Noiz slept for the next couple of days, which worried Aoba, even though the doctor had informed him that it was probably just his body needing some time to recuperate, even more so if he had gone through some serious mental stress as well. He had tried to interrogate Aoba and Koujaku about what had happened, but Koujaku had just bitten his lower lip and refused to answer, so Aoba had made up a story that Noiz had been the victim of a knife fight between Rhyme and Rib players, which occurred from time to time on the backstreets of Midorijima. He surely hoped that the doctor wouldn't catch up on the fact that Noiz had been brought to the hospital the same night lots of people had been admitted into hospital due to smoke intoxication from the night club in the Flame Willow district going up in flames. If he believed the news on TV, it seemed that there were no deaths to report, aside from the corpse of a well-known tattooist, whose knocked over oil lamp was believed to have been the source of the fire. The night club had apparently not burned down completely since one of its visitors had called the firefighters pretty early on via the in-house fire alert. Still not all the people had gotten out of the club in time to not be at least intoxicated by smoke, probably due to a lot of them being drugged and not reacting fast enough. Aoba didn't care much about that to be honest, he was just glad that nobody else had died that night.

He came to visit Noiz at the hospital every day to ask about the progress of his condition. It wasn't like he felt much closer to Noiz now than he had before, but there was still a lingering feeling of disbelief whether Noiz really would be fine as long as he didn't wake up. Plus Aoba visited Noiz to get a glance on how Koujaku was holding up as well. Ever since Noiz had left the emergency room and Koujaku had calmed down a bit after an initial feeling of relief had washed over him, due to the fact that he hadn't killed Noiz after all, Koujaku sat by his bed as long as the visiting hours would allow it. He put on a smile every time he noticed Aoba entering the room, but whenever he was alone, or failed to react in time to Aoba showing up, Aoba could see that his usual expression was a sad, blank stare. Aoba guessed that Koujaku must still feel terribly guilty for what had happened to Noiz.

Today Aoba hadn't come to visit Noiz yet, because his shift at Heibon hadn't ended yet. Visiting hours were nearly over anyway, but Koujaku always sat there until the last minute, or until a nurse would show up and tell him in a gentle voice that he had to go home now, too. Koujaku could convince her to stay half an hour longer by the use of his charm most of the time, though.

He sighed as he sat on his usual chair by Noiz' bedside. He was holding Noiz' hand in his and caressed it with his thumb in a slow, circling motion, even if he was pretty sure that Noiz wouldn't be able to recognize his touch anyway. The young man wasn't even in a critical condition anymore, just sleeping, but Koujaku felt like there was still a heavy burden weighing him down. It was not so much the severity of Noiz' condition that bothered him but rather the fact that he had drawn his sword to aim at Noiz in the first place and that he had hurt him in the end.
He hadn't been himself then, he knew that. Ryuuhou's tattoo had eaten away at his sanity and he had not been able to think properly at that time; he KNEW that. Still, knowing it didn't erase what had happened and Koujaku continued to feel miserable about it.
He sighed again, held back a light sniff and guided Noiz' hand to his forehead while closing his eyes and kept being deep in thought.

"Hey, don't make it look like I'm dying here, old man.", Noiz' voice sounded weakly but no less amused as he gave Koujaku a tired grin from his pillow.

Koujaku tore his eyes open as if to reassure himself that Noiz had indeed woken up. Then he immediately let go of his hand, stared at him for another second and rushed out of the room without a word.

Noiz looked after him and had no clue what had just happened. He stared at the hand Koujaku had been holding only a few seconds ago and could still feel a lingering feeling of it being warm and... what was it called again? "Ticklish"? It was a tiny, odd sensation prickling on the back of his hand, but it was weirdly pleasantly as well.
Then Noiz experimentally closed and opened up his hand a few times just to get the feeling of his fingertips and nails touching his palm and each other as he moved them.
This was dumb, but he liked it for some reason.
He snickered shallowly.

Looking at the door, he wondered why Koujaku had fled the scene like that. Had his condition been so critical that him waking up was such big news that Koujaku had to run out of the room to tell the world or something? It didn't feel like he had slept that long at all to him and Noiz doubted that a simple cut would leave him in such bad a state. Oh, okay, now that he thought about it, there had been a moment when he had thought that he was dying from the loss of blood. He briefly remembered that the last time he had seen Koujaku the man had gone crazy with rage and the sudden memory of his brawny, red-haired form with no sanity left in his eyes made goosebumps appear all over Noiz' skin.

He couldn't still be afraid of Koujaku, could he?
He had been fine with him holding his hand just now. Well, he had looked pretty normal after all.

Noiz paused in his thoughts.

Why had Koujaku turned back to his usual self in the first place?
Was that even possible with his mind gone to the degree it had been?
Noiz was sure that he had forgotten something very important happening, when somebody knocked on his door and announced that he was about to enter.

It was Aoba.

Oh.
Right.

"Hello, Noiz. How are you doing?", Aoba greeted him as he slipped into the room and took a seat next to his bed.

Noiz gave him a blank stare. He wasn't sure why Aoba would trouble himself with visiting him and looked back at the door, half-expecting Koujaku to show up behind him, too.

Aoba wondered what Noiz was looking at, but then it dawned on him.
"Oh, if you're looking for Koujaku, he left earlier already. I just met him on my way inside and he told me that you had woken up and that he would inform the doctor about this now."
He gave Noiz a kind of complicated look as if he knew more about what was going on with Koujaku than Noiz did, which annoyed the young man for some reason and he furrowed his short brows a little with a tiny pout.
Aoba gave a short laugh at his reaction and asked Noiz again: "So, how are you feeling? Does it hurt badly?"

Noiz gave him a questioning look, but then his view fell upon his stomach covered by the bedsheets and he tried to move his body tentatively, only to hiss and moan in pain a second later.

"Uwah! What are you doing? Don't try to sit up all of a sudden!"
Aoba was flailing about in kind of a panic at Noiz' sudden movement and the younger man just slid back into place, his eyes still caught on to the part of his body that hurt right now.
"Take it easy, you've just been stitched up, okay?", Aoba reminded him with a caring expression on his face.

Noiz huffed a short, dry laugh.
"Yeah... it hurts... quite a bit, haha."

Aoba gave him a look like Noiz wasn't right in the head.
"What's so funny about that?"

"Nothing, just... It hurts. I've never felt something like this."

"Is it so bad?", Aoba's worried look intensified, but Noiz kept on smiling a shy smile.

"No, it's fine, I guess. Don't know how much it is supposed to hurt."

Aoba still gave him a look like he didn't know where Noiz was coming from, but then just told him if it was too bad he should inform the doctor so he could give him some painkillers.
Noiz wasn't sure if he really wanted something in his system to dim his new sensations, though, even if the feedback was not positive right now.

"So, can you tell me something, Noiz?", Aoba asked with kind of a pressed voice as if he was unsure whether he dared to ask this, but Noiz just offered him his full attention with his usual, stoic countenance as if to silently urge him to just ask instead, so Aoba continued with a troubled look on his face.
"Do you despise Koujaku for what has happened to you at the night club?"

Noiz blinked.
Despise him?
"Why...?"
He blurted it out without even meaning to and heard Aoba let out a sigh of relief and saw him smile at him.

"That's good to know. Koujaku is beating himself up over the fact that he's responsible for your condition, even if the events were out of his control at the time it happened."
Aoba gave Noiz a serious, questioning look.
"You do know he wasn't sane that time, right?"

Noiz nodded.
Koujaku was not to blame for what had taken place that night and Noiz found it stupid that the man in question still thought what had happened to him had been his fault. Well, technically Koujaku had been the one aiming his sword at Noiz then, but it had been Ryuuhou's tattoos that had made him loose his mind in the first place, and his needle had even controlled Noiz to provoke that kind of reaction out of Koujaku. So if anybody was to blame at all for what had happened it was Ryuuhou, so casting all the blame on Koujaku sat wrong with Noiz completely. But the guy responsible for the whole mess was dead already anyway.
"That stupid old man.", Noiz grumbled, "Can't he just stop taking things to heart if he is not at fault?"
He sighed deeply, but then winced in newly inflamed pain and grabbed at his stomach on top of the sheets as he realized that moving his abdominal wall by breathing too deeply like that was not a good idea at the moment.

Aoba showed him a sympathetic expression and was about to ask something else, starting with "Say, this thing between you and Koujaku" when the door to Noiz' room suddenly opened and a physician with a nurse in tow entered his room. The nurse politely told Aoba that visiting hours were already over and that Noiz was to be examined by the doctor now, so Aoba bid Noiz farewell and then left the room with a short wave of his hand. Noiz gazed after him and briefly wondered why Aoba had even seen the need to come by in the first place, but then his attention was drawn to the doctor asking him about his state of health and taking notes of Noiz' answers before examining him and explaining the condition of his wound to him.

It turned out that Noiz could leave the hospital if he so wanted now, but the doctor preferred to have him spend at least another night to monitor him a little further now that he had regained consciousness. He informed Noiz that the stitches on his belly were not necessary to be removed afterwards since the absorbable material used to stich him up would vanish on its own, but that even if the suture would heal fast on the outside it might still take a couple of weeks until the wound was healed completely.
Noiz blatantly asked the physician whether it was normal for his wound to hurt like it did, earning himself a short look of disbelief before the doctor answered in the affirmative and stated that he could have some painkillers if the degree of pain was not tolerable for him and that he was to take some antibiotics as well. Then he advised Noiz to take part in medical gymnastics as an aftercare as soon as the state of his wound would allow it and that he was to come in on frequent check-ups during his healing process. After that he left Noiz' room together with the nurse again.

Noiz felt pretty troubled about all of the things he had been told considering his wound. Suddenly the mere aspect of having to take care of his body in earnest for a while was getting on his nerves. He had hurt himself quite often in the past, due to his inability to feel pain and therefore he was used to bandage himself up frequently. But he had rarely gotten a serious wound that needed a lot of attention afterwards. Well, aside from that one time he had broken two of his fingers during his childhood, but even then just leaving it alone had made it heal just fine - okay somewhat fine, he was still unable to bent his fingers to a certain degree. Whatever, the prospect of having to deal with this incision for a longer period of time was annoying him. If the damn old man, who had caused this situation, wouldn't comfort him at least a little during the time it took to heal, he was going to be seriously mad at him.
Plus, Koujaku was still owing him a certain sort of payment for his efforts with this whole Ryuuhou-business and Noiz wouldn't allow him to wriggle out of the affair. It was not so much the sex that he was after, even though his body reacted with a certain sort of needy feeling when he thought back to Koujaku's teasing before all that shit with Ryuuhou had went down. No, Noiz wanted the man to face the fact that he had developed deeper feelings for him and he wanted for Koujaku to answer those feelings. Whenever he remembered the last time they had kissed, he hoped that there was the possibility of this wish coming true. A faint memory of Koujaku holding his hand by his bedside lit up in the corner of his mind and Noiz took it as a sign that his hope might not be in vain.

After another examination the next day, Noiz was discharged from the hospital early in the morning. Walking was still pretty painful, considering the freshly stitched wound on his abdomen and the still slightly throbbing, smaller cut wounds in his legs, but Noiz managed to reach his home, albeit slowly. As soon as he entered his apartment, Noiz slid off his shoes and headed for the bed to get himself into a more comfortable position after having put strain on the unwilling, hurt muscles in his lower body to walk.
He had considered stopping by Koujaku's usual place to open up shop at on his way home, but then had dismissed the idea. Noiz was still wondering about the look on Koujaku's face after he had opened his eyes in the hospital yesterday. Aoba had told him that Koujaku blamed himself for his injury and that had probably been the reason the guy had fled the scene like that. Maybe he simply hadn't known how to face Noiz anymore all of a sudden.

Noiz sighed - and winced slightly from doing so.

This was annoying. If Koujaku wanted to tell him something, he should just get it over with and then they could come to the more fun part of the Ryuuhou-aftermath. But Noiz was unwilling to beg for Koujaku's attention, he wanted for the other to come to him instead, since it was Koujaku who had a debt to pay after all. But if Koujaku thought Noiz didn't want to see him, waiting for the man to make a move would be pointless anyway.

Argh, fuck it all, he just had to tell this idiot that he wanted to see him then, pride be damned!

Noiz reached for his coil and sent Koujaku a message, reading: "Stop brooding and come visit me, old man! I want to see your ugly mug! (Btw. I'm at home now.)"
There, this should do it, right? Noiz hit the "send message"-button and his coil let out an affirmative sound.

Noiz rolled on his back and spread his limbs out on the bed while he stared at the ceiling - then he noticed that even that kind of movement had resulted in some pain echoing from his lower half.
"Ugh... Damn it.", he cursed, but then huffed a laugh at the fact that he could actually get angry over the fact that he was in pain right now.

He had longed to feel something besides numbness for so long and finally his wish had come true. Heck, he even could feel the softness of the bedding against his face and body now and the temperature in his room! He should be more excited about that fact. He should get up and explore everything he didn't have the chance to get a feeling of before. He should have a thirst for adventure now, but the odd part of that was, that the only things which kept swirling in his mind were how Koujaku's touch might feel on him, how warm his body must be or what kind of a ticklish sensation Koujaku could get out of his body if his hands wandered over his bare skin.

Damn, why was he so focused on this guy?

Noiz looked at his coil: Still no answering message. Well, no miracle, he had sent that message from before just a mere minute ago and it was possible that Koujaku might still be asleep at this hour or maybe already up and cutting hair somewhere, unable to take his hands off his customer in the middle of a haircut or something.
Noiz let a frustrated sigh escape through his nose and decided to make use of his tracker for once. He hadn't given his cube other instructions, so it was probably still set on monitoring Koujaku.

Changing from his phoning screen to a map of Midorijima's Old Resident District, Noiz located the signal of his cube and found it being sent from the first place he had thought of earlier: Koujaku's home. Switching his screen from map-mode to video-mode from the viewpoint of his cube, he allowed himself to get a sneak peek of the inside of Koujaku's house. The cube had jumped out from its hiding spot upon receiving the commands of its master and was now hopping towards Koujaku's bed, allowing Noiz to get a glimpse of Koujaku's Japanese styled room and of the cans of beer and a few sake bottles strewn over the otherwise tidy floor at the moment. Then Noiz caught sight of Koujaku's sleeping face as his cube made its way to settle on the unoccupied, second pillow right next to the man.

Koujaku appeared to sleep soundly for the most part, although his brows twitched from time to time and he seemed to dream about something that made him restless in his sleep and forced him to turn over a few times in a row and moaning in distress a little.

Noiz had underestimated the effect Koujaku's voice and the view of his naked upper body, which was visible down to his waist from rolling around in his sheets earlier, would have on him and bit his lower lip.
He wanted him.
He wanted him so badly now.

A painful throb in his lower regions reminded him that even if Koujaku would currently be by his side to fulfill Noiz' wish they probably wouldn't be able to do it due to Noiz' body aching too much. Oh but Noiz' groin didn't seem to care that he was in pain whenever he tensed up his abdominal muscles, so Noiz went on with moving his hands downwards his torso to unbuckle his belt and to zip open his pants to free his erection. Noiz groaned a bit under the slight strain, but the longer he gazed at Koujaku's sleeping face on the video screen right in front of him, the more his loins became inflamed with need. He slightly jerked at the feeling of his own fingers touching his genitals however. He hadn't thought the thing between his legs to be so warm and the texture of the skin down there to be so different from the rest of his body - never mind the metal nubs protruding from his skin being there as well. He blushed like he hadn't touched himself ever before upon the newly found sensory feedback. Then he realised that he didn't have to apply as much force as he was used to, to get his body to respond to his own touches now. He felt quite sensitive down there to be honest, it was almost a little embarrassing to him, but he kept on stroking his member exploratory.

Koujaku slightly moaned in his sleep on the other side of the screen again while turning on his back and Noiz shifted his attention towards the other's sleeping face. He would love to kiss him right now and to let his hands glide through his hair that probably felt amazing when he ran his fingers through it. All the while that fierce look of those crimson eyes while Koujaku was focusing on him the way Noiz remembered it would burn right through to his very soul...

A needy moan slipped past Noiz' lips and he was kind of glad that the video stream was only allowing for images and sound to pass through his way, so Koujaku could neither hear nor see him in return.

"Ah... Hah...! Uhn..."

It began to feel quite good the longer he kept stroking himself. He noticed how hot his body grew the more he allowed his arousal to take him over, while the fabric of his clothes rubbed against his skin as he turned his head and upper body and felt his nipples growing taut under his shirt. The sensations were too new to him and almost bordered on being annoying to Noiz' own surprise. All the while he tried to shove the fact that certain movements hurt him into the backmost corner of his mind, as well, since pain wasn't what he was longing for right now.

His breath quickened as he intensified the pressure he put on his manhood and he felt his throat becoming dry while he breathed in and out of his open mouth.
"Koujaku...! Kou...jaku...!"

He stole another glance towards the screen he had been watching and saw Koujaku facing in his direction, his lips were slightly parted as he let out a low murmur and Noiz felt himself grew tense for a second as a shiver trickled down his spine from hearing Koujaku's voice and seeing his lips moving. A faint ache from his abdominal area reminded him that he was hurt, but he was beyond caring at this point. His hands worked on his length in hard, quick strokes and he felt himself leaking precum while he headed straight for orgasm.
Just a little more, a little...!

"Mh... Hm...?"

The sounds Koujaku made on his side of the screen caught Noiz' attention yet again and then he saw that Koujaku looked right at him now, his red eyes practically stared right at him. He must have woken up just a mere second ago. His crimson eyes lacked their usual intensity as he looked ahead of himself and seemed to try to grasp the situation. Then a sudden sight of recognition flashed in his eyes and he began a sentence, starting with "You...?" when Noiz broke the video feed on impulse and felt himself come at the same time.

"A-ha...! Nh...!"

On the other side of the line a tiny light glinted in the eyes of Usagimodoki before it stopped transmitting footage and allowed a confused looking Koujaku to inspect it further.

Koujaku had found the cube sitting right in front of his nose on his spare pillow the moment he had woken up. The little green and black thing appeared to be staring at him for some reason, though the only facial features it possessed were two tiny, square-shaped eyes bare of any emotions, so it always appeared like it was gazing at something per default. Koujaku just wondered why it had left its usual hiding spot inside of Koujaku's accessory bag to begin with. Was it about to give him some kind of message from Noiz or something?
"What are you doing on my pillow?", Koujaku asked with curiosity colouring his voice.

"Pi!", the cube answered instantly, "Watching Koujaku, I am!"

"Eh?"
Koujaku was kind of aghast at the thought of being watched by the little thing even when he slept and his defense was down. Then it dawned on him that the Allmate was technically stalking him, even if Koujaku had given up on trying to get rid of it by now. Koujaku sat up and stretched his arms in an attempt to shake off the stiffness in his body before he looked at the cube again.
"But why were you watching me while I was sleeping?"

"Pi! Noiz wanted to know what Koujaku was doing."
The cube slightly bounced off Koujaku's pillow and executed a small somersault.
"And Koujaku has mail from Noiz! Mail!"

"What?"
Koujaku looked at his coil in irritation to bring up the message screen and saw a new message in his inbox, but then he paused before he looked at it.
"Wait a minute. How do you even know that I got mail from Noiz in the first place?"

"Pi!", the cube seemed still eager enough to answer, "Usagi is connected to Koujaku's coil since the time Koujaku wanted to call Noiz. Plus, Usagi gets a copy of all messages directed towards Koujaku to remind Koujaku to read them later in case Koujaku does not react in time."

"That little...!", Koujaku growled through his teeth.
The brat surely was insistent in trying to get his attention to an overbearingly annoying kind of degree. Koujaku sighed heavily at the fact that he actually wanted to see him now that Noiz had woken up, but didn't dare to make an effort to turn his wish into reality.

What if Noiz hated him now? He had almost died because of the wound inflicted upon him by Koujaku's blade after all.
Well, it wasn't like they had gotten along especially well before all of those things with Ryuuhou had went down or anything, but Koujaku simply felt like he had betrayed Noiz' trust in him somehow.

"Read Noiz' message! Read Noiz' message! It's labelled as 'urgent'!", Noiz' cube squeaked and directed Koujaku's attention back to the glowing digit in his inbox notifying him of one new message.

Koujaku sighed and figured that the answer he was searching for might lie in the message he had received from Noiz anyway and finally allowed the reading screen of his coil to pop up.

[ Stop brooding and come visit me, old man! I want to see your ugly mug! (Btw. I'm at home now.) ]

Koujaku smiled at the fact that he had read that message with Noiz' voice in mind and could almost hear him grumble as he scolded him for wasting his time with his worries.

So... He wasn't mad at him then? He even wanted to see him contrary to Koujaku's expectations? And he had been discharged from the hospital as well, if the bracketed note at the end of the message was any indication. That was good to know at least.

"Answer Noiz now?", the small cube interrupted Koujaku's thought process and its tiny eyes almost seemed to sparkle as it waited for instructions, but then the angry voice of an enraged, mechanical sparrow and the fluttering of wings echoed through the room.

"Hey you! Stop bothering my master!"
Beni had apparently awoken from his sleep-mode and landed on top of Usagimodoki, trying to shoo the cube off Koujaku's bedding.
"And stop trying to behave as if you were his Allmate! That position is already taken by me!"
He tried to hack at the cube with his beak, but Koujaku gathered the enraged sparrow up in his hand and gave him a lopsided grin.

"Now, now, keep it down, Beni. The rabbit is just trying to be helpful."
Koujaku stroke Beni's head with one of his fingers to try calming him down a little.

"'Trying to be helpful', my ass!", Beni swore, even as he blushed a little at the caress he received, and appeared to be sulking at Koujaku for defending Noiz' Allmate and simply accepting its presence just like that, as well.

Koujaku pondered whether he should go to see Noiz after all, but after weighing the pros and cons, he decided not to head to his place after all. If he showed up at Noiz' doorstep now, one thing would very likely lead to another and, given his knowledge of cut wounds, he guesses that Noiz still needed some time to heal and therefore should refrain from straining activities such as sex for the time being. Looking back at his coil he wondered if he should just ignorer Noiz' message or attempt to answer him, but he had the feeling the brat would dismiss all of his worries and order him to come around anyway, so he wouldn't answer him for the time being and instead began to get ready for the day.

Noiz lay in bed, pretty frustrated about this whole affair of touching himself thinking about Koujaku and not feeling like it was even close to being enough yet despite having come plenty. He sighed and finally relaxed his pose and stared at his hand drenched in his own come, before wincing at the pain bleeding through the receding haze of arousal again. His throat felt dry from gasping for air too much earlier and the burning hunger in his loins had only been partially sated. He knew he needed the real thing instead of his poor attempt of recreating events in his mind using his own body and some video footage.
The other's hot hands with their strong grip around him so even he could recognize it without his sense of touch then was nothing Noiz could reproduce by himself. Neither were Koujaku's hot kisses or the way he breathed into Noiz' ear that had made his every hair stand on end, sending ticklish shivers over his back.

Noiz felt something inside of himself, something stronger than he had ever felt before. It irritated him, torturing him even if he dare think about it too long, which happened all too often these days. He even felt like he was half crazy since none of his thoughts seemed to make any sense to him more often than not, seeing as they strayed from Noiz' usual straight and cool way of analyzing things to get all jumbled up in the process. His head simply was in chaos right now. He had never been that mesmerized by someone to spend that much time thinking about them before.

Ugh, now he was depressed - fantastic. Well at least the aching in his loins had died down together with it and he felt like he could think better now again.

Then his view fell upon the part of the small table in his living room that was visible from his bed. There was a neatly folded piece of fabric lying on top if it. On closer inspection it looked like a red kimono. Then it dawned on Noiz that this was Koujaku's kimono, or rather his late mother's kimono, which he had undressed from before they had headed for Platinum Jail in their make-shift disguises a few days ago. That meant Noiz was still in possession of something Koujaku was sure to want to get back.

Noiz got up from his bed and lightly tugged at the soft material as he pulled it up to his nose to breath in Koujaku's scent.

"Uh... Damn it...!"

He felt newly spiked desire rise inside of him again. This was no good. He hastily put the garment back on the table and tried to refold it as best as he could. Then he searched for something to put Koujaku's kimono into while he waited for his owner to show up at his home. The only thing he had available was some shopping bag, though, so he put it in there before placing it in his linen cupboard to save it from nasty smells or dust to settle in it.

A new look at his coil revealed to Noiz that Koujaku had read his message, but hadn't answered him. Given the time between Koujaku opening the message and him not receiving any answer, Noiz guessed that he wouldn't get anything from the other guy anymore.
Was Koujaku still not convinced that Noiz was not blaming him for what had happened, or did he simply not want to see him?

Annoyed at the fact that the second option of his thoughts might hold to be true, he typed and sent another message Koujaku's way, reading: "I still got a hostage over here, old man. It's spelling your name on it."
The instant he had sent the message it hit Noiz, that Koujaku of all people would probably remember where he had left this very important keepsake of his mother and that it had been unnecessary to inform him of its whereabouts. Still, Noiz simply had wanted to underline the fact that Koujaku had to visit him sooner or later, come what may.

Days passed without word from Koujaku and Noiz grew more and more frustrated the longer this situation lasted. Deep down inside of him he knew that Koujaku probably ignored him simply for the fact that he was one hell of a worrywart, either because he was more or less the cause of Noiz' wound or because he feared to hurt him when they would have intercourse, which was still the deal between the two of them after all - and a promise between men was one to be kept. Noiz was so annoyed at Koujaku, that he spammed his inbox with countless messages to provoke him to come over to his place.

Some of them read:
"Hey, come over, old man, or are you afraid I'll bite? (I might if you ask nicely.)"
"Boooring! Why aren't' you here yet?"
"Come on! Show yourself to me! There's still a debt to pay, remember?"
"Do you want me to come sexing you up on the streets right in front of all those fans of yours who adore you so much instead? I have no trouble doing it in public - you?"
"For the last time, old man: Get your ass over here or I'll come to your place instead!"
"Okay, I'm counting down from 3 now... 3..."

None of those had worked, of course and Noiz really wondered about that last one - he must have been in a pretty stupid kind of mood when he had sent that one. He stopped with the messages after a while and decided to give Koujaku a taste of his own medicine by ignoring him, instead. The only thing he still cared for, concerning speeding things up with Koujaku, was keeping the appointments for his check-ups at the hospital and take part in a few of the advised physiotherapy lessons to let his body know that he needed to move around and to support the scar formation of his wound so it wouldn't bother him later on.

Aside from that, Noiz tried to keep his impatience to meet with Koujaku down by throwing himself into his work. He took pretty much any kind of offer, including the ones usually below his standards. He even took over a few things from other team mates of Ruff Rabbit, who whined about being buried with work, just to keep his mind busy and off from thinking about Koujaku. This resulted in his room getting messed up with a lot of different things, like various boxes of delivery pizza and pasta, cans of soft drinks and smoothies, a few bags of sweets, chips and other snacks and tons of tech magazines and notes on the cases he worked on and had not bothered to digitalize. He tried to keep the food-related garbage to a minimum, though, since he could only tolerate so much chaos around himself at a time and the smell bothered him all too fast. Still his already pretty packed room looked rather messy at the moment - not counting the fact that dust began to pile up on his shelves and equipment since he barely took the time to clean up.
Three whole weeks passed like that until one night there was a ring at Noiz' doorbell.

Noiz needed a moment to realize that it had indeed been his doorbell that had just rung, probably due to the fact that he had fallen asleep over his work and only woken up from the noise just now. His track of time had been completely upset - not that he had been a person keeping to a normal kind of daily routine before, but his bedtime hours had been ridiculous, especially during this last few days. The reason was simply that he had successfully shoveled himself with so much work that he was overworking himself constantly now. All of that just not to think about Koujaku all the time.

Noiz sighed in annoyance as he rose from where he simply had fallen asleep earlier and tried to get a look at his coil to read the time displayed on it. It was something past 8 p. m., not the usual time to visit somebody, but not necessarily a time to expect people to be asleep already, at least not with Noiz' kind of job. But it couldn't be a customer showing up at his doorstep, since he never made appointments at his living place, because his whereabouts were too dangerous a kind of information to be spread around for Noiz' preference. He prepared to make deals on neutral ground and to receive work offers via coil through Ruff Rabbit's own network, which had considerably high security standards.

A new ring of his doorbell reached his ears and he grumpily dragged his feet towards his frontdoor to have a look at the person standing outside via his video intercom. Theoretically he could just have pulled up the device's video screen on his coil and spare himself the way towards the door, but his mind was still too clouded with sleepiness to allow that kind of reasoning at the moment. He yawned groggily as he finally reached the intercom to get a look at the video screen to see who his mysterious visitor was.
A man with crimson eyes, raven hair and a scar across his face looked sheepishly at the camera and scratched his head, apparently unsure what he should say if Noiz would open up the door.

Noiz smiled and pushed the doorhandle down.
"If it isn't you, old man, you have perfect timing. I was just looking for a pillow to rest my head on."

Before Koujaku could even greet Noiz' back, he was pulled inside of Noiz' apartment by the sleeve of his red, plain spare kimono and maneuvered over straight to the corner of his room with the bed standing in it.

Seeing, where they were headed through all the clutter in Noiz' room, Koujaku started to protest all the while being ruthlessly steered towards the bed.
"Oi! Wait up, Noiz! Not so fast! I didn't come here for that! It's still too early, isn't it?"
He must have calculated that meeting Noiz after such a long time of abstinence might lead to sex, though, since he didn't put up as much resistance against being thrown down onto the mattress as he could have done it. Noiz climbed on top of him and Koujaku's level of fidgetiness rose even higher.
"Shouldn't we at least set the mood first or something?"
He still tried to reason with him, even as he already lay there on his back and Noiz had begun to open the collar of his kimono.
"Noiz! Seriously, wait, that's-"

"Shut up, old man, don't squeal like some virgin!", Noiz scolded him with an all too amused tone in his voice, but a cunning look in his eyes, "This will be over soon, don't worry."

"But-"

Before Koujaku could utter another word, Noiz: flopped down right on top of Koujaku's bared chest, inhaling his scent and enjoying his warmth as he put his cheek to rest there.
"Perfect..."
Then he closed his eyes and fell asleep the next moment.

"Eh?"
Koujaku blinked, totally confused by what had just happened.
"N... Noiz?"

No response.

"Uhm, hello...?"

Still no answer from Noiz aside from him breathing quietly and peacefully with his head resting on Koujaku's chest - he clearly was off to dreamland already.

Koujaku let out a sigh as he lay there staring at the ceiling with a completely baffled look on his face and stroke the overlong bangs usually covering the right side of his face back with one hand. Then he glanced back at Noiz.
He had come over to see how Noiz was doing since the brat had stopped sending him stupid text messages a while ago and Koujaku had been too stubborn to write him a message back in return out of worry that Noiz would somehow force him to come over to his place to finally make good on that promise they had shared. It was less the sex that he had been worried about and more the possible damage he could do to Noiz' body by the act, hurting him all over again. But a good three weeks had passed now, so Koujaku thought that whatever the outcome might be, the result should not be that bad for Noiz anymore, even if it might hurt him - being unable to feel pain was no reason for Koujaku to make his body ache, missing feedback from Noiz' body aside.
But he never would have guessed to be welcomed that way.

The lights were out in Noiz' room, but the screens he used to work with were still popped up and emitting light bright enough to see Noiz' features pretty clearly. He looked tired, even if he was asleep already, if the bags under his eyes were any indication. Maybe that had been the reason he had needed that long to answer the door previously, as well. Koujaku absentmindedly brushed through Noiz' short hair and then caressed Noiz' cheek with his thumb before moving his head closer towards the other to breath in his scent. It was the same fragrance he remembered from last time he had been able to bury his nose in Noiz' hair. Remembering the occasion made him blush, though, and he turned his head away again. He wasn't going to do any indecent things to a sleeping person, so he probably shouldn't try his luck like that. If anything he guessed he should get some rest now, too, and talk to Noiz in the morning. There wasn't really anything else he could do at the moment anyway. But the green light emitted by Noiz' virtual screens still hanging in midair all over the room troubled him.

"Man, I wish those screens wouldn't be that annoying.", he grumbled and to his surprise a text message with "saving progress" was displayed the next moment before the screens began to shut down one after the other, until the only source of light were the dimly glistening eyes of a stack of bunny cubes across the room, which had apparently been used to give off the images from before. Then even they stopped gleaming and Koujaku finally felt relaxed enough to fall asleep as well.