Ok- I'm sooo sorry for this update coming so long after the last chapter. Just a little warning that there's a little bit of horror in this chapter. I hope you enjoy it. Please review! =D
Akihiko
"And a new report on an incident at a high school- which has chosen to be unnamed- where critically acclaimed author and specialist tutor, Usami Akihiko, has been charged with rape on a male student, Takahashi Misaki, ten years his junior.
"The twenty-eight year old has not yet made a statement, but photographs of the victim, eighteen year old younger brother of highly praised academic Takahashi Takahiro, have been published in many local newspapers."
Akihiko gulped, hands pressed hard on either side of his long, cold nose. His skin was almost shaking with the sweat forming from each tiny pore.
Pictures of Misaki flashed up in a box to the left of the stern-faced, female news reporter. Akihiko could sense the disgust and disapproval in her voice and a tendril of self-contempt slithered down his throat and into his gut. He ran his violet eyes over the fine lines of Misaki's nervous face in the photo. The bar of the school gates ran over his right eye.
It wasn't rape. He didn't say no. He seemed so happy. I sensed he was happy. Did I mistake that pleasure for pain? Was I too consumed in my own gain to notice tears of agony instead of tears of joy?
Akihiko just didn't know. All he knew was this:
He had never felt melancholy as poignantly depressing as this.
He had never known pain so numbing and yet so devilishly present at the same time.
He had never felt such loss.
He had never cared less for himself and more for another.
Takahiro had, of course, come over and taken Misaki away as quickly as he could. He hadn't shared any eye contact with the desperate, pleading Akihiko. Akihiko was just the rambling man, with rambling thoughts and the rest of the world, it felt like, was in a silence that spoke their gratitude that nothing more had happened to Misaki.
Akihiko dragged his hands over his stubbly cheeks and chin, grazing his fingers on the unshaved and prickly skin as tears trickled from his eyes.
He reached out with a quivering hand for the cigarette that was leaning over the ashtray in front of him, still smoking… but in a stubborn sort of way, as though it wanted to infiltrate Akihiko's body with its poison faster.
He didn't blink as he sucked on the end of the cigarette, watching the footage of himself leaving the school last Thursday, covering his face with his briefcase and then zooming away in his car. He hadn't even had the courage to fight away the sickeningly excitable reporters.
It was there on the scene on his so-called crime- on that reddish pink long sofa in his living room- that he had sat since Thursday. He barely made the effort to go to the bathroom when he needed to.
The end of the news report caught his attention and for what felt like the billionth time, he picked up the remote control and hit rewind. And watched the report from the beginning again.
Why? To see Misaki's eyes looking out at him. To feel the guilt he deserved to feel. To see the pathetic shadow of himself cower away from the cameras.
Misaki hadn't looked at him since last Wednesday night, when the phone call had come. From Tasaki. How he had found out that Misaki and Akihiko had slept together, he didn't know. But the next thing he knew, camera men was hustling like locusts around the block of apartments, ogling up at Akihiko's condo like he was about to shout out his admittance.
Misaki and Akihiko had sat opposite each other, without saying a single word. Until Misaki announced, sadly, that he was going to bed. The next morning, Misaki went to school alone and Akihiko had gone soon after. But only to see Takahiro taking him away from the school gates.
His editor had started calling his private mobile since then. Every ten minutes. Akihiko hadn't turned it off or on silent- it was one of the few things keeping him from going to the kitchen to cause his body more deliberate damage than this negligence.
The beeping buzz of the mobile kept him awake… long enough so he could rewind and sometimes pause on the montage of Misaki's face.
This was the epoch of his end.
He unstuck the cigarette from his lower lip and held it over his pale forearm. He lowered it and then sank it into his flesh. Leaning his head back, his hissed in through his teeth and revelled in the arduous release.
But such pain, such satisfaction in his own torture, seemed too much of a prize.
And Akihiko didn't deserve a prize.
Akihiko's prize in life had gone… to America.
Head heavy, his noticed his cigarette was no longer in his hand. He looked on the floor, but saw his own reflection in a perfect mirror flooring- when had he gotten that? He wasn't drunk enough to be hallucinating about that.
Then he was looking up, not of his own accord and staring at a pink box tied with purple ribbon. What was in the box? He reached out… but now he was by the door, cigarette back in his mouth and leaning against the wall, speaking into the phone to his… father?
"Darling, you have to put to eggs in the water first!"
Since when has Dad called me darling?
"Do it!"
Now he was by the stove holding a pan, gas flames underneath it… but the pan was far too soft to be a pan… no, it was a head. Misaki's head! Oh God! What was he doing? He couldn't stop himself, but he was pushing Misaki's head further towards the hungry flames.
And then Misaki's hair caught fire… Now his ear… No!
No!
"No… Misaki…No…" Akihiko wept, still pushing Misaki's head further. Misaki's eyes were wide and emotionless, like a doll's. "No."
NO!
With a shock that stung more than a thousand wasp stings, Akihiko woke up. Panting.
He looked hurriedly into his hand, but saw that it was barely visible in the pitch-black room.
He felt something pleasantly heavy stir on his chest and looked down. Misaki, naked and covered in a blanket that covered Akihiko's bare lower body as well, was waking up.
"Aki-ko?"
Akihiko swallowed and licked his bone-dry lips. His heart was thudding in terrorised relief. It had been a nightmare. This was but hours after Akihiko and Misaki had been with each other so intimately for the first time. It was not next Thursday.
"Are you okay?" Misaki mumbled, raising his head from Akihiko. Akihiko gently stroked Misaki's hair, so thankful that it wasn't burning in his palm like it had been seconds earlier, in his nightmare.
"Everything's fine. How do you feel?" Akihiko murmured back as Misaki laid his head back down, his ear hot on Akihiko's pec.
"Happy…" Misaki whispered. His breaths returned to their calm rises and falls that Akihiko recognised as sleep.
Let him have rest before the storm, Akihiko. The rest.
