'Strapon,' read Soubi silently on an armchair label, feeling confused.
'Stran-dmon,' Ritsuka read out syllable by syllable and snorted. 'These Swedish have too complicated a language. I nearly broke my tongue! Soubi, stools should be somewhere around.'
The adult felt despair arising. It happened again, and this time Ritsuka was around! Letters played tricks on Soubi sometimes. They swapped places, pretended to be the other letters and turned the proper words into something absolutely perverted. Soubi was really afraid that one day he would blurt out some of these twisted things.
Last time it occurred a couple of weeks ago, when Kaidou and he went to an art store to buy some paper. Near the store there was a huge advertising board which content had been recently renewed. What really caught one's attention is that on a background of a luxurious kitchen was a lush young woman wearing a seductive red dress that only accentuated all her curves and hardly left any room for imagination. There was a short ad on the left. Soubi only glanced at the girl and fixed his eyes on the text.
'Can you believe they would advertise such a disgusting thing right in the middle of the city?' he exclaimed nervously.
His friend was looking at the board for half a minute without any sign of understanding and then he burst into laughter, Soubi staring at him woundedly.
'Funny, Sou-chan, The Funny Show,' groaned Kaidou weeping. 'It's a cooking show. I watch it sometimes.'
'Don't want to hear it,' he answered tartly and looked away.
Agatsuma Soubi wasn't stupid and knew exactly what was happening. Being twenty one, he has never made love to anyone. The whole thing started when Ritsu-sensei violated him and teenage Soubi, who only began to give his girl-classmates shy interested looks, became afraid of being touched for a very long time. Then Seimei entered his life and took so much space that it was a wonder how Soubi still had time to paint, not to mention anything else. After what was left of Seimei was buried, Soubi gave a sigh of relief only to face that horrible reading disorder. The young man found and read a couple of books on psychology during the weekend, discovered the reason, why he became a pervert, and got stuck. Soubi didn't like having girls around. He thought that he was too ugly and boring to attract any of them. It appeared that the only person he liked to be with was his friend Kaidou, who was totally unsuitable for sex due to being a man and, what's more, a married man. Soubi couldn't even imagine himself making love to another man as Ritsu-sensei successfully prevented him from having such an idea. All in all, it was a blind alley, but some uncontrollable part of him was unaware of existing problems making the rest of his personality to suffer.
'Have you changed your mind about a stool and now looking for an armchair instead?' asked Ritsuka.
'Why, my apartment is too small for an armchair,' answered Soubi shaking his head.
'By the way, what does «strapon» mean?' asked the curious boy.
'Did I really say it aloud?' thought the desperate Fighter. Ritsuka was taken aback seeing his imperturbable Soubi blushing and decided to drop the topic.
'It seems that you've just made up a new word.' Ritsuka elbowed him in his side. 'I really mean that Swedish words can break your tongue.'
The word tongue set a fire in the Fighter and it took him some effort to bring his mind back to purchasing the stool.
A week later Ritsuka was sitting on the new stool and waiting for the kettle to boil. This time he seemed deeply absorbed in his own thoughts. At first, Soubi supposed that his little Sacrifice was bored, but gave up this idea as Ritsuka wasn't trying to find some entertainment. He ignored all his subtle questions so Soubi decided to wait.
'Soubi, take my Ears,' muttered Ritsuka behind his back.
The young man froze horrified. What did he come to?! He even started to hear indecent proposals instead of what was really being said! Soubi turned to Ritsuka pretending that nothing happened. The boy seemed being engrossed in playing with bread crumbs.
'Come on, Soubi, just do it. I know that you want and I don't mind losing them to you,' said Ritsuka without looking at him.
Soubi used to be sure that he would die of shame if Ritsuka ever discovered his sexual impulses but when it really happened he felt very different. He suddenly realised that the only one who offered him sex and appeared nice enough for him to agree was thirteen-year-old Ritsuka. Soubi nearly cried with disappointment. Was he just a step away from fulfilling his long hidden desires which made their way to the very back of his mind and started to play tricks on him. Everything he denied for so long flared up within a single moment, set his very blood on fire, and clouded his mind. The desire to fuck. To spend a whole day in bed. To meld with him in ecstasy. To copulate like animals. But there was one last thought left behind: Ritsuka was just a little boy and no one was allowed to sleep with little boys. This notion made him regain his control momentarily.
'Ritsuka is too young to lose his Ears,' said Soubi blandly.
'What's so special about the Ears? I'm not a girl to keep them till I get married,' shrugged Ritsuka, losing the very last bits of his confidence. Soubi approached and hugged him tightly.
'I'm so happy being with Ritsuka,' said Soubi considering his words thoroughly. 'If Ritsuka repeats his proposal several years later I will be the happiest man on the Earth. But until then I'll be waiting.'