining raw in the red rims of his eyes, the tears collecting in their corners, in the set of his lips.
I bite my lip. I’m trying to convince myself that things won’t go back to deteriorating after this singular pause, this strange and familiar moment of intimacy.
For the first time since Tsujii’s name began to frequent our conversations, this feels natural, right, the only thing that has ever been cohesive for me.
I’m a quixotic fool. I don’t care.
Wordlessly, I lift my hand behind his neck, pulling his head down slowly.
This is not forgiveness. Does that have any place between us anymore?
I press my lips into his cheek, tasting the salt of his tears, the wetness clinging to my mouth.
My heart turns over as he slides his face over, joining his lips to mine.
So blind, so stupid. I stop myself from pulling away by assuring myself that this is not over, that somehow, I will stop the both of us from pulling the other down.
My head is swelled with blood from falling so long.
Thought stops as he wraps my braid around one hand, tilting my head back and simultaneously forcing me close enough for our chests to touch, for me to wrap my arms fully around him.
The kiss is slow, leisurely; carefully, Yohji turns us around so my back is pressed into the wall. He pulls back, smiling slightly, then bows his head, his fingers flying up to attack the buttons of my shirt.
When the shirt finally opens, he pushes it down my arms, pressing back in to catch my lips again.
I lean back against the wall, taking in the cool feel of the plaster on my back, the sharp contrast of Yohji’s body heat waving over my stomach.
I gasp, breaking our mouths apart, as one hand lifts up and tweaks my nipple, sending a sharp pain down my spine to my groin, pooling with a sudden heat. I groan as my pants tighten, rubbing against Yohji’s hips. With his free hand, he jerks my legs apart, catching my lower lip between his teeth as he shoves his thigh between them, pressing me back as I jerk forward, breathless. My hands run up and down his back, fingers catching in the folds of his loose shirt. He lowers his mouth to my neck, sucking hard, forcing my back to arch, my voice to spill over in a low long groan. Teeth graze along the skin, clamping down suddenly with a force that makes me go stiff, clawing at his back, trying to pull my neck out from between those clenching teeth.
I want to laugh thinking about the bruise I won’t be able to hide. It doesn’t matter. Not a damned bit with his hands roaming down my body, darting below the waistband of my pants in teasing circular motions, cupping my ass, nearly lifting me off the floor.
Giving me a quick glance, he drops to his knees, pulling my pants down to the floor with him. I hiss as he slides my boxers down around my ankles, the cool air wrapping itself around my cock as it springs out, dripping precum. He wraps one hand tightly around it, squeezing it. My lips part, eyes closing tightly, breath coming out in heavy pants.
He runs his fingers up the shaft, drawing slow circles just under the head, swiping his thumb in a quick motion over the slit, drawing the wetness down onto his fingers. His arm encircles my thigh, keeping my legs spread, the hand stroking up and down the sensitive skin, swirling up in light touches, grazing nails that leave me jumping at every brush of skin on mine. His hand cups around one cheek, fingers skimming up and down my crack, circling my hole with increasing pressure.
It presses in, hard, almost frantic at the same time he engulfs me, a wet heat shivering around my cock as his finger twists inside, a jarring burning sensation. His tongue slides around the head, dipping down to press the big vein on the underside, darting into the slit. My breath hitches as his finger almost hits my prostate. I moan as he slips it out again, drawing the wet finger lower, rubbing between my legs. My vision blanks out as he cups my balls, playing with them as he deep throats me, taking me all the way into that soft searing heat.
He shoves two fingers in again as he pulls back, beginning a quick steady rhythm on both sides, twisting around with lips and fingers, tongue slipping around, humming underneath my cock. I brace myself against the wall, feeling my knees go weak as my senses heighten, simultaneously expand and narrow down to the two of us. I snap my hips back and forth, dropping my hands down to grip the back of his head as I fuck his mouth.
My balls tighten, heat pooling in my groin, causing me to speed up, to move with a sort of wild abandon, panting in anticipation of impending bliss.
Adding another finger, Yohji finally presses all three against my prostate. I go still, shuddering against the wall, pulsing wave after wave of white pressure through my body, into his mouth. After I feel him swallow, I release my hands, sinking down the wall, landing with my legs sprawled wide, my ass pressed against the cold tile floor. So spent, I could care less.
I don’t realize my eyes are closed until Yohji touches my cheek, meeting me with a smile when I flick them open. There is a trail of white spilled down his chin.
I smile back, still overwhelmed by the feel of it.
Sill on his knees, Yohji takes me by the shoulders, pulling me against his chest, stroking my hair. We rock back and forth, leaning into each other, listening to the others breath.
Glancing down, I notice Yohji’s pants are pulled down to his knees, streams of white drying on his thighs and fingers.
Pulling myself up onto his lap, I kiss him, slowly, letting him hold me up.
Its broken by me yawning, my mouth spreading wide with it.
Yohji smirks
“Didn’t get enough sleep?”
I shrug, not caring enough to answer something as unimportant as that.
“Are we okay?”
His voice wavers a little. Sighing, I pull back from him, settling back onto the floor.
“I don’t know.”
“Well what can I do?”
His voice takes on a frantic tone, plainly confused.
Sex doesn’t rectify anything Yohji. It just fosters a feeling of intimacy, narrowing the world down between us.
“Keep your promise.”
He nods, still frowning.
“What about Tsujii?”
I scowl at her name.
“It probably wouldn’t be smart to end it would it? Not when we could get so much information from her, especially if the principal is Epitaph, and even more so if we’ve been compromised.”
He nods, an anxious look taking over his features.
“I….”
I pause, the words sounding thick, foolish in my head.
“What?”
“I need to trust that you’re not going to leave.”
“I promised didn’t I?”
He smiles, bending his head to mine, brushing my lips.
I smile back.
Neither of us is blind enough to think that it’s all fixed with these words, or that a promise made will rectify anything.
Its in the affirmation.
For a moment, with his arms around me again, I let myself believe we’re close to that new understanding we’d hoped for.
____________________________

Once dressed, Aya stands away from me, giving me a sad look.
“Don’t think this is all finished, Yohji.”
I smile, taking one of his hands in mine.
“I wouldn’t let this be finished for the world.”
The cheesy, though sincere, comment provokes a smile, his eyes warming for a moment before becoming serious again.
“I mean it. I won’t let my trust be abused.”
I look him straight in the eye, locking our gazes together.
“I promised.”
Having apparently gotten the answer he wanted, Aya nods, pulling us together for a quick kiss.
“I have a class.”
With that he practically disappears, moving out the door quickly and vanishing into a sea of students.
Smiling to myself I sit down at a table, pulling a clean sheet of paper off a stack and picking a stick of charcoal from an open box.
With quick, precise lines, I sketch the familiar contours of his face, the deep hollows of his eyes, his full curving lips, his straight narrow nose and high cheekbones. He’s pretty to the point of being epicene, his lips curved up in a rare smile, forming a small, near-imperceptible dimple in his cheek.
Long pieces of hair frame his face, the rest is pulled back into a tight braid, his bangs disheveled and pressed to his forehead. His eyes look dazzled and absorbed. I shade them dark, rimmed full and wide with languid shadows.
I pull the stick down around broad shoulders, a lithe thin neck, a smooth hard chest that tapers down to a flat taut stomach. I lift it up to embrace legs sprawled loosely on the floor, one curled underneath him. He leans forward slightly, lips parted. His shirt is loose, spread over his lap, one hand is tugging on a strand of hair.
I am just drawing in the glasses he wears he when I hear the door open. Automatically, I pull another page over the sketch of Aya, standing to greet whoever intruded.
Tsujii smiles at me, a vaguely anticipatory, predatory look on her face.
“Hello Kudou-sensei. I hope I didn’t interrupt you.”
I shrug
“Not really. I was just working on a lesson plan.”
The lie comes out smooth.
“Oh. Well, I won’t keep you too long then. I was just hoping that……well I wondered if you’d like to make another date tonight?”
“What?”
I hardly manage to keep the shock and irrational anger from my voice. Well of course tonight, tonight would have to be the night she wanted.
“I know it’s a little short notice but I just thought…….”
“I’m sorry, you just surprised me.”
Got to maintain tact. Its for the mission. Aya cares about the mission.
As for me, this whole shithouse could go up in flames or indulge in mass ritualized suicide for all I care.
“So?”
There is nothing I want less in this world than to go out with her tonight.
Fuck it. She can wait.
“I’m sorry, Tsujii-sensei, but there is something I have to attend to tonight.”
I am careful to lay on as much charm as I can, smiling at her.
“Oh.”
She still sounds disappointed.
“However, I am free tomorrow, if that’s alright.”
“Oh yes, yes that will be fine.”
She sounds excited, pulling a piece of paper from her pocket.
“Here’s the movie I thought we could see, it’ll still be playing tomorrow. Afterwards, we could get dinner?”
I nod, folding the paper in my hands without looking at it.
“That sounds wonderful.”
She blushes slightly, inclining her head.
“I look forward to it, Kudou-sensei.”
As suddenly as she came, she departs, exiting into the empty hall.
Sighing with a sort of relief, I glance at the paper. Never heard of the movie. Eh, better than talking to her I guess.
Crumpling it up, I drop it on the table and settle back down, adding shadows to his hair in charcoal.
_______________________

“Hey.”
I smile as I glance up from my book, Yohji leans over the bed, a wide grin on his face.
After a moment’s silent consideration I return to my page, scanning over a few more stanzas of Ginsberg, scarcely noticing the dip in the mattress as Yohji sits down, stretching out beside me in favor of “Howl”.
Yohji sighs next to me, making a show of stretching his arms out, spreading his legs so they’re pressed up against mine, a hand resting on my knee.
“Did I ever tell you how sexy you look doing that?”
A small smile tugs at my lips, brushing his hand away.
“Yes.”
Shrugging, I turn my attention back to the book, my eyes racing try and to finish the poem in front of me.
Carefully, he pulls the band from my hair, dropping it on the book. Glaring at him, I brush it off, trying to focus my eyes on the same few words I’d been reading since he came in.
Wordlessly, Yohji unravels my hair, unwinding strand after strand slowly, softly, until its spread out around me, long pieces hanging in front of my eyes that he brushes back.
“You know what would make you even sexier?”
I roll my eyes, predicting the cheesy line that’s sure to follow.
Sighing with mock exasperation I frown at him.
“What?”
All part of a familiar, if long-interrupted game.
“If you weren’t wearing too many clothes.”
“Hn”
Ignoring the hand playing with my belt, I look down at the book.
“Hey-”
He leans in, bending across my chest to press against my neck, biting hard, running his tongue around the outline of older bruises. I gasp as he digs his teeth in, clamping my fingers around the book.
“No fair.”
He smirks as I push him off of me.“So?”
“You’re a distraction.”
“I think I’m a bit more effective than a ‘distraction’.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Really now?”
I pull the book up so its right in front of my face and covering my neck entirely. Yohji moves in again, running a hand up my chest which I bat away.
“I’m reading. Distract someone else.”
He stifles a laugh, faking a wounded look.
“Now who’s not being fair?”
“You.”
Pulling the book from my hands, he leans his face in close.
“You can be so mean Ayan.”
I hardly register the sound of the book dropping to the floor.
“So?”Mirroring responses, a sort of light banter that means nothing, says nothing, but implies a mutual reassurance, a restive sort of return to what we had been so close to.
I repress a shiver, a feeling of sick nausea as I recall the nervous tension of the last few weeks, the dread anxiety and constant separations.
My lips twitch. Suddenly, I am gripped with a deep sense of foreboding.
What if this is only a reprieve and not a return?
The abrupt panic must be evident in my features, Yohji’s eyes fill with concern.
“Everything alright?”
He pulls back, a now all too familiar expression of mute loss settling back on his face.
My heart leaping, adrenaline shooting thick into my veins, I grab his shoulders, pulling him close again.
“Come here.”
Our lips meet with a frightening intensity, a ferocity of need, of exposure. I can hardly differentiate between our chests as we press closer, open buttons, shed clothing, drop things to the floor. My hands dig into his shoulders, senses reeling with the smooth heat of his skin, the restive tension in my body, the overwhelming urge to rend him apart, to merge our two selves together into a sort of oblivion from which we can’t recover.
I can’t imagine wanting to.
I lock my lips on his neck, sucking. He moans low in his throat, the vibrations of skin numbing my lips as I graze my teeth across the forming bruise, tan unmarked skin, his adam’s apple as it juts out.
Something overtakes me, the same fear as before, the same pensive worry of abandonment, translating itself into an overwhelming frenzy.
I pull myself away from his neck, pressing fingers into his jaw.
I wonder unconsciously, distantly, what my face looks like, my voice hissing out through a fog of desire.
“Mine.”
He nods slowly, his forehead furrowing.
I press our lips together, bruising, hard clashes of teeth and tongue. My hands play down his spine, nails teasing his sensitized skin. I cup his ass, fingers digging hard into the soft flesh, pulling his hips against mine, rubbing our erections together with a harsh gasp, my throat on fire with repressed moans.
Rising to my knees, I push him down on his back, taking in the smooth stretches of golden skin, the proud, sharp clavicles, the hollow plain of his stomach extending under softly lifted ribs, long lean legs spread around me, his arms resting over his head with its kiss swollen lips, livid eyes glinting green in the light, dark purple bruises trailing from his ear to his chest. He lifts his hands, pulling me down to him, licking along my jaw until he reaches my ear, whispering.
“Yours.”
The word sends a shiver down my spine, slowly and for this moment negating all anger with an indefinable relief that is not forgiveness, not absolution or forgetting; a warm welcoming release and dissipation.
It can rear its head later. Now I bend my head to his chest, smiling as my hair tumbles down, a deep red curtain framing his warm skin. He moans as I take a nipple in my teeth, a loud expiating sound welling between us, filling the room.
I know we’ll be hearing about this later from Ken.
I straddle his hips, pressing back so his cock rubs against the small of my back, leaving a thin trail of precum, a cool damp spot on my skin.
The impulse seizes me again, a simultaneously liberating and constraining feel, a tumultuous heightening of my senses.
Musk rises from our groins, our skin exuding a graceful sort of animal heat, his eyes are close, fierce, pressing into mine, penetrating and intense. I lean forward, spreading myself over his chest as I bite at his lips, claw at his sides. With one hand I bind his together, pulling them away from my back and over his head.
“Leave them there.”
The possessive tone of my voice is met by a mute acceptance, a soft comprehension in Yohji’s eyes transmuted by a sort of self loathing.
Narrowing my eyes I kiss him again, tilting his head up so I can hiss in his ear, vehemently enraged at the contempt in his eyes, the apology behind the immediate lust.
“This is not forgiveness. Don’t drag your recriminations in here.”
One hand drifts down, my skin warmed by the heat of his cock. I clench it tightly, stopping just short of hurting him, eliciting a sharp loud groan.
“It does not matter here.”
I squeeze, tightening my grip further.
“This is not a means of expiation.”
I drag my nails around the shaft, causing him to writhe between my thighs, thrashing around.
My voice tightens with his face, a furious anxiety overtaking us both.
“None of that is real here.”
Considerable strain. I reach back, finding the lube on the nightstand without shifting my gaze from his face. Silently, I dip my hand in it, coating my fingers in lube. My head jerks back as I press them into myself, stretching myself quickly.
I breathe hard, my panting sounding as if it fills the whole room, the world, mixing with his whines as my fingers clench and grasp around him, spreading cool lube down the tingling skin.
Suddenly, without warning, without changing my expression or saying a word, without taking my eyes from his, I press down onto him, penetrating myself in one swift movement, my teeth clenching at the slight pain.
Once fully seated on him, my ass pressed flush on his hips, the prominent bones pushing against me, I lean forward, watching the blush of his skin, the panting fervor of his eyes, the sweat gleaming down his body.
“Because you are mine.”
My voice is a sob, at once harsh and pleading, meeting his eyes in an odd synesthesiac reflection.
Unable to stay still any longer, he jerks his hips off the bed, throwing me up. Shaking, I lower my head to his shoulder, my hands wrapping around his neck as we convulse, writhing together in a strange circadian rhythm, an abandon.
Finally, frenzied, we pause in a final tension, sobbing, smiling as heat flushes through my groin, falling in a hot trickle down the backs of my thighs as he slips out, expelling over our stomachs, a slick channel between us.
Spent, I remain sprawled across his chest, a smile spreading across my lips as our breathing slows in tandem and everything fades, the world reduced to the warmth of his skin, the arms wrapped around my waist. *
__________________________

I wake with Aya draped over my chest, our limbs threaded together. The sky is dark, and in the scant moonlight that manages to filter into the room I can make out a serene smile on his sleeping face. Lazily, yawning, I turn my head in the direction of the clock, shrugging when it turns out to be swathed in shadows, the time unreadable.
Knew we should have picked up a digital clock, at least the damned things glow in the dark.
Trapped under Aya’s body, I resign myself to lying back on the pillows and running my hands down his back, skimming my fingers into the dips of his spine. He shivers in his sleep. After careful maneuvering, I manage to reach down around his hips to pull the blanket up over us.
His skin looks cold, a marble white in the half-light, his closed eyes taking a blue liquid shadow, his lips curled up. I press my finger against them, brushing the smoothly smiling flesh.
Slowly, I become conscious of my own grin. Laughing silently, I try and pull my lips flat, into a less irritatingly cheerful position, such a foreign twist of my features.
Like elastic, the corners of my mouth keep jerking back up. Unable to suppress the overwhelming sense of joy overtaking me, I let out a long satisfied sigh, wrapping a hand through Aya’s hair.
It’s all so fucking surreal, sudden. And somehow natural, that after weeks of pettiness and loathing and apprehension, distraction mounting on distraction, it should all come together.
I feel physically lighter, I’d almost swear that I’d float off if not for Aya’s weight pinning me down!
My sense of relieved euphoria is interrupted by a loud and rather disconcerting growl from my stomach.
Right.
Raising an eyebrow when I notice that Aya is still dead to the world, I begin to gently slide my legs out from under him, pulling my arms slowly off his back and cautiously lifting him off my chest as I shift out of the way, laying him down on the pillow.
And Aya calls me a heavy sleeper.
I stand, stretching a little before grabbing the nearest bedroom and heading for the kitchen.
True to form, the refrigerator is stocked full with leftover takeout and odd combinations of pizza. Rummaging through the shelves of uneaten food, I finally settle on what’s left of Tuesday’s dim sum, and lean against the counter with a pair of chopsticks that I found balanced by the sink.
Once the noodles are gone, there’s only one thing in the way of perfectly good humor. Smirking to myself, I walk over to the door, rummaging through the pockets of my jacket. It only takes a moment, and three moderately damp matches- got to find that damned lighter Kudou!- and I’m stretched out against the wall, taking in long deep drags of nicotine.
My cravings satisfied, I find I still can’t wipe the grin off my face.
Aya clears his throat as he enters the kitchen, his nose wrinkling in disgust as he registers the smell of tobacco.
Swiftly, apologetically, I shove the pack back into a coat pocket, my fingers brushing against something. Glancing up to see Aya turned towards the cupboard, digging for god only knows what, I pull it out.
A couple of white pieces of paper fall onto the kitchen.
Before the sound of his annoyed muttering ceases, I glance at both pieces, trying to decide which to present first.
_________________________

Giving up on finding anything tolerable to eat in the apartment I drop half-awake into one of the chairs by the table.
Yohji watches me, a hesitant look on his face, his hands held up behind his back.
“Aya?”
“Hn?”
His voice shakes with what I suppose is a mutual exhaustion, a haze of sleep.
Rather than saying anything, he pulls a sheet of paper from behind his back and sets it before me, flattening it against the tabletop.
Blearily, I lean over to see what it is, stopping stunned as I take in the smooth graceful lines, the thick sharp shading.
It’s been so long since he’s shown me anything. I can hardly take my eyes from it to speak to him.
“I thought you stopped-”
He shrugs, striding over to stand next to me, his arm settling easily over my shoulders.
“I had. I did it today after you left.”
“Oh.”
Suddenly, an unwelcome anxiety presents itself. We are assuming relief, expiation, to have already occurred. We seem to believe we have already transcended into the aftermath of those weeks of veritable silence, of the beginnings of a chasm yawning between us.
How long could we support ourselves reaching across it blind?
“Also, Aya-”
He drops another, smaller, piece of paper on the table, his voice hitting a note between irritated and embarrassed.
“Tomorrow I’ve got to take Tsujii out again.”
I shrug, hardly concealing my absolute distaste at the mention of her name.
Yohji tenses, something strange, some hint of the misery we tried so hard to sweat off, flickers through his eyes, darkening the green to black and back again.
“This is not forgiveness.”
He flinches as the words strike through my mind, in an apparent simultaneous recall.
He will not mention what caused him to flinch and nor will I. Amidst confusion, this moment can take on a pristine feel, almost a sense of invocation, the memory of our eyes bared open, voices and hands in one unmistakable purgation.
The only difference is that expiation earns one absolution.
Purged, not even the ashes can tough you.
A different sort of absolution perhaps.
“Because you are mine.”
A brittle reawakening.
The memory seems tangible between our eyes, electrifying the air around us with remembered touch, sight, smell, moans and words of inestimable and momentous power.
Dissipated now, except where reverence is retained.
I feel better as he crosses the kitchen and pulls me into his arms, worry twisting his features so that they somehow look incomplete, childish even.
“It’s just to throw her off, see if I can find anything out from her.”
He grins
“I’ll even promise to be back before ten.”
Unexpectedly, I let out a short bark of surprised laughter at the comment.
Yohji can’t even get back from a cigarette run by 10 pm.
“Hey!”
The oppressive anxiety in his voice is gone, replaced by a mock indignation.
“I’ll have you know that I’m almost always at the apartment by ten.”
“Well, yeah, but its usually because you’re getting ready to leave then”
He forces a glare, which ends up being a sort of half annoyed, half drunk looking scowl. Like the look someone would have if they were brought the wrong cocktail.
“Fine.”
He pokes me in the stomach, spurring another laugh, which I cut off as soon as realize it, not wanting to wake Ken or Sena.
Slipping my hand into Yohji’s, I lead him back towards the bedroom, carefully closing the door behind us.
“That was nice.”
His voice is reflective, breaking through the warm silence of the dark room.
“Hm?”
Not having turned the light on, I’m made aware of his location only when he slips an arm about my waist, pulling me up into his lap.
“Your laugh.”
Catching my look of shock even in the relative dark he laughs, explaining quickly.
“You don’t laugh enough.”
At that comment I am overrun by hands, searching fingers, frustrated whispers.
“Oh come on Aya, even you have got to be ticklish.”
I shrug, knowing for a fact that Yohji is very well aware of how ticklish I am. I wonder briefly how tired he is as my own eyes begin to get ridiculously heavy.
Yawning, I make a dive for the pillows, pulling Yohji, already half-asleep, after me.
Through the dark, the same reassuring and prescient words echo through my ears, and over my eyes.
“Though we cannot reclaim that hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower
We will grieve not but rather find
Strength in what remains behind”
Closing me off, into sleep. Into dreams.
___________________________

I bolt upright, drenched in sweat, looking around the pitch dark room. The moon must have set.
“In the primal sympathy
Which having been, must ever be.”
Ears swimming with the screams wrought before my eyes, searing guilt, my hands torn through with icy steel, arms littered with cuts, well springs of blood which I have absorbed.
If you take on a bit of your victim, if the taking of blood is literal, the replacement of blood, brutal revisitation of dreams- it would be a wonder if I possessed a single drop of my own blood, traded so violently, as if all my hope with went her smiling eyes.
“In the faith that looks through death
In the years that bring the philosophic mind”