It was the rustling of clothes that woke him. It was the rustling of clothes that kept him awake. Shion blinked away the sleep, nothing else, as he clenched his jaw.
Were they doing this again?
"Nezumi."
They weren't.
He knew without looking that Nezumi had paused in the middle of tying up his navy locks, shoulders tense. Tensing himself, Shion pushed up into a sitting position, the blankets pooling around his waist and leaving his torso bare. Squinting red eyes eventually adjusted and aimed onto Nezumi who was pulling his shirt over his head.
"Nezumi, where are you going?"
"Go back to sleep, Shion." Dodging the question, as always.
"I will when you do," Shion challenged. When only silence met him, he frowned and fisted his hands in the sheets.
Hollowing out his tone, Shion said, "This time," he paused to choke on the hurt, "this time don't come back." Grey eyes shot to him incredulously before narrowing dangerously.
"What was that, Your Majesty?" Nezumi's voice had gone as tense as the room and Shion felt sadness win against the anger on his face.
"I can't keep doing this Nezumi. I won't."
"Gotten tired of me, have you? Hanging around a gutter rat lost its novelty for you?"
He was so exhausted. "I'm not the one who's gotten tired of someone."
"And just what is that supposed to mean Shion?" Nezumi snapped.
"You leave after you get what you want. You never tell me where you're going, when you're coming back, if you're coming back. I just have to wait and believe in an imagined promise. 'Caging' you is the last thing I want to do but I don't want to be caged by this uncertainty anymore. It hurts too much." Shion drew his knees to his chest and buried his face in them.
"What are you saying?" He had gone very quiet.
"I'm saying I love you." Shion's breath hitched in response to the constriction of his heart. "But if I'm not the one for you, and if you don't care enough to tell me after all we've been through, then I need you to make it to the door and close it behind you."
A buzzing silence took over the room once again and Shion waited to be left alone. He had expected it to hurt, had expected to shiver at the chill of apathy from the man he desperately loved and who he wanted more than anything to stay by his side.
He had not expected the cross which knocked him sideways, nor the arms which caught him before he could fall off the narrow bed.
"You're no where near as smart as you think you are." Nezumi growled this against Shion's lips before pressing a confusingly gentle kiss to Shion's throbbing cheek. Shion could feel the apology of the gesture through his near catatonic haze but struggled to pinpoint the shallowness of depth of it.
He found his answer in the particular glint residing in Nezumi's eyes when he pulled back to look down at Shion. Nezumi's poetry, in the most frustratingly round about way, gave response to his nearly forgotten confession.
"Our love's not water under the bridge, you airhead."
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Ne, you think I used enough adverbs in this one? Sheesh. I love No. 6. The story, the characters, everything. But if I hear one more person attempt to convince me that there's no BL going on, I'm going to throw a massive fit. Seriously.
Thank you for reading.