Brown eyes met a strange red, and a smile ran its way across Yagami Iori's face. Kyo so rarely saw him smile, it softened his features and brightened him, and in the situation he was finally able to watch him. It wasn't the hardened, cruel laughing smile everyone saw, it wasn't the cold or the sarcasm. This was Yagami Iori himself, unguarded, uncovered, smiling. He wasn't hiding from anything at that moment, least of all Kyo.

"I love you." Deep voice, whispers, he was right beside Kyo's ear. His head had found his way beside him, against his shoulder, warm breath, warm body.

"You can't."

"I know. But I do."

"Yagami, don't tell me this." He pushed Yagami away, sat far from him, at the end of the bed, the sheets tangled in his clenched fists. "You can't tell me this now, you can't love me, you don't. You just," Kyo paused to breathe, "don't."

"I guess I don't." Yagami's eyes flickered away, that smile of careless abandon long gone, and the shadows painting his face again.

"You can't."

"You're right. I can't, this is wrong, Kyo."

"Whadyou' think I've been trying to tell you?" Kyo's eyes narrowed harsh.

"That I can't love you."

"Just don't tell me!"

"Its too late."

"Yeah, now it is."

Yagami sighed, shook his head, backed to the other end of the bed. Trace scars lined his pale, strong chest, the one on his hip, a pale line dividing his chest, his jeans were undone at the button. Scant, dark auburn hairs fined up to his navel. Kyo watched him stretch, sigh, and curl into himself. The cat leaped onto the bed, rubbed his head against Yagami's leg. He reached one hand down and scratched behind the animal's ears, making it purr happily. The only one in the room who was. Yagami watched the animal, his eyes cast down and far away from Kyo.

"I need to leave."

"Bus stop's two blocks away. Don't get the car for another week."

"Take me there."

"Tomorrow. I have to close at the shop tonight, gotta' be there another hour."

"You have time to take me to the bus."

"You'll tell me to ride it with you."

"Yeah."

Yagami stretched, his head fell into his hands, broad shoulders heaved, he wasn't about to take Kyo anywhere, and he knew that. They both knew that. Too much had been said already, that could never be unsaid. Kyo stood, crossed the room, his hand on the doorknob. And stopped. Yagami, Iori, didn't look up. He sat there, his hand gently draped over the cat, the other covering his face, shoulders slumped, undone and betrayed and all these things Kyo could read off of him without trying. All these things he was broadcasting to Kyo whether he wanted to be or not. He knew Yagami altogether too well, it wasn't as though he wanted to know these things.

"You're not going to stop me?"

Yagami shook his head no.

"Good." But he didn't leave still. Tried to make himself push the door open, tried to make himself leave, tried to leave Yagami Iori and that damned ugly cat and that single room and that single encounter they had, only hours past and so strong in their minds they would never acknowledge it. To do so might kill them both. He tried to leave, and his body stopped him, something in him prevented him from turning the doorknob, making his way to the bus stop he had been promised, going home and making up some excuse as to why he had been gone all this time.

He ended up sitting alone in the evening, playing games while the cat licked a dinner plate clean of all scraps of food still on it. Yagami was off to work, had been gone some time, Kyo had left him food sitting on the counter, he couldn't work out with himself why, or didn't want to admit to himself what it was, a gesture of kindness, perhaps a gratitude for their encounter, for letting him stay for so long. A gesture of care for him.