Hello all! I wanted to thank everyone for the milestones that I hit with the last chapter. I hit thirty reviews, and went over that! The story also hit over 20,000 words, which is quite a bit for a continued story. I am glad people are enjoying my little bit of fun. It's been a blast to write.
This is the second to last chapter. I will probably post the last chapter on or around Christmas Eve, when I am back in my home town.
Thanks again to Risque Tendencies for making sure my grammar doesn't suck too bad.
/GG/
Just a Few Days
Don't Let it Go
Kisa Shouta woke up the next morning as if waking from a terrible dream. He'd had an awful day at work the day prior that had ended in him being sent home by his supervisor because of his temper that had flared. Kisa half expected to see Kiiro-chan at his house when he'd arrived home after the short day, so a smile was on his face when he burst through the door. The man wasn't there, though, and that thought made Kisa miserable.
Murakami-senpai had called numerous times, but each time Kisa had ignored the phone, preferring instead to sit on his sofa and watch whatever shows Kiiro-chan had been recording on the cable box. He couldn't really focus on anything because of his depression. He'd really fucked up this time.
Eventually Takano had paid him a visit and he'd admitted to the man what had happened and apologized for being cross at work. His superior admitted some things of his own and the two came to a mutual agreement. Takano wouldn't write up an insubordination report and Kisa would help Takano by talking him up to Onodera when necessary. Kisa was too distraught to not take the bribe.
When Murakami had shown up at the house, things had been weird. Sure, his senpai had tried, but Kisa just couldn't stop thinking about the fact that he'd kicked his pet out of his life. The sex wasn't going to happen because every time he looked at senpai, all he saw was Kiiro-chan.
The failed attempt at sex ended with Murakami saying they could go look for his pet together. Ken hadn't been aware of why Kisa had been so depressed until after their attempt and he'd even scolded the man for even considering sex when his pet was missing. This caused Kisa to not think for the second time and to send yet another man who was desperately in love with him packing without a second thought.
Kisa ended up in the bathroom, sobbing on the floor, while the shower sprayed him with water. When was he going to stop being such a fuck-up? It was a legitimate question that even he didn't have the answer to. So, in sadness, he crawled into bed and let a fitful sleep overtake him.
Then, he woke up.
He rubbed his eyes of the film and shot up as he looked over at Kiiro-chan's bed.
"Kiiro-chan!" he shouted when he saw a lump, smile on his face. The pile didn't move and he realized that the other man was indeed gone. He felt the sting of tears but forced them back. In no way was he going to let a simple pet control his life like that.
Instead he got out of bed and went about his morning routine.
First, he took a quick shower. Then he brushed his teeth and combed his hair. After his bathroom routine was finished he went to the kitchen to eat breakfast. When he sat down at his place and saw that Kiiro-chan's place was empty, a frown found its way onto his features. Kisa couldn't eat without the other man sitting across from him.
"What did you dream about last night, Kiiro-chan?" he asked the air that occupied his pet's place at the table. "Did you see anyone you knew or was it abstract like last time?"
He half expected it to be like in the movies, where the other would end up being in the room behind him and he wouldn't know until he spoke.
"I had an awful dream last night, but it made me realize that it's almost impossible to have a pet and master relationship. Why don't we try being roommates instead for a while?"
The idea didn't sit right with him, but he still hoped that Kiiro-chan was standing behind him to make the awful day prior disappear like smoke in the wind.
"Kiiro-chan, what's your real name?" he asked, softly. He looked over at the refrigerator and saw the paper for the art show. "I'll bet Yukina Kou knows your name, he's probably a much better person than I am too."
/GG/
Across the way, while Kisa was busy getting sent home from work, had stood one Yukina Kou, who was wearing a frown every bit as big as Kisa's. He was also in zombie mode for similar reasons, a fact for which his friends were starting to worry. He hadn't been sent home from school though because he knew he had an art show to set up for. So, instead of thinking much about it, he spent the time painting with his hurt hand.
Each stroke of the brush had brought back a memory of his when he was with Kisa-san. Most of the strokes reminded him of their intimate night, when he'd stroked the man and been stroked in return. Kou had never been with another man before, so it had been his elder who had taken the lead. Each time his brush touched the canvas, Yukina was reminded of Kisa's fingers or mouth stroking his cock. The feeling didn't make him hard like it normally would have though; it just caused him to tear up and work harder to get the painting done. He wanted it finished for the show, so he wrapped himself up in the work.
Rio had all but had a fit when she saw his sunken eyes and vacant expression. She'd tried to get him to stop painting and pay attention to her, but that didn't work. Instead he just worked harder to get the piece finished. Eventually she had left him to his own musings.
He wondered what Kisa-san was doing in that moment. Was he with Murakami having sex again, or was he working with a mangaka on the newest issue? Neither were what Yukina wanted Kisa to be doing. He wanted the man to be with him, talking to him, kissing himā¦making love with him.
Making love with Kisa-san brought forth more emotions that flowed into the painting like sand in an hourglass. He had to get the painting done. Nothing would keep him from finishing that painting because to him it was the only way he was ever going to be able to let Kisa-san go. There was no way the man would take him now. After what they'd done during the night, there was no way Yukina could ever take Kisa-san back as a master either.
"Yukina-kun?"
Only the sound of his professor could break him out of his focus the way it did.
"Yukina-kun, this is so different than what I am used to seeing from you," the older man said.
Kou could only nod as he continued brushing in a much less furious manner.
"I want you to take it easy though, Yukina-kun," the professor continued. "Your hand is only recently broken and you need it in the future. Don't overwork yourself today for the sake of the art show. There are more than enough pieces for you to display."
Yukina looked at his professor and saw Rio standing behind him with a dark glow about her. She obviously knew exactly what was bothering the young artist and had enlisted the help of the professor.
"I am not going to hurt myself any further, professor," Yukina promised. "But I really need to finish this to help myself heal." The last part was added with a tear falling from his eye and landing on his palette. He could see Rio seething and was instantly glad he'd never introduced his former master to her.
"Okay, Yukina-kun," the professor said in defeat. "I'll leave it to you to know what's good for you and what's not."
When the professor had walked off, Yukina could feel his friend's aura behind him.
"I will kill him," she hissed, softly.
"No, we will just pretend it never happened and I will go back to being just plain old Yukina Kou, art student." With these words, Yukina died, internally. He didn't want to go back to being who he was just a few days ago; he wanted to be with Kisa-san.
"You really did end up falling in love with him, didn't you?" Rio asked, sadly.
"Yeah, I let myself fall in love with someone beyond my reach," he admitted. "But I am not going to let that hold me back. I will think a little more on this subject when the show is over. Right now I just need to concentrate on painting and then I can work on Kisa-san."
With that the conversation was over and Yukina had gone back to his painting. He didn't leave that spot or his painting until the wee hours of Thursday morning, around the time Kisa had woken up. Both of their thoughts were on the other while one woke up and the other finally let himself go to sleep.
/GG/
Once he'd arrived at work, Kisa immediately apologized to his co-workers for his behavior and set to finishing his back-load from the day before. He'd have to spend the night glued to his desk just to finish what he needed to accomplish. Kisa was fully prepared to stay at his desk until every frame was corrected and sent off to whoever needed to see it. So far he'd piled up four different series, which meant he had his work cut out for him.
Kisa was a good worker though and for the bulk of the morning he didn't let his mind wander too far. He was too busy to think about much of anything else. Occasionally he'd think of Kiiro-chan, but reality would sink in and he'd get back to work.
Each page was taking about ten minutes, but then he'd go back over it after reading ahead to make sure the corrections meshed well together. There was no point in correcting something that needn't be corrected. Likewise, sometimes a correction needed to occur a few pages before in order to make a latter page make sense.
The job of an editor was not exactly an easy one; in fact it hadn't even been what Kisa had wanted to do with his life. Originally Kisa had wanted to work in the sales department, but when he'd attended university he'd found he was really good at correcting things. That didn't stop him from making a go at it, but the calling for pursuing a career in journalism so he could edit transcripts kept biting him in the ass.
Eventually he'd left the sales field and majored in journalism with a minor in Japanese. Thus, Kisa Shouta, editor had been born. Originally he'd wanted to work in the Shounen-ai Seinen department, Zircon. He'd figured that being gay would help him understand the readers better. That fact had been true, until he'd been denied the position of editor in chief of that department and sent to the shoujo department.
Now he got to spend time editing manga where teenage girls met with teenage boys, had innocent relationships, and never shared the good parts. At least not in his mind. He'd never once gotten a hard-on while reading his prior works from the Zircon department, but he sure as hell wasn't going to get them from the Emerald collection. The only good part about being in Emerald in that moment was that the princes in the shoujo department reminded him of Kiiro-chan.
Kiiro-chan had the perfect hair, perfect smile, and even radiated the heavenly lights from the sun and the sky. He was the perfect prince-type character for any of the giddy little school girls in his current group of manga. So charming, sweet, and kissableā¦
"Argh!" he shouted at himself as he stood up and slapped his face a few times to wake him up from the daydream that had just occurred. "Get the fuck out of my head at a time like this!" he looked down when he realized that he was getting hard from the image.
Then he saw that every one of his co-workers, along with everyone else on the floor, had looked at him like a spotlight had picked him out of a crowd. Immediately he turned pink and ducked his head in embarrassment. He looked at Takano for a moment and asked to be excused for a time. His superior nodded and Kisa hightailed it out of sight and ran to the bathroom.
Once inside he locked the door. Then he went to see if anyone was in the bathroom beside him. He was grateful that there was no one else or he'd have been even more embarrassed than he'd been when he ran from the Emerald cubicles.
Kisa walked to the sink and splashed cold water onto his face in droves. The water started to get his shirt wet and a vision of Kiiro-chan in the bathtub came to his mind. This caused him to get even harder than before and he realized that there was no way around it. He tried to think of something else, but nothing came to mind. The only person on his mind was his pet, no, the man who was pretending to be a pet.
With that thought in his mind, Kisa reached for his cock.
/GG/
After he came into the sink of the men's room Kisa cleaned himself up as well as the sink and went to unlock the door. Takano was leaning against the wall with a frown on his face.
"I take it your pet hasn't come home and you are worried?" the man asked.
Kisa just nodded slightly and tried to walk back to his desk.
"I don't want to pull this on you because I can see how worked up you are, but if you keep losing focus and don't finish your work we're going to end up replacing you. I don't want to do that Kisa, but in all of your exploits I've never seen you lose focus. Pull yourself together and figure out a solution. You can't go on like this anymore."
Kisa nodded again. That was why this man was an editor-in-chief and he was not. Kisa would have a hard time all but telling someone they'd lose their job if they didn't buck up.
"Also, Murakami wants to see you when you're focused. You can go to him after you finish with the last edits for Yamada's chapters."
/GG/
Yukina finally woke up after a few hours sleep on the floor of the art studio. He'd slept there only a few times before, when it was necessary to be near his paintings. The floor was uncomfortable, but stable, so he knew he'd be safe. None of his things would be tampered with if he could hear someone rustling throughout the room.
What surprised him was that he hadn't been woken up by anyone else using the room. That was until he saw the sign, most likely hung by Rio, which told people to keep out. That girl really did care about him.
He shook his head and went to look at the final painting he'd created for the show. The piece was called Burning, and it showed a picture of the nighttime sky as seen from another vantage point, not on Earth. All of the stars were going supernova, which was how he felt when he'd heard Kisa-san's words those short hours ago. No less than a dozen stars were in the process of burning themselves and their surroundings into oblivion; much like his heart had exploded and burned his soul.
In truth, the painting was horrible, but it was also incredible at the same time. For a time he'd even wondered how he had been able to create such a piece. Most of his pieces depicted real life, not abstract thought. This one was definitely abstract and rather on the depressing side at that. If one were to look at it they could imagine twelve worlds full of people blinking out of existence at one time.
"How did you do this to me?" he mumbled to himself as he finished cleaning up and grabbing paintings to finish placing on the walls. "We've only known one another just a few days, yet I can't get you out of my head."
"Can't get who out of your head?"
Yukina turned to see his professor standing at the doorway to the studio. He didn't look cross or the like, just concerned.
"Sorry professor," Yukina said a little sharply. "I didn't know anyone else was in here."
"Yukina-kun, I can tell something's bothering you and I just wanted to make sure you were okay. It's a little selfish of me though because I want to know why you were able to complete this brilliant piece when you've got a broken wrist."
Yukina didn't know if he could answer that question truthfully. He knew exactly what had gotten into him and his name was Kisa Shouta, but did he really want to talk about that with his professor?
"I don't really want to discuss that with you, professor," he answered truthfully.
"I understand, Yukina-kun, but I have to say, if there's something in your life that helps you create such masterful pieces, you should keep it. It's not every day that a decent artist becomes brilliant overnight like you did. This piece," he said as he barely took a breath from his monologue, "is gorgeous and has so much emotion. I don't know where you found your muse, but since you've found it, don't let it go."
The professor's words hurt, almost as much as Kisa-san's had, but on a different level. How was he supposed to keep his muse if the man had thrown him out? He didn't want to aggravate the man anymore, but by running away he was being very unlike himself.
Yukina looked at the mirrors that lined parts of the walls in the studio. He could see himself, but he didn't recognize who it was looking at him. Then he realized the reason he was looking so pathetic was because he did run away without a fight. How could he give up on the man he loved? He'd been so excited to be with Kisa-san and he'd thrown it away because of a stupid reason. They needed to talk.
The art student looked at his watch and saw that it read just after three in the morning! He looked at his professor with shock in his eyes.
"Yes, I know it's really late, but I couldn't have you sleeping in here in the middle of the night when your show is less than ten hours away. Why don't you go freshen up a little and figure things out?"
He didn't know whether to thank his professor or not, so he just nodded and ran out of the building. He had no money for a cab and it would take him at least an hour to make it to Kisa-san's place. Yukina only hoped the man hadn't forgotten about him.
/GG/
Kisa was nervous. He knew what was coming and the fact that it was after three in the morning before he was able to go and find the answer made him that much more nervous. This was the decision that would tell him if he'd lost one of his six mangaka or if he had won the right to keep her. In truth he'd have pissed his pants if he'd had any liquid in his bladder at that moment.
What really surprised him was that when he finally did end up in front of Murakami he realized that he'd not once thought about the man that day. The only man in his head had been Kiiro-chan. He'd told his pet that he was with Murakami, but in truth, he'd been lying to himself. As much as his mind wanted his senpai, his body and heart wanted Kiiro-chan, and in that moment he knew it completely.
"Kisa, I am glad you're here. I have some news for you, but, first, can we talk somewhere?" The editor nodded and let Murakami direct him to a meeting room. "I wanted to ask you something, Kisa, but you have to be honest with me because it could affect a decision I have to make."
"Okay?" Kisa didn't know if he should be asking a question or not.
"I love you, Shouta, I have for years," Murakami admitted freely. "Back when we were interns I was so taken with you I almost ended up declining my overseas offer to have a go at you. Now, though, I have you, but it feels like I don't. I'm not sure what to think."
Kisa lowered his head in shame. No, his senpai didn't have him anymore. They had one magical time, but that was all it was going to be. He shook his head.
Murakami sighed in defeat. "I had a feeling you had someone else, but I was too afraid to admit it. I just hope you and Kiiro-chan are happy with one another."
This caused the other man's head to shoot up as he looked at the elder with wide eyes.
Murakami laughed. "I figured out that your pet was a human when I went to your house the other night. There was nothing in your house that indicated a pet, but there was a toothbrush in your bathroom that said Kiiro-chan on it."
Kisa blushed about ten shades of red at this bit of information and felt like crawling into a hole and dying.
"Don't feel bad. I'm just glad you know where your heart lies. I've been offered a promotion and am going to America to set up another sister company. Isaka-san has given me the opportunity to run his American branch."
The new information was an overload to Kisa's brain and he couldn't even begin to think.
"So, you're leaving?" he asked, quietly.
"I am. I guess if I can't have you then there's no point in my staying. I was going to see if you wanted to come with me, which was why I asked to come here for a short time. I never expected Isaka-san to offer me this promotion so quickly after taking over Amethyst though. It's a surprise."
He felt bad. His senpai had just admitted that the reason he'd returned to Japan was to try and be with him, and now he didn't want the man. Kisa felt like scum, something he was becoming rather familiar with as of late.
"I hope he makes you happy," Murakami said softly as he kissed the top of Kisa's head. "Oh, and with regards to your mangaka."
