Aoba opened his eyes and, for a moment, he felt lost. That wasn't his bedroom. Where was he? Sitting up on the bed, he looked around, and although the room was oddly familiar, he couldn't place it. His confusion was starting to feel annoying, but then it suddenly came back to him.

Oh, he thought. This is the apartment I dreamt about… Germany.

Was he dreaming right then? Aoba wrinkled his nose. He didn't feel as if he was dreaming. Everything seemed real. He stood up and walked around the bedroom, taking in every little detail. It was late evening, and the sun was starting to set at the other side of the window, behind a bunch of buildings that didn't remind him to Midorijima at all. Ren was in sleeping mode, lying down at the feet of the queen-sized bed. He opened the closet and skimmed through their clothes. Noiz' and his.

Noiz. He felt a sudden lump in his throat. Where was Noiz? Dream or reality, Noiz had to be there, if that was Germany…

Not daring to call him aloud, he resorted to stroll through the small apartment, looking for him. The apartment consisted only of a kitchen attached to the sitting room, big and airy, with huge windows facing the street, their bedroom with the only bathroom in-suite and another small bedroom, almost unfurnished. Everything looked new and elegant, and Aoba got a sudden flash of Noiz and himself buying something at Ikea. Was it a dream or a memory? He wasn't sure any more, and his head was starting to ache.

Fuck! Try to focus! For once you are out of your bedroom, do something!, he shouted to himself.

There were some language books on the sitting room table, and a piece of paper. It was written in German, and somehow he could understand the words.

'My name is Aoba Seragaki. I'm nineteen years old. I am from Japan, from a town called Midorijima. I live now in Karlsruhe. I like the town. I like the parks, the houses and the streets. I also like listening to music and playing videogames.'

Aoba sighed. Wow, so that's the amount of German I know…, he thought. Get ready for having awesome conversations.

Then he finally noticed the note on the fridge, stuck under a magnet with the shape of a slice of pizza.

'I didn't want to disturb your nap, so I'm going to study to a school's mate house. I'll be back for dinner. Noiz.'

Aoba felt a rush of longing while staring at Noiz' handwriting. Everything seemed more and more real with every minute. His mind started to run, thoughts piling up without order, and he finally stepped in the bathroom and took a look at his face on the mirror.

There it was, the confirmation he needed that everything was happening for real. He wasn't dreaming. He was out there, in the world, free at last. He watched with intensity the light brown eyes that looked back at him from the mirror, full of fear and uncertainty, at odds with the expression of the rest of his face, and smirked.

"It's my turn now, dear", he said aloud to the person behind his reflected eyes. "You are not the only one who is entitled to have fun, you know…"

Let me out! Please…

Aoba heard the words inside of his mind, sobbing, and he could imagine the other Aoba banging at the walls of his bedroom. Well, good luck with that, he thought. I've had enough confinement, I'm going out right away!

Some hours later, he staggered through the streets of Karlsruhe, trying to decipher the indications of his coil to walk back to their apartment, and failing completely. He laughed almost manically at that, though. It was good to be out.

Once in the street, he had spent hours strolling through busy streets, parks and even residential zones. He didn't look once to the town maps on his coil, too busy watching everything to mind where his feet were leading him. It didn't matter, in fact. Besides, he observed how people used their coils to pay in the shops and bars, so he didn't even have to be concerned about having money on him or not. He was sure he would have enough in his account to pay for a taxi, if he needed one, or for a couple of drinks.

And as the evening gave way to full night, he decided to enter a bar and take a look at how German people entertained themselves. After that, all started to be a bit blurred.

He remembered smiling back to a girl with matching blue hair, and the girl pushing a pill inside of his mouth with a smirk. That had seemed actually great to him, because he didn't have a clue of how to get drugs in that town. He didn't even know how to ask. He remembered following the girl and some other people to another bar, with louder music… After a while, he was on his own again, but there had been more bars. The last one was a club, and his eyes had caught a cute blonde on the dance floor, and had come closer and danced with him for some time; the guy reminded him strongly of Noiz, and he couldn't help himself and kissed him. Despite the alcohol numbing his mind, he was alert in case the blondie wasn't into guys and he ended getting a punch. The good news were the boy was into guys and grinned mischievously after the kiss; the bad news were the guy had a boyfriend, actually, a sturdy fellow who wasn't amused at the least with the sight, and grabbed Aoba by the back of his shirt and threw him to the street, not before giving him a round of kicks in his stomach and his back as a goodbye token.

All in all, he thought, an awesome evening.

He couldn't remember the last time he had went out, but it was surely ages ago. He felt revitalised, exhilarated, free, after all that time being forced to be locked. He felt as if he could do everything he wanted, everything. Even the beating had been most welcomed, making him feel fully alive. And it had helped him to sober up a little; in all honesty, when he was at that dance floor he realised he had drunk so much that, as soon as the alcohol kicked in completely, he would lose all control and would end the night vomiting and sleeping on the floor of wherever he found himself at that moment. In those cases, usually drugs helped to counteract the effect of alcohol, but it didn't seem to be an option right then. Dancing until he sweated it out or getting into a fight were also good second options. So when he stood up and started to study his coil for orientation, he at least was able to stand and walk with something resembling a bit of focus.

He kept getting lost, though, and around one a.m. it started to seem less amusing. He suddenly thought of Noiz. Wasn't he arriving home at dinner time? Aoba cursed himself; to think he could be with Noiz right then… He felt a painful yearning and his eyes prickled. Shit. Noiz.

He finally managed to get home, relieved, his feet aching as much as his chest. The first thing he saw was a blonde head lifting from behind a laptop screen and raising an eyebrow. Aoba clenched his fists and tried to control himself. He wasn't going to cry like a toddler. He stepped forward a few steps and then he stood right there, barely inside their sitting room. Slowly, a crease started to form between Noiz' brows and he pursed his lips. Aoba tried to read those little nuances on his face, gulping, watching his boyfriend as he stood up and approached him, stopping some feet away, looking him over and obviously realising the state he came in.

"I was doing a team project at Damian's place", Noiz explained, with his monotonous and calm voice. "Since you weren't here when I came back, I ordered a pizza. I was a bit worried when I saw you didn't have Ren with you, and that you didn't answer my message."

Oh, was there a message in my coil?, Aoba thought, still unable to speak. I didn't see it.

He opened his mouth to try to say something, but the prickling in his eyes suddenly worsened and the lump in his throat wasn't helping the situation. At all. Before he could help it, he tasted salty tears in the corner of his mouth.

And all of a sudden Noiz lurched forward and enveloped him in a tight hug.

"It's you, isn't it?" he whispered in his ear, and Aoba could have sworn the boy was trembling. "You are back."

Aoba sobbed and let go of everything that was choking him. He hugged Noiz back, mumbling his name in an endless litany. After a long while (minutes, hours, eons could have passed and Aoba wouldn't have minded), he started to feel more in control of his emotions. He wiped his face with his hand and smiled at Noiz. The boy, serious, watched him intently, as if he was studying every little change in his face.

"Have you missed me?" Aoba asked in a purr.

"Of course. Lots", the boy said, finally offering a tiny smile. "Come and eat some pizza, and then I will clean those bruises for you."

Aoba gripped the front of Noiz' shirt, preventing him to walk away.

"I'm not hungry. Let's go to the bedroom."

Noiz smirked.

"You reek. You sure you don't want to shower first?"

"Am I so disgusting?"

Aoba laced his fingers behind Noiz' nape and gave a tentative lick to the boy's lower lip. The shudder which with his movement was received was quite flattering to Aoba. He smiled wickedly into Noiz' kiss, allowing the boy to hold his waist and pull him towards their bedroom, their mouths still locked and unable to let go of the other.

Noiz pushed him onto the bed and sat by his side, and they took their clothes off between kisses. Aoba couldn't have enough of his mouth, not after so much time. He wondered for a moment how many months have it been; time was a confusing thing when one was confined and day and night started to blur and mix. He had a passing thought of asking Noiz, but he forgot almost instantly, too focused on how good it felt to have Noiz kneeling in front of him, on their bed, while they touched each other's bare skin with almost reverence.

"You are a wreck…" Noiz whispered with a smirk. "It's so typical of you to get into a fight as soon as you come back…" Then he seemed to remember something, and frowned, reaching for the bruised spots on Aoba's face and caressing them, adding a bit of pressure. "Does it hurt?"

It stung, in fact, but Aoba didn't mind at all. He enjoyed it, that little amount of pain that made him feel more alive, and Noiz obviously still remembered it.

"It's fine", he replied, smiling, and wondered not for the first time if Noiz was jealous of that, unable as he was to feel any kind of pain.

Noiz insisted on the touch, and kept looking for bruised skin to caress while he ran his hands through Aoba's body. The young man's breath started to get caught, and he reciprocated twitching a nipple, hard. Noiz hissed and grinned. The boy reached for the lube on their nightstand and started preparing Aoba. Their kisses turned sloppier as their focus started to spill around more pressing parts of their bodies, and Aoba grabbed Noiz' neck tightly, panting. It felt so good… He had missed this so much. When he decided he was okay to go, he pushed Noiz' hands aside and straddled the boy's waist, positioning himself. He went down on his boyfriend's dick, lowering his hips slowly, feeling his insides getting stretched inch by inch. Noiz knew better than to move when Aoba rode him, and waited patiently and allowed him to make all the work, his hands under Aoba's thighs to help supporting him. Not that Aoba needed it, anyway. He started a rhythm immediately, a slow and torturously pleasant rhythm, moving his hips up and down and in circles, feeling the slight pressure in his thighs, but it would take a while until his legs started to ache. Once he was fully seated, Noiz embraced his waist and nuzzled his clavicle, murmuring sweet nonsense into his skin.

"My sweet Aoba… My beautiful Aoba… I love you so much…"

That last bit made Aoba freeze. When…? How…? He obviously had missed some developments in their relationship, it seemed. It made his blood boil with rage.

He leaned back, leaving Noiz hugging the empty air, and placed his hands on the bed behind him, for balance, pushing his hips onwards until Noiz cock was still deeper inside of him. The boy gasped, and Aoba focused again only on his movements and his own pleasure. He didn't even notice how loud he was moaning by then. He felt his insides completely full and about to burst, in a way that was slightly painful. His own dick jumped up and down freely with each thrust, dark red and leaking in earnest as his prostate was rubbed against in every drive. He wanted to beg Noiz to touch it and give him the release his body was shouting for, but the boy looked completely gone and wrapped in his own pleasure as well, his eyes shut and his mouth contorted in a silent cry of agony. And when Aoba thought he couldn't really stand it any more and his body was about to explode from the stretch and the pleasure, with or without his dick entering the equation, Noiz suddenly pulled out and leaned down to kiss his mouth. Confused, Aoba let him do.

After the kiss, Noiz grabbed his hips and forced him to turn over, positioning Aoba on his hands and knees, and Aoba relinquished control without struggling. It was Noiz after all.

There was one thing Aoba was certain, and that was when the exact moment he fell in love with Noiz was. It was the second night they spent together.

Aoba had started being rather promiscuous as soon as he hit puberty, heavy petting first, then things got serious. He didn't mind if they were male or female, but he did have a clear preference for the first. What he had always clearly in mind, too, was that lending his body to a stranger to have a good time was one thing, but giving up control was another thing altogether. It didn't mind if he was bottoming (he loved it that way, in fact), but he was always the one who decided what they were doing and exactly how they were doing it. When he found a guy who just wanted to manhandle him into whatever he was into… well, Aoba could take care of himself pretty well. It was their loss if they ended the night with a broken nose and aching blue balls for being a stubborn dumbass, after all.

And then Noiz arrived.

It had seemed him so cute at first, that kid coming to see him everyday at the coffee shop, stealing glances at him. His crush was so obvious; the brat did nothing to pretend otherwise. He was too young, of course, but it made Aoba's heart warm, and after a couple of months he realised he was really looking forward to the moment of the day the boy would appear at the coffee shop door. It had become the brightest moment of his days. But then he lost the job, and with that Noiz disappeared from his life, and in fact he didn't think of him at all until the next summer, when he met him again at a rhyme ground.

Honestly, it was the last place he expected to find the boy. He had grown up, too: he didn't look as skinny as before, and he was already as tall as him. His lovely kid face was the same, though, apart from some piercings scattered here and there. He really likes those metal chunks, he thought then, amused. But the boy had refused him, and although the offer was made lightly, without a second thought, it stung all the same.

In the weeks that followed, though, the mental image he had of Noiz started to change completely. Somehow, unexpectedly, the kid started to be for Aoba some sort of a protective figure, someone warm and responsible who would be able to care for him, to protect him from the outer world… and from his inner world perhaps. It certainly should be the other way around, being him the older one and Noiz just a boy of fifteen… but that's how things were.

So that second night together Aoba allowed Noiz to take control in bed, something he had never done before. He let Noiz strip him completely, between kisses, and lay him down on the bed, and contented himself with feeling all the nice things Noiz was doing to his body. For the first time in his life, he felt safe enough with someone to rely completely on them. With the control over his body, Aoba was handing Noiz his heart, as he realised that night, sighing in defeat, but deciding the joy he was feeling was well worth it.

Aoba allowed his mind to wander by this memory until his body was thrumming from pleasure and his mind went deliciously blank. Noiz was thrusting into him with all his might, enveloping his back into his chest and arms, and biting his shoulder with piercing force. Aoba gasped for air and he was suddenly starting to come. A hand reached for his dick before he could do it, and Noiz pumped him through his orgasm, milking him dry, until Aoba felt boneless and exhausted. Then Noiz let go and leaned back on his knees, grabbing Aoba's hips and ploughing into him hard and fast, groaning. In his tired afterglow, Aoba felt a sudden warmness inside of him, shocked. It was… good, in fact, the feeling of being filled with Noiz' seed, but unexpected. Wasn't he wearing a condom, then? That was also new for him.

Noiz pulled out and turned Aoba's limp body on his back to kiss him again, but before he could reach for his nape Noiz was gone, coming back to his side in a moment with a pack of baby wipes and proceeding to clean the two of them. Oh, his exhausted brain provided. Too many new things.

But as Noiz got comfortable in bed, spooning him from behind and kissing his neck lightly, Aoba could hear inside of him the blows on the wall and sobs from his other him, and grinned wickedly.