'Kurogane,' Yuui whispered into his ear.

He could feel his warm body enveloping him.

'Don't leave me,' Yuui said, in bliss.

Floating, he felt overcome by something glowing, a wonderful sensation at body temperature. Searching for the other pair of lips he-

***

It didn't surprise him to wake up and hear the bustling in the kitchen or, more noticeably, the sharp bite of winter as it's forced to leave once more.

He sighed and left the warmth beneath his sheets.

***

'I need to talk to you,' Fai told Mr. Scott after his English class. And as a class it had been godawful. Fai couldn't shake the thoughts from his mind. Everything that his brother had told him the night before was gradually bubbling towards his eyes like a polluted spring. It made him sick and furious.

Ashura smiled and shut the door now that the other few members of the class had left. 'I take it you know the truth now. My question to you is what can you say or do to undo anything?'

'I can't,' Fai responded. 'I won't concentrate on the past because I can't change it; I can only accept it. What would be better is if I helped Yuui.'

'How very kind of you,' Ashura remarked, seemingly trying to annoy Fai.

'And I've realised,' Fai said calmly, staring into the sick man's eyes, 'that it isn't just about Yuui, is it?'

Mr. Scott smiled. 'Very clever, Fai,' he said, this time genuinely.

'So I'm right,' Fai sighed. 'This is about me too.'

'What made you realise?' Ashura asked, reminding Fai of a Cheshire cat for no particular reason. The sort of demented curiosity twisted people get when their plans are foiled, he supposed.

'You've been waiting for this,' he pointed out.

The question was repeated. 'What made you realise?'

'When Yuui was telling me about what happened,' Fai started hesitantly, 'he mentioned that you had asked if he had told me. Not if he had told anyone but me in particular. You wanted me to find out.'

'Do you know why?' Ashura smirked.

'No, I can't think of any sensible reason why a grown and responsible adult would rape a young and particularly vulnerable child to get to one of his pupils,' Fai said spitefully.

Ashura seemed to brush it off. 'Well then, are you going to turn me in?'

Fai sighed bitterly. 'I wish I could. But that's the last thing that Yuui needs.'

He looked back up to Mr. Scott with a straight and serious gaze. 'I need to ask you a few things. The first thing being, if you wanted to hurt me and not Yuui then why couldn't you have just raped me instead?'

Ashura raised his eyebrows as if he'd found an interesting article in a magazine. 'I thought you'd have realised why it wasn't you. And that's that I couldn't.'

He paused to allow Fai to reflect. 'Fai, even at that age you were an overly wary and very sensible child. Very smart and able, quite perceptive despite your youth. I'd never have been able to catch you as easily as your twin.

'The other reason,' he continued, 'is a psychological matter. Think to yourself - what would hurt you more: to be raped or to know that your precious brother had been?'

Fai didn't need to answer. Instead he glared, silently aggressive.

'This problem belongs to you and only you, Fai,' Ashura continued. 'You will shun all of your own concerns for someone you care for to an unreasonable extent. That's your flaw.'

'You're making me sound like a character in a tragedy,' Fai frowned, remembering all of the lessons he'd had with this man.

'You are,' Ashura remarked.

Fai continued to frown. Then said, 'You'll be pleased to know that I'm not just in denial about the answer to this next question – I can't figure it out. Although I'm gaining a slightly clearer picture.'

'Go on,' Ashura prompted.

'Why would you want to upset me?' Fai asked.

'Put simply, because I hate you,' Ashura said without tone. 'I always found it unbearably irritating to be confronted by the boy who realised everything. The child who was unnaturally gifted at sitting still, being quiet, studying others and always being right. You are a strange boy with psychological problems as deep as you can interpret in others.'

'So you feel threatened by me,' Fai instantly translated. 'You thought that I would discover you were a closet pervert and tell the other teachers. And that I'd realise at some point that you're a sick and agitated man who hates his life. Nothing went right for you, did it?'

Ashura's tone changed for the first time. It became more resentful. 'Correct again.'

Grabbing the opportunity with both hands, digging his nails in, Fai continued. 'You became sick of everything and chose to pour all of your hatred into the most vulnerable targets you could find for petty reasons.'

'Understanding so much, comprehending so little,' Ashura remarked, attempting to mar Fai.

'You hate me because I somehow intimidate you … Was there someone like me you used to know?'

Ashura said nothing. Just stared at him coldly. Fai hadn't been so sure if the last guess had been true or not but his next shot hit the mark.

'Has anyone ever loved you?' Fai asked, targeting the man who had brutally taken advantage of his brother as viciously and as personally as he could.

And just like in Yuui's story, the hands moved towards him before he realised what was happening. Like Yuui, he found one hand placed too firmly over his mouth. He could feel the other pressing the sides of his neck.

'I shouldn't have to do this, Fai,' Ashura muttered, pushing him back into the dark recesses of the room, where no one could see from the corridors. The windows were not at ground level.

He shook his head. 'No. You're my top pupil. And this subject at your high level is so subjective I could constantly mark you down for no reason and no one would be able to protest or even realise. I could even make your life miserable because I am your teacher and I have control.'

Ashura smiled pleasantly and his fingers pressed tighter around Fai's neck.

Maybe Fai could have prised the fingers off? But he was frozen. Helpless. Although, despite learning the meaning of the phrase 'paralysed by fear', being confronted by a psychopath, feeling his breath being slowly strangled from his body, he was somehow certain he wouldn't die. Perhaps he'd merely become accustomed to the presence of death on his shoulder, immune to its threats after being given time to anticipate its arrival. Death in a few months? Death today? He was prepared enough. But today was too soon for Yuui.

'You know,' Ashura started again, 'I could ruin you. I could have physically hurt you or I could have destroyed your life at school. But I didn't. Because I knew that you would ruin your own life. You spend so much time thinking about your brother, Fai, worrying about him when he's clearly insane, that you won't care about your own troubles or worries. Yuui will wreck your life and you'll be happy about it. That's how strange you are, Fai.'

Fai tried to shut it out, all these words involving twins, these words he didn't want to hear and it was then, when he stepped back and felt the solid fingers, saw the darkness and proximity, that the danger clicked firmly in his mind. Finally, after so long, he started to fight against it, wriggling, grabbing Ashura's immobile, stone hands. 'I don't care,' he screamed, although all it came out incomprehensible.

Ashura removed the hand covering his mouth, anticipating Fai's words.

'I don't care if you kill me now, but you'll hurt Yuui,' he cried, voice breaking from the pressure applied to his throat.

Ashura raised his eyebrows. Fai stopped struggling, slightly horrified and scared by the words he'd just uttered. It was true.

'You realise now,' Ashura said smugly, not even hiding the satisfaction in his voice, 'that you are just as insane as Yuui or maybe even me.'

Fai felt tears rising to the corners of his eyes, whispering hoarsely, fear dripping like sickening, inhuman slime from his voice, 'I'm not you … I'm not like you dammit!' Fai tried to yell but he was cut off again by the tightening grip and the hand being replaced over his mouth.

'He's 19 years younger than me, he doesn't even realise what he's doing but he's dependent on it as if it were a drug. And in a way, I depend on him, Fai… Do you have any idea what your brother feels like? Or what he tastes like? How he cries sometimes without a specific cause? How he sometimes closes his eyes and speaks that other boy's name when I touch him?' He shakes his head. 'How he's grown to find some sort of sick pleasure in this and how he hates himself for that? I know Yuui better than you because I am his last resort, the outlet for everything haunting him, stuck inside of him like resin. I did it because I wanted to harm you… so I thank you.'

Fai's horrified eyes glanced first up at his teacher and then across to the other who had entered the room carrying booklets.

***

Thank god, thank god he ran into Kurogane at the end of the second corridor - that other boy.

'What's happened?' Kurogane asked urgently. As Fai had passed, he'd caught his arm, causing the twin to yelp and turn around. Kurogane had even thought it was Yuui for a second, he was so accustomed to seeing one twin as fragile and the other as emotionally secure.

His worries only deepened as he watched Fai break down in front of him. 'Kurogane,' he sobbed, tears starting to pour from his eyes, 'you've got to help me!'

***

It took him a while to calm him down properly. In fact, the bell signalling the end of lunch and the end of his prefect duties had already rung. Fai had changed from seeming almost lost and unsure to hysterical and back again. He had kept on repeating that he needed to leave but Kurogane kept holding him back, gripping his shoulders tightly and pushing him back down into a seat he'd found for him. Every time this happened he'd tell him it'd be alright (perhaps slightly more assertively than most) and every time Fai blinked up to him with eyes glistening in sheer belief. Until he asked again.

He kept glancing around, touching his neck, constantly and consciously. Kurogane was growing incredibly suspicious but couldn't figure out what was wrong. This definitely wasn't like him… What'd he gotten himself into?

Finally Fai gave one last deep shuddering breath and stared distantly.

'Calmed down?' Kurogane asked him, thankful it was over.

Fai pursed his lips but didn't answer. Instead he jumped up suddenly, grabbed Kurogane's wrist and marched towards the door, saying, 'You need to come with me.'

'For fuck's sake, Fai! What's wrong?' yelled Kurogane, snapping.

Fai stared back woefully.

***

'Please, you need to understand that was the first time that's happened,' Fai was begging one of the English teachers whose name escaped Kurogane.

'So you're expecting me to just forget about it?' she said disbelievingly. She was sat at her desk, head in hands, messing up her well-arranged hair in her distress.

'No, that's not it, I just don't want to be implicated,' Fai told her.

'How am I supposed to say anything if I can't prove it? It'll sound like I'm making it all up!' the teacher protested.

'Please, they just need to trust you!' Fai insisted.

The teacher looked at him and shook her head as if clearing her thoughts and changing them. 'Are you alright?'

'What the hell's going on?' Kurogane asked demandingly in the background.

They both ignored him.

'Yeah, I'm okay,' Fai said.

She stared towards Fai, eyebrows furrowed, for a minor length of time and then asked, concerned, 'Do you want him to be punished?'

Fai nodded, 'Yes. It's not just me who's involved and … for what he did … I want him to die.' His face suddenly twitched and sank again until he was crying, as if there was something painful only he could realise. 'I want him to die,' he repeated faintly.

***

It was only after Fai had said this that Kurogane realised, with a lurch of his stomach, who this was about – Yuui.

***
Note: You know for once I have nothing to say, just enjoy and review!