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

Chapter 3

"Ran-niichan, you didn't eat your dinner!" Aya's protesting voice drifted up the back stair, and Ran flinched, almost imperceptibly. Yohji lingered near the doorway, stopping at the sound of the girl's rebuke. He turned, and raised a lazy brow to Ran's still form.

"Still not hungry?" he asked softly.

They hadn't really spoken since-

"Hn," Ran grunted, staring out the window into a smeared-pastels sky, running to plum-raisin near the far horizon with the early sunset. His shoulder throbbed, and he mentally retraced the path to his fire escape retreat. And so it was: reduced to staring with a sick longing toward his only promise of peace.

"You need to eat," Yohji said quietly. His voice was almost... penitent.

It made Ran sick to hear it, the bile rose in his throat with acidic fury. Fury at himself, mostly. He told... He told Yohji *everything*. Everything he himself knew. It wasn't enough, it hadn't been enough, and now the bastard had the temerity to-

"I'm not hungry," he said harshly, not looking at Yohji, though the man hovered now just out of reach. Forever out of reach. "I'll come down and get something later."

"When Aya-chan and Omi are at the movie?" Yohji said. His voice was almost suggestive, though lacking its usual energy. Ran ignored the playboy's insinuation that he was avoiding his sister. The sun itself was a crimson flame, almost the color of his hair.

The color of blood. It was said that the moon grew cold at night, missing the sun's warmth, and longed ever for its bright lover...

"Yes," he whispered, staring at the sinking sun. It mattered not.

"Yohji-kun, Ran-kun!" Omi called up the stairs, his voice echoing as though he were stifling giggles. Ran's heart hurt. "We're leaving for the theatre!"

"Be back by eleven, young man!" Ken bellowed down the stairs. Ran started; he hadn't heard Ken leave his room. "And don't do anything Yohji would do!"

"Tch, that doesn't leave him much room for fun," Yohji drawled, while Omi yelled something unintelligible back at the footballer. Ran turned his face away. Another voice echoed up the stairs.

"Your sister says eat something," Ken said, his voice gravelly as he strode down the hallway, his distinctive rolling gait marking his every move. "I'm headed for the arcade, I'll be back late."

Ran watched the footballer don his bomber jacket from the corner of his eye, not responding to the repeated plea. Yohji sighed again, following Ken with a beleaguered air. It had been left to him to close the shop, and he'd been bitching about it most of the day. When he wasn't avoiding Ran, of course.

Yohji's presence faded, like a lingering perfume. Or just the scent of those damn cigarettes. Ran's eyes squeezed shut.

This had been a mistake. He should never have come back.

His shoulders curled in, and his wound throbbed, and his hands clenched tight enough to cut halfmoons into each palm. He deserved this, every second of it. He didn't... How could he have *said* those things...

No wonder Yohji hated him.

Time passed. He could hear the hum of Omi's moped, the darker growl of Ken's Yamaha, barely street-legal. Yohji clattered and clanged about downstairs, and the sun sank lower, burned darker, and finally slipped below the horizon as the front shutters rattled closed.

He uncurled from his frozen position on the bed. He would never heal this way, and he had to heal. He needed a mission, and soon. Maybe then...

Maybe then Yohji would stop fleeing the room each time he entered.

He stopped outside the bathroom door, hand catching the frame to steady himself. No. What was he thinking? It had just been... him. He was the only one. Yohji shouldn't...

He couldn't shove this onto Yohji. This was his blame to carry. This was his fault.

He shivered. Aya-chan had confiscated the orange sweater, claming that she had a much-improved sense of aesthetics, and had promised to knit him something in blue or green instead. She never had, and he missed the warmth. The winter had seeped into the tiles or the pipes, and he stood uneasily on numbing feet as he folded his things neatly. He pulled a towel from the linen closet, and edged carefully out of that tight corner to climb into the shower. The water in the sunken tub, nearly crystal, echoed oddly off the tiles.

He hooked the towel carefully over its peg, and reached out hesitantly to turn the silver spigot. Icewater spurted from the showerhead, striking his face and chest and startling him instantly alert. He didn't move from the cold, waiting patiently as the water warmed slowly, and finally became hot. The heat was delicious, and he turned slowly to let it soak into his hair and run soothing fingers down his battered sides.

He had to think about this rationally. Yohji now knew his every secret. Or, at least, the most secret of them all. Yohji did not appear to have any stronger tie to him than that of a teammate. Yohji would therefore tell his secret, and so must die.

The soap fell to the tiles with a dull thud. The bar bounced, and skidded into one corner. He watched it with apathetic eyes. Kill Yohji?

A shiver wracked him.

Impossible.

If the others found out... Then so be it. His eyes squeezed shut, and he stifled what could have been a sob. If Yohji had cared... then it woudn't have needed to be a secret anymore.

If Yohji had...

Iie, he reminded himself sternly, scrubbing the shampoo into his scalp with undue harshness. This is still your fault, he reiterated. Yohji has no obligation to you, he never did. That was not attraction, that was friendship, and you...

Oh god, it hurt.

Conditioner now, just a smear for detangler. He would bury this. It wouldn't affect him for much longer, but God he wished it would. A tear ran down one pale cheek. He'd so wanted to feel.

* * * * * *

Yohji sat on the edge of his bed, cigarette almost done, staring at the door to his room. Soon, he'd have to open it, and make a decision, and then his life would be different. One way or the other, it was bound to be different.

He didn't know what he should do. He wasn't even completely sure what he wanted to do.

He stubbed out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray, and flung himself back on his bed. It was dark now, and getting cold, and he was aware he should be hungry. He probably would be, he reflected, if he hadn't smoked so much.

He wanted Ran.

He wanted to take him in his arms and comfort him, tell him it would all be alright. He wanted to strip him, lay him on this bed and warm his pale skin with kisses. He wanted to find out what he looked like when he came, whether he made a sound, whether he went still or thrashed about. He wanted to know what his kisses tasted like.

He wanted to show him how good it could be.

He reached for cigarettes and lighter. One more. Then he'd go find something to eat. And talk to Ran. One more cigarette and…

And what?

He put this third-to-last cigarette between cold lips and lit it, drawing his feet up to the edge of the bed. He sucked hot smoke into vaguely protesting lungs, and sighed it out, watched it curl up to the yellowed ceiling.

He couldn't be with Ran. That was ridiculous. Cold, dangerous, stubborn Ran?

He wanted to be.

He folded his left arm across his stomach, flicked ash into the ashtray. It was quiet, at last; Ran was probably still brooding somewhere, and the others were out. Only the distant hum of the traffic penetrated the windows. The overhead light was spreading shadows through Yohji's room, pools of dark gathering in cold corners.

He wasn't even certain that Ran liked him that much. Wanted him, perhaps, but… Yohji smiled to himself. Since when did he get that fussy? He'd been used before, knowingly, willingly, even. Neu…

He squeezed his eyes shut. No. Don't go there. Asuka…

Asuka was dead. And nothing to do with this, at all. That was love: life-changing, heart-breaking, soul-taking love. He didn't deserve to love anyone. This was nothing to do with love.

He opened his eyes with a sigh, rubbed flecks of dropped ash into his jeans.

He had no idea what this was about.

It wasn't like he hadn't tried to find out. He gritted his teeth with remembered frustration at the number of times he'd tried to talk to Ran over the past few days. There was always something, some reason they couldn't discuss it: Omi was fussing round him, or Ken had put him in such a foul mood there was no talking to him at all, or, most often, Aya-chan was there, and the pain was so clear on Ran's face that Yohji could do no more than soothe, a touch here, a smile there, the odd word… anything to make it better. It couldn't go on any longer, he knew. Aya-chan knew something was wrong; only this morning she'd looked at him, when Ran was gazing out of the window, torturing himself in his head, and she'd begged him, with those beautiful, big, irresistible eyes, to help. He'd given her his brightest smile, as if she were worrying about nothing… a denial worthy of Ran himself.

But it was quiet now. There was nothing in the way of the conversation he'd been running through his head for days; there was nothing stopping him from going and taking Ran in his arms, giving him what he said he wanted. Healing him with that unique brand of Kudoh affection; making him his.

He couldn't do it.

It wasn't right. He didn't want to take advantage of Ran's need, or desire. Just because his head was full of fantasies which involved, in some way or another, getting better acquainted with Ran's naked and beautiful body, didn't mean he could solve all Ran's problems with one good fuck. Or even more than one.

It couldn't work. Ran was too fragile, too vulnerable. He didn't know what he wanted, not really, he'd said as much, in the cold dawn on the fire escape. Much as Yohji hated to see Ran suffering, hating himself, fading away in the face of pain and confusion, he couldn't offer himself as a solution.

Could he?

His cigarette finished, Yohji dragged himself off the bed, raking his fingers through tangled hair. He had to do the right thing, for Ran's good, for Aya-chan's good, for his own good. This could never work. For once in his life, he had to do the right thing.

Didn't he?

to be continued...