Skin tingling as small puffs of breath danced over flustered skin. An overwhelming ache from somewhere deep within as greedy fingers buried themselves in locks of gray hair. Stroking, pulling. Falling through his fingers softly.

'This is wrong,'

A blurry dance through the hallways as they kept crashing into furniture. A body pinned to the wall, a moment of solitude as hungry mouths devoured one another. A rustle of fabric as it fell to the floor somewhere, forgotten.

'We can't do this anymore,'

But the dance continued, deeper and deeper into the far end of the apartment. Everything was a red haze, spinning with the moment as bare skin touched. The smell of vanilla mixed with sweat and want was maddening. It made him dizzy. He no longer knew where he ended and the other began.

'We agreed that this had to stop,'

Forward and backward in their passion filled haze. Strands of gray sprawled over a white pillow. Soft huffs and moans as they both fell into a familiar rhythm they should have forgotten a long time ago.

An arched back before the mutual feeling of falling, closer and closer to the ground as slender arms encircled him, caught him. The feeling of soft kisses against his forehead, eyelids and cheeks before he buried his head into the crock of the others neck. A pulse, strong and rapid against his lips were slowly fading to its original pace.

The same as always, and yet so different. No giggling and soft laughs as before, during happier times. No goofy smiles and content sighs as they cuddled up against each other, a sweet, tingling feeling lingering as they drifted off to sleep, messy and exhausted. But satisfied.

Happy.

Instead there was a crushing silence as they untangled their limbs from one another. A grunt as the other male pulled the cover over his chest while turning his back to him.

'How did we end up like this?' Daichi found himself wondering as he watched the rising and falling form beside him in the darkness. He couldn't remember anymore and he wasn't even sure he wanted to.

This thing of theirs, whatever it was, had to stop. It wasn't the first time Daichi had come to that conclusion, nor would it be the last. Somehow this was how they always ended up, sooner or later.

With a heavy sigh filled with regret Daichi sat up and flung his legs over the end of the bed, and there he remained sitting as he gazed at his surroundings. There was no one else to blame, no excuses for what they were doing. Maybe if there had been someone it would have been easier on his consciousness. But this wasn't Suga's, or someone else's fault for that matter, no matter how much he wanted it to be.

No matter who started it this time around, no matter who showed up at who's doorsteps they always played an equal part. Partners on the court and now even in crime.

In front of him his fishes kept swimming around like nothing was wrong with the world. They had gotten most of them together over the years, Suga and him. One here and one there turned into many. Bright and colorful as Suga himself, all of them with silly names that Daichi had found himself growing surprisingly fond of.

And in the corner, a shadow of black, swiming by itself. Both color and nameless. A gift from someone else that didn't quite manage to meld with the rest of the bright colors swimming about, or maybe it just refused to.

Suga had never commented on it, nor had he given it a name like he had with the others. Instead he had just chosen to blatantly ignore it, like if he pretended the fish wasn't there it didn't intrude in the otherwise colorful ocean.

To the right of him was his nightstand. He didn't need to turn his head to know what was there. A picture of two smiling people with matching black hair. The others a great deal longer than Daichis' own. They were holding hands, turned towards the camera, smiling merrily. With a feeling of guilt Daichi slowly but surely reached out with his own hand towards the picture and pushed it face down. He didn't need to see it, didn't need to see the matching rings glistering in the sunlight from the day the picture was taken.

Not here, not now.

Instead he leaned forward and buried his head into his hands. He wanted to cry, to scream. But the tears had stopped coming a long time ago.

He didn't know how long he sat there, torso bent forward with a million of thoughts spinning in his head. Regret, ache, guilt. 'How much longer is this going to go on?' He wondered silently.

A quiet rustle followed by a gentle tap on his shoulder and with a synchronization they never really lost over the years Daichi let himself fall back towards the bed. His head landed comfortably in a slim lap, like it always belonged there as he draped his arm over his face. He didn't want to look at his former-, (or was it current?) lover right now, he wouldn't be able to bear it.

They stayed like that for a long time, both lost in their own trail of thoughts. Daichi found himself wanting Suga to bury his hands in his hair like the male had done so many times before, fingers playing with short strands of hair, tips gently and teasingly dancing over his scalp.

"We can't keep doing this," the he found himself mumbling softly, and immediately as he uttered the words a familiar sting in the pit of his stomach made itself known. An ache from deep within. Twisting inside his guts until it became hard to breath. Somehow saying his thoughts out loud made it worse, it always did. Like speaking them out loud somehow made them more real.

"I know," Suga was absentmindedly staring out the window Daichi knew, it was a habit Suga had picked up of ever since the pitch black fish had joined his collection half a year or so ago.

It had been so much easier back in high school when they first had started dating. It had just happened naturally as they had evolved, together. Neither of them really knew when they had started seeing each other as something more than just friends, it had just happened and their relationship had slowly but surely evolved into something deeper than what was proper for two boys.

Daichi knew Suga inside and out, and he knew it worked the other way around as well. He knew what the other was doing, and sometimes even was thinking. It was scary, yet comforting. But it didn't help their current situation, quite the opposite.

Things had been a lot easier back then, happier. Yes they had been happy once. Before university, life and distance had torn the two of them apart. They had tried, for years they tried to make the distance work, until they one day both mutually understood it wouldn't.

It had easily been to worst day in Daichi's entire life. He had been crying. Suga had been crying, desperately clinging to one another and to something both knew no longer existed. Up to this very day Daichi wasn't even sure if they clung to each other or the past.

It didn't matter. Years of traveling, sacrifice, late nights calls and nothing. The only reward for their dedication was to slowly and surely witness as they drifted further and further away from each other as each one started to form their own life in their separate location.

In the end it was the loneliness that made them both throw in the towel. Not having each other, not having anyone. Slowly but surely they had both isolated each other from their surroundings and friends in favor of conversations over Skype.

When they finally realized their mistake it had been too late. In their desperation to make their relationship work they had ruined it and succeeded in making them both miserable and lonely in their process. Isolated, friendless and with families worrying over the fact that they had become so very distant. The relationship had become unhealthy, poisonous even, and it had left them both stranded with nothing.

Suga had never blamed him for leaving though, he knew the other male wanted to, but never had. Because Suga understood him, understood why he had to go. Why it had to be that university, and they had both agreed, sworn to each other that they would make it work. But they had failed, and in the end this was the result.

Life without each other was impossible for two people that had been literally joined by the hip in such a way he and Suga had been, and so they had remained friends. Somewhere along the line Daichi had started dating to fill the empty void that Suga had left behind.

One date turned to many and to his parents great joy he found himself with a ring on his finger. Suga had been supportive over both texts and phone, even though there was no way Daichi could miss the underlying tone of sadness in his voice.

Suga had tried dating as well, but it seemed that he had been unable to settle down like he had, and somewhere deep within Daichi had felt relief, and maybe even happiness every time Suga had told him that it just hadn't worked out, or that "he/she just wasn't his type."

And then he and his fiancé had decided to move back in order to live closer to his family. And Suga. He was overjoyed to see his friend again, and scared at the same time. Scared he no longer was the same, the awkwardness that most likely would occur, scared where they were standing once they were able to see each other face to face once more.

It had been all that and more. At that moment, for the first time over all those years he had known Suga the other male was almost a complete stranger to him. He couldn't read the other as he had used to. Neither Sugas' body language nor the tone of his voice was no longer familiar. Almost a decade apart and even the expressions painted over the males face seemed foreign to him. Or maybe that was what he had told himself as Suga also had been the living image of a life long gone.

To this day he remembered how his stomach had twisted and turned, hands were shaking, skin tingling. It was hard to move, to breath and it was straight impossible to think clearly. They had tried to make small talk, but all Daichi saw was perky lips moving voicelessly. All the suppressed want over the years, all the longing as a hand reached out and lost itself in grey curls. He faintly remembered that a hand had wrapped around his wrist. Eyes, amber and burning and he were lost.

And at the same time he was home.

The taste of the vanilla. The sounds and the soft breaths, the way the other moved. It pulled all the old memories of the two of them back to the surface. It was just the two of them, as it should be. The rest of the world seemingly forgotten as clothes was shed. Daichi learned that he never quite had forgotten to read Suga. He knew just as well as he did back then were to touch, what to do. What the other wanted. Before either of them had realized what they were doing they had lost themselves in their passion, feelings of guilt momentarily pushed aside, forgotten.

Afterwards Daichi had cried, and Suga had comforted him. Told him that it was okay, that it was maybe even to be expected.

It wasn't right of them but it was just this once. No more.

All of their pent up feelings should be gone now, Suga had said, and Daichi could go back to the way his life should be, with his fiancé. It was just a mistake, no more and as long as he realized that there was no need to alarm his fiancée and ruin their future. It would be their secret. Their last goodbye to one another.

And Daichi had agreed.

After all, it was just this once.

But it hadn't been. He no longer remembered how many times they had done it. How many times a whispered 'just once more' had been said until the both of them realized it wasn't just this once, but many. Over weeks and months. For almost a year in total.

Daichi knew that sooner or later they would be found out. In the heat of the moment he never cared, but afterwards the guilt was overflowing, turning the atmosphere heavy and the both of them distant from another.

They were struck in an evil circle neither of them knew how to get out off.

None of them held any illusions about what this was. They both knew that what they once had was long gone. And if it wasn't ruined before it surely was now. The otherwise cheerful and happy atmosphere that had been the signature of their relationship in the past was long gone, never to return. There was something's you just couldn't recover from. They had once more managed to ruin their relationship.

No. He had.

Kiyoko knew. Daichi didn't know how but she did, that much was for certain. He had seen it in the way the woman stared at him, gaze ice cold, but never saying a word. Kiyoko blamed him, and she wasn't wrong in doing so.

Silently he wondered where they went so wrong. What could have been done differently. Maybe if they just had kept going a little while longer while he studied. Just two years more and he would have been back in this very town, and nothing would have changed between the both of them.

Or maybe if he had owned up to his mistake to his fiancée the first time it happened. Effectively ending the engagement and maybe even giving him and Suga a fighting chance before their crime slowly but surely poisoned whatever was left of what they once had.

But know it was too late. Daichi knew this and so did Suga. But they couldn't stop, weren't able to. Suga was a drug and he was addicted. To him, to the past. He just couldn't let the other go.

"I am moving to Osaka," Suga's voice cut through the air like a knife, burning, hurting. And all of a sudden Daichi felt like he was standing on a cliff, one tiny step away from tumbling down in endless darkness. "That's why I came today. To tell you,"

So many questions rushed through Daichis' head as Suga gentle pushed his head down from his lap and shuffled of the bed

'When?'

Thoughts spinning as Suga started to pick up his discarded clothes from the floor.

'Why?'

But he knew why. He knew perfectly fine why. He had said to himself-, and to Suga a million of times already that this had to end. That this couldn't go on. And yet, in this darkened room only one thought remained.

'Why'

He removed his arm over his face and watched the other person picking at the fabric, separating Daichis' clothes from his own. Really watching, for the first time in what seemed like years. The slender form illuminated by the gentle light of the fish tank. Muscles flexing as he pulled the top over his head. Short strands of grey hair dancing at the nape of his neck.

"I love you," the words had left his mouth before he even had the time to think them. Softly spoken as Suga frozen in place, slowly turning towards him as Daichi sat up. Silence as they gazed at each other for the longest of time. Suga's face unreadable in the darkness.

"I know," the voice was stern but filled with emotion as a soft but sad smile tugged at the Sugas' lower lip. It was something melancholy beautiful over it all.

"I never stopped Suga,"

"I know,"

Daichi felt himself pulling at threads, fishing for something, anything, only to end up empty-handed. He couldn't read the other anymore, the body language, Sugas' thoughts.

It scared him more than anything else ever had.

Suddenly Suga was in front of him, bending down as their foreheads were brought together and he felt is eyes instinctively close in the proximity of the other male. Too many memories. Too many feelings.

"But this has to stop, and this is the only way I know how,"

Silence as Suga leaned back and turned around, slowly but with a steady, determined pace as he made his exist. In the doorframe he turned around once more, a gentle smile playing at his lips.

A smile from the past, a smile from what had and could have been.

"Goodbye Sawamura," and then he was gone.

Sitting dumbfounded on the bed, feeling more lonely than he had done in years Daichi knew, deep down, that this was the last time he would see Sugawara Koushi again.