Hey, it me, Lenori!
So before anyone asks, no, PlunnyBreeder and I are not in a blood feud so I've stopped working with her on Cooling Rack: Patience is a Virtue; I have simply lost contact with her due to her life becoming, what I can only imagine to be, exceedingly hectic. However, I still do have a growing accumulation of little crumbs that hang around my computer after I finish packing The Baker's Daughter loaves and as such, I have decided to open my own little crumb collector to share with you all.
My Discord companions will also be assisting me in this quest with their occasional request for one-shots or inspirations. So thank you, to you lot!
. . .
And now, without further ado: Welcome to CRUMBS!
Cheater
Timeframe: TYL-Everyone
Characters: Daiki, Takeshi, Ryohei, Kyoko (mentioned OC)
A wee bit of angst'n'fluff to kick us off!
Word Count: 2632
Takeshi beamed at me as I closed the door to our room behind my back, a loud, joyous greeting leaping from him, absolutely lighting up the room despite the late hour.
It broke my heart.
"Daiki! How was your day?" the Rain cooed, closing his laptop to give me undivided attention, like he always did, no matter how important his work was at the time. His smile began to fade after a moment, the familiarity he had with me showing as he started to sense that not all was well. "Shujin-chan, is something wrong?"
I thinned my lips and fiddled with the large, yellow envelope in my hands, before setting it down on his desk, making him glance between it and I.
"Look inside it, please," I uttered, fighting to keep my mind apathetic, even as my throat seized up, requiring an active breath to loosen it.
Takeshi blinked, before doing as I had instructed, taking the envelope, the paper crinkling loudly in the quiet room, a stack of photos coming to be pulled out. He paused, set its packaging back down, and began to quickly flip through the photos, his hands beginning to shake as he went deeper in.
"When were you going to tell me?" I asked, looking down at him, still seated. "Were you even going to?"
He didn't speak, still quietly paging through the slides.
I felt my eyes sting and grow hot, despite how I thought I had been thorough spent, as I caught unsightly glimpses of those photos. It hurt. It hurt so much to see them, so see the person I loved so dearly throwing his head back as someone, with brown cropped hair and a swimsuit suntan, buried his anatomy deep into their throat. The bed in the photo was familiar too, so were the walls and the desks and the pillows. Our room. That was our room in the Vongola Mansion.
In our room, in our bed, Takeshi had cuckolded me.
My lips came to be pinched between my teeth as I tamed the burn in my eyes, willing my vision to remain clear even as I saw the edges swimming. Fists balled at my sides and my shoulders tightened, breath attempting to harshen, but I held it all down and remained composed.
"Are you going to say anything, Yamamoto Takeshi?"
The Rain's grip was slack on the bundle. He remained muted. He and I both knew, that no defence could save him here.
I gazed at him a moment longer, seeing the ring on his finger gleam like mine did, before I turned and made to walk from our room.
"Daiki!"
Arms wrapped around my waist from behind and clutched brutally tight to keep me from fleeing further, my eyes widening for a moment before I regained my flat expression.
"Daiki, wait, I-" he started, holding me to him. "Let me just-"
"Why did you do it, Takeshi?" I asked, turning around and breaking from his grasp, gazing at him evenly. "Why?"
"It was an accident! I just- I don't-"
"You 'accidentally' let her suck you off?" I grunted sceptically.
"No- Yes! Oh, God, Daiki, I don't know!" he spluttered, reaching for me again, making me step back, not wanting any possible remains of weeks old vaginal fluid of some woman touching me. "I was drunk, and I missed you so badly and-"
"You could have called me. We always call," I responded.
"Touching! I missed you touching me!" Takeshi cried, stepping forward again. "I missed your warmth so badly, I missed being able to curl up against you! Talking to you can only fill so much of that gap!"
"So you replaced me?"
"No! No, no, no! God, no!"
I blinked at the surety of the denial but didn't let that little bloom of hope quench that painful drought in me.
"Nothing could ever replace you!" he shouted, a hand coming to clutch at the breast of his nightshirt. "Nothing! I swear, Daiki!"
"You were drunk," I began, watching his eyes rise and slowly light up. "You missed me. It was an accident."
"Yes, God, yes, an accident. Just an-"
"That's a lot of excuses you just pulled out, Yamamoto Takeshi," I breathed, my eyes critical to hide their cracks. "But not once have even thought to apologise."
The Rain ground to a halt. His smile dropped, and I could see the visceral terror that bubbled to life and flooded his veins. He stepped forwards, unsteady and shaky, before taking up my face in his hands, the palm painfully comforting, smelling of ink and bamboo.
"I love you. I love you so much. I could never want anything other or more than you because you are the peak of everything, Daiki," he panted, mouth dry in his panic. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry. My love, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please. I'm sorry."
I wanted to hold him as he shook. I wanted to make it all go away, he never did anything, and we were happy.
Takeshi pressed his brow to my shoulder and wrapped his arms around my chest, shuddering every breath as he lined up apology after apology, oathing his heart to me. He froze, before he snapped his head up with wide eyes and gazed at me, his breath pausing within him.
"No...no, Daiki, don't cry."
I blinked, surprised, and another tear rolled down my cheek, following the trail the other had left.
"No, no. Please, I'm sorry, love, beautiful, don't cry," he urged brokenly, his own warm eyes going misty with salted water. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll make it better, don't cry, my love."
My heart squeezed at his words and the warmth of his body soaked into me with unrelenting comfort, luring me to lay my head on his shoulder and just forget. But I steeled myself and stepped back out of the Rain's embrace, turned on my heel and fled the Rain dorm. The sounds of Takeshi's shouts and attempt to follow me were silenced with the bang of the solid wood door, leaving me to bite my lip and let my feet to carry me away, unsure of where they'd take me in this place.
"Bro?" Ryohei asked, making me look up from the floor. We were outside his room, the Sun dorm. His eyes widened when he saw my state. "Come on, inside."
My wrist was grasped and I let my fellow Flame lead me in, the place warm and scenting of polyester and leather.
Ryohei dropped off what he had tucked under his arm, before turning to me again, both of us dropping down in his bed. A long sigh of exhaustion gushed from me as I relaxed a little, coming closer to cuddle with my warm brother Sun, his arms strong enough to hold me together as sluggish tears made their way down my face.
"What happened, bro?" he asked, rubbing my back.
I shuddered and pressed my face deeper into his chest, fingers coming to my hair and making me go up in tingles.
"...Takeshi has cheated on me with someone," I choked out, the sentence painful and bitter, an overwhelming desire to flush my pallet coming after.
"He what!?" Kyoko bellowed, slamming the door behind her, violently kicking off her shoes before she crawled in with us.
"Imouto-chan," I breathed in surprise, feeling her squish me against her smaller body. "I thought you went out."
"I got the feeling that I needed to come back," She huffed, nosing at my nape. "And thank God I did, Takeshi cheated on you!?"
Ryohei's grip tightened with each annunciation of the phrase, and I found myself crushed between my fellow Flames in a familial atmosphere.
"That's EXTREMELY unforgivable!" my brother growled, the young sister reaching to pull the blankets up and warm us, seeing how I shivered with every breath.
I coughed, my throat thick, before another bout of tears spilt before I could stop them. Kyoko hugged me, and like she was pushing them out, pathetic whimpers and moans of heartbreak lurched from my lips, leaving me heaving into our brother's chest, Sasagawa arms crossing to hide me from any further pain.
It hurt. It hurt. So badly. Why would he do that? Why? I thought we were doing so well! We were happy!
"Is it..." I began, shaking as the little Sun woman combed my hair. "Is it because I'm not feminine enough? I tried but-"
"No!" Ryohei blurted, "It's not your fault, nothing is your fault! Takeshi's the one to blame here, not you!"
"Ki-nee," Kyoko gasped, kissing my temple. "You're perfect, everyone knows that."
"Then why?" I groaned, clutching my heart as another wave of interior agony pulsed through me. "Why would he- Curel."
"Cruel," Kyoko agreed, kissing my brow again.
. . .
Takeshi sat on the floor of the Rain dorm, staring at the door, hoping, praying that it would open again and Daiki would come back. His chest convulsed in waves of pain; pain he knew he deserved.
It was an accident, sleeping with that woman. He had known it when he had brought her to the bed, but alcohol had been pumping in his blood, turned brown to blue and had removed the pale lines of bikini strings to a constant copper-tan. He remembered groaning the name of his wife from between gritted teeth, the girl kneeling before him giggling despite having no idea that amongst his drunken Japanese was a name.
When he had woken, the whole world had crashed down on his head, realisation and self-loathing swamping him before he cast the woman out of the Vongola Mansion, barely dressed and huffy.
He had spent the day scrubbing himself near raw, wanting that woman off of him, fearing that his Daiki would smell it on him. See a stain of lip tint, see a strand of brunette on her pillow.
His friends didn't know. Fellow Guardians unaware of how dirty and disgusting he felt as he skipped breakfast,
"Love! How are you? I miss you so much!" Daiki had cried through the screen, lips stretched into a warm smile that struck him deeply.
She loved him. Daiki loved him and was patient. And he had done that.
When she had arrived at the Mansion, she had wrapped him up in her arms and held him so tight he could have died there happily, head buried in her neck and bathing in her caramel. She crooned and kissed him, and finally, he felt clean, his wife purging him from the other's blight with her affection, legs wrapping around his hips as they laid together, lavishing themselves with their love. Takeshi made sure her pillow was flipped, and she slept more on his side than anywhere else, head resting upon his chest.
The Rain wanted to forget; he wanted to never revisit that pothole in his life that blunder upon the past. He just wanted to stay with his love here, with her, no one else. He'd never do it again, a mistake learnt. He'd suffer the cold of the bed to feel the warmth that came with her and not give into a glaze of alcohol.
Takeshi sat up finally and looked to the clock, seeing the night still young. He shivered from the cold, all the warmth leached from his skin. He got to his feet and turned his gaze upon the bed, before storming forwards and ripping the sheets off, pillows thrown and the heavy mattress dragged off.
He'd fix it. He'd make it better. He'd get rid of the traces of the woman so Daiki could sleep easy in their bed again, knowing only she and him were the ones to have curled together in it.
It only took his moments, minutes, to have piled the mattress and sheets up in the garden and had set them ablaze, the pillar of fire satisfying. He was burning the woman away, burning the mistake away…
A sob broke from him as he watched the mattress they had spent their wedding night upon burn because of him. The pillows Daiki had thrown at him when he chased her with a camera. The sheets Daiki and Lambo built forts from when they spent time with him in Italy.
Takeshi crumbled to the grass, sitting on his heels as he wrapped his arms around his knees and cried, weeping apologies into his night pants.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I love you, Daiki, I'm sorry. Please."
There was rustling beside him before warmth was wrapped around his shoulders. He gasped in surprise and turned, before whimpering as Daiki pressed him against her chest, the blanket she brought enshrouding them from the cold. The Rain clutched at his wife, holding her tightly, fearing she'd leave if he so much as lifted a finger off her.
The Sun sighed and placed a hand to the back of the Rain's head, cradling it as he wept apologies into her chest. She watched their bedding burn with a bitter taste in her mouth, only paying half an ear to her sobbing husband.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't hate me, Daiki. Please don't hate me."
"I don't hate you," she breathed, wrapping him up tighter against her as a chill blew through. "But you hurt me. You've hurt me, Takeshi. My heart hurts so bad," her shoulders shook as she squeezed him, "Make it stop. Please, make the pain stop."
Takeshi swore he would lose his mind if he heard any more of her cries, her misery gouging out his heart and abusing him relentlessly. He coiled his arms tight before finding her lips with his own, moulding them together with desperate vigour.
"I love you. I'm sorry, I love you," he gasped between kisses. "I'll never do it again. I love you, I promise, I'll never make this mistake twice."
Daiki gazed at him with tear glassy eyes, unmoved though her embrace consumed him.
"I love you too," she began, her voice crackling like the fire of their sheets. "So I'm giving you another chance, Yamamoto Takeshi. Do not make a cuckold of me again."
"I won't. I won't, I swear," Takeshi promised, grasping her shoulders.
She stared at him for a moment longer, cold and hurt, before she smiled, soft and pure and Takeshi hated himself.
"Then happy we will be, you and me," and his wife brought him against her chest, the blanket wrapped around them warmly as they watched their possession burn.
"Those sheets aren't…"
"No," Takeshi sighed, curled against her. "Those aren't our wedding sheets. Those were...those were still in the closet."
"...At least there's that," She murmured, and he cuddled her again.
"I'm sorry, my love, I'm sorry."
Daiki turned her head, before leaning forwards and pressing a kiss onto his brow, mocha eyes squeezing shut as she peppered slow affection to his tear-tacky face.
"I think...I'll forgive you eventually, my darling," she sighed, "Just...not immediately."
"I know. I'm sorry, I know. I'll make it better. Whatever you want, I'll make it better,"
The Sun hummed and tucked her husband's head under her chin, dragging blunt nails along his arm, feeling goosebumps rise as another blast of wind went through the yard.
"First things first, we're going to need a new mattress."
"I'll make sure it's bigger and better than that one," he promised, before getting a gentle squeeze.
"No...No, make it the same size. I want to be able to sleep in our wedding sheets again tomorrow."
Takeshi blinked, before smiling small and nuzzling the underside of her jaw, kissing at it, and settling down in her lap, listening to her pulse.
"Whatever you want, my shujin-chan. I love you."
"I love you too, shujin-kun."