Warning: The following chapter contains graphic scenes of homosexuality. For those readers who would rather not read such content, I will be posting a brief but concise overview of this chapter's main plot points at the beginning on the next chapter. All in all, feel free to skip this chapter and move onward if offended by such material.

Chapter Ten: Something Scribbled

Lying upon the bed, his back straight against the header, Ken sighed. Straining to read in the dim lamplight, a single bulb fizzing overhead, a headache began to brew behind his eyes. Subtle at first, a light prick of pain surged behind his right eye like the distant flicker of a candle. But then a second surge, a third. Soon it was just a constant drone, a deafening racket of flesh and blood pulsating behind his skull. No matter how much he read, how the details of this "Calico" and her life attempted to drill itself into the contours of his mind, everything seemed to be muffled by him. He attempted to ignore the ignorable, attempted to process the many facts and vague details adorning the files—a young female of Chinese-Russian descent, no apparent family, limited surveillance appearances with the exception of a political assassination pulled alongside Sotai and Yuri two years previous in Bangladesh, just a distorted black and white shot detailing a terribly young face not even twenty years of age, a face almost so pretty it was unnoticeable—and yet, when reflecting, he saw nothing of her. Instead he saw flames. Air of ginger smoke. Blackened ash falling, falling so fast. Trapping her. And the screams. God, the screams.

Covering his face with his hands, he felt himself cringe, not with pain or fright or anxiety, but guilt. That never-ending guilt. Clenching his eyes closed, he saw Aya within the swirling darkness, her petite frame lying against the building floor, cradled by a marigold blaze. Her head lay covered in black debris, the screams having halted, but her cries still sounded so clearly in his ears.

Ran swore he'd never forgive him as they sat in the hospital waiting room that night, both patched in bandages and burns. The look the red-haired man gave him—he'd seen Ran hurt before, seen him silently suffer, but that look... It tunneled through Ken deeper than the bullet wound in his shoulder. It tunneled straight to his heart and severed every artery. And then there was nothing to be felt anymore, nothing but utter and sheer guilt. And he couldn't even protest Ran's blame. No, he deserved it. He deserved everything that happened for his foolishness. That one foolish mistake that almost cost an innocent's life, the one that cost him his lover.

His head a storm of ache and recollection, Ken barely took note of the gentle opening of his door, the subtle close. Steadying his breath, he lifted his hands from his face as he felt the press of weight on the edge of the bed. His eyes fluttering open to the bitter dark, he felt the figure hover over his legs, looming. Placing his hands in front of him, he clutched his fingers over bare shoulder flesh, and that's when he caught the image of that ever-familiar face. Adrenaline coursing through his veins, he grasped for breath as lips came crashing onto his own. Something of lust and violence swimming within him, he bit hard into the skin, the sweet taste of iron soon trickling through his teeth with ease. Cold hands sifting beneath his shirt, he felt his body arch with the contact, the fabric riding over his ribs and across his shoulders, lips parting for only a second as cotton passed between them. And once again they collided, viciously pressing into one another, saliva trickling down throats, tongues running over teeth.

It was like he was drugged, the sensations rolling over him in foggy, slow breaths, everything so close and yet so far away. As if he was detached from himself, from his mind, from his corpse. Giddy and drained and stupid and impulsive and dirty and gross and beautiful and ugly and wrong and… Ken groaned as he felt cool hands enclose over him. Up and down and up and—he felt himself grow hand in the other man's hands, every inch of him pulsing with release, completely aroused.

"Faster," he whispered, his throat raw as he threw his head back, the man's lips kissing down the spanse of his chest as the hand continue to stroke. Harder, harder, everything turning to sticky heat, blood pulsing through his cock like a sickly blaze. Harder, harder, his heart beating in his throat, turning everything to scents of sweat and nicotine, his tongue coated in it. Harder, harder, harder—

Even as he came, he was far from sated. The scent of semen filling and air and trickling across his pelvic bones—it drove him further into lust. Lips once again chewing at his own, he pried his hands into the other man's sweatpants, pushing them down over his buttocks. Hastily he pressed the man down on top of him, spasms of heat rushing through his groin as he felt his cock slide against another. Viciously, hurriedly, he felt himself stroke both the man's and his own, hot spit still filling his throat. Again and again and again, the feel of two membranes pulsing against one another, both hard, throbbing.

"Do it, Ran," he gasped between breaths. "Fuck me. Hard."

A silence seemed to pass then, the halting of mouths, and then the distance. Opening his eyes, Ken stared upon Ran's shadowed, hovering face, waiting, wanting. But then…

Jarring awake, Ken gasped for breath, the dim lamplight burning his eyes like citrus. The headache still pounding against his temples, he kicked the open files from his bed, papers spilling through the small space with little effort.

"Fuck," he mumbled, clenching his eyes closed, the dream still lingering in the corners of the blackness. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." He sat there then for moments on end, sweat clinging to his flesh, head spinning, groin throbbing. Even as Youji barged through the door, he didn't stir.

"Something written in there piss you off?" the older man sneered while regarding the mess of files, cigarette caught between his teeth. As if constantly laughing at an unknown joke, he leaned against the doorway, his casually snide look causing Ken to clench his jaw.

"Not really."

"Yeah, well I think I just heard Omi actually swear, so you're not the only one."

"And you?"

Laughing bitterly, Youji took another drag, spilling a weave of gray into the small space. "You'd think after fucking her, I'd know something useful other than the fact she—"

"Youji."

"Yeah, yeah. But still. Fucking enigma. My only lead is that wherever Sotai pops up, Akira won't be far behind. Like the girl's bloody watchdog or something. Jesus, it's like you and Aya— Ran."

Ken narrowed his gaze. "Excuse me?"

"Oh come on," Youji mused, taking another drag. "You two were all over each other's backs. Constantly watching, predicting. And then, I guess when you both became aware of it, you'd intentionally ignore one another." He laughed. "It was almost cute."

The urge to punch him was so strong, Ken nearly screamed. It wasn't worth it though, so he just stared in silence, completely and utterly displeased. "Does any of this have a point?"

"Touché. I have to ask though, does that stick up your ass ever hurt?"

"Youji would you go fu—"

"Yeah, I know, but before I go suck myself off, Omi wanted me to drop off some more files." Flicking them across the bed, Ken flipped one open, eyes leisurely scrolling.

"Aliases?"

Taking another drag, Youji nodded. "La Perm's apparently. Interesting thing is, according to all the info Omi can dig up, the bitch is dead."

Humming lightly, Ken continued scrolling through the lists. "Let me guess, a casualty of the LA stadium bombing?"

"What, you came across that already?"

"More like I was there." Even as Youji eyed him, Ken ignored the feel of the other man's questioning gaze. "I figured she had something to do with this, but I wouldn't have pegged her as an assassin. Too thin, frail—elegant. And she mentioned something about warning me..." Pausing, his eyes ceased to read any further. "Maybe it's just me, but do you get the feeling something is terribly awry?"

"There's an understatement," Youji mused while crushing the ruminants of his cigarette butt into the wooden desk. "For a bunch of chicks that have apparently been hired to slit our fucking throats, they've sure had a slew of unused opportunities. It's like we're being fucking toyed with."

"Thing is I'm unsure of who's actually toying with whom."

"Definitely some hidden agenda going on here. And here we are, banging our heads against the bloody wall." Moving towards the bed, Youji leaned over Ken's shoulder, gazing at the list. "Anything of interest there, or just more tedious bullshit?"

"Now this is interesting," Ken deliberated, his stony face turning to something resembling life. "Clever little bitch. Look here." Pulling out one of the few files still lingering on the bed, he flipped through a multitude of papers until point to a single highlighted name. "See that?"

"Sara Yamazaki?"

"Last time Calico was in Japan, three years back, she was staying in a loft listed under that name. Now look at the list of La Perm's aliases, bottom of the left column."

Youji laughed then, something of intrigue and smug superiority. "Sara fucking Yamazaki."

"Better yet, according to Omi's notes, that loft's still rented under that name."

As a short silence passed between the two, they just stared at the white paper, something about it turning gray in their tired eyes.

"Have a sudden urge to break into a certain loft tomorrow afternoon at, say, two-thirty?"

Smacking Ken across the back, Youji fell into another string of throaty laughs. "Jesus, did you even have to ask?"