Song: Faulty Information - Ra

Chapter 35: Faulty Information

I felt so vulnerable crying like that in front of Misaki. True, I had cried in front of him before when Takahiro announced his marriage, but this felt very different. It was a lot more emotional and terrifying; the whole ordeal was, actually: telling the one I truly loved everything that had happened to me that I had been trying so hard over the years to forget. The scariest part was that I didn't know how he would react to the information. It was remarkable how accepting he was of it.

When we had both finally calmed our sobbing down a little bit, I cradled his head in my hands and wiped away his tears. The action brought about a few new ones, so I wiped those away as well. He raised a shaky hand to my cheeks and did the same to me. We both smiled at the touching act. The whites of his eyes were starting to turn an angry red color from all the crying. I guessed that he had been crying a lot the whole time I was away from him as well. My eyes probably looked the same way.

"Let's go home," I whispered in a hoarse voice.

He nodded and we both helped each other to our feet. It was only after we had finished crying that I realized how freezing cold I was and I could clearly see Misaki shivering. Without thinking, I pulled my coat off and draped it around his shoulders. He looked up at me in surprise, then worry.

"Usagi-san, you'll get cold." His voice also sounded a bit weak.

"It's just to the car. I'll be fine."

We slowly walked side by side back across the bridge towards my car. Normally, I would have carried him or at least tried to hold his hand. However, I still had insecurities. I didn't want to do anything that he might not like me to do. The old me wouldn't have cared if he told me he didn't want to do something, whether he meant it or not. But I knew I had to change… for Misaki… for myself.

As soon as we got in the car, he handed me back my coat and softly thanked me. I cranked up the heat as high as it would go. We silently sat and waited for it to warm up. Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see him rubbing his hands together to warm them up. I should have reached over and held them in my own, but I couldn't bring myself to no matter how badly I wanted it.

When I could feel the heat deepening to my bones, I finally spoke up. "Takahiro told me you were missing."

He gasped. "Nii-chan?! Oh no! He's probably worried sick! What am I going to tell him?"

"I can call him and tell him that I found you safe and sound."

He quietly sighed. "But then, he'll just expect me to go back to his place."

I couldn't help but want to smile at what he meant deep down. "You mean you don't want to go back?" I was baiting him, but how else would I know what he wanted if he didn't actually say it?

"N-No! Wh-What I meant was…" He paused and stared at his feet. "If you really don't want me anymore, then I'll go back. I don't want to be a burden to you and – "

"Misaki," I interrupted. "What if I do want you to stay with me?"

Part of his face was hidden by his hair, but I could clearly see a blush forming on his cheek. "T-Then, I'll go h-home with you."

"Do you want to stay with me?"

"Idiot… Didn't you hear what I said just a little bit ago?"

I smiled widely, even though he wasn't looking at me to see it. "Just making sure. I don't want to do anything that you don't want. From now on, let's both be honest with each other. You tell me what you want and I'll tell you what I want. Okay?"

"O-Okay," he whispered so quietly that I almost missed it.

"Good. Do you want me to call Takahiro then?"

He gave a slight nod, still refusing to turn my way. I didn't think much of it as I pulled out my phone. There were at least 20 missed calls from his obviously worried brother. It was inconsiderate of me not to call him as soon as I had found Misaki, but I had been too busy saving my relationship with him.

Takahiro answered the phone almost immediately after I pushed the call button. "Usagi?! Did you find him?! You didn't answer my calls!"

"Yes, yes. I've found him."

He let out a strangled sigh. "Oh thank god! Is he alright? Where is he? I'll come get him and take him home right away!"

"He's fine and that's not necessary," I quickly interrupted. "We're way on the other side of the city. He's very tired right now, so I'm going to take him to the penthouse and let him go to bed for the night."

"Usagi, that's really not necessary. He should stay with Manami-san and I."

"Takahiro, it's the least I can do after the way I acted. I deeply apologize for leaving him alone like that. I needed some time to sort things out, but I handled everything the wrong way. Misaki and I talked things out and everything is fine between us. We both agree that he should continue living with me."

He didn't speak again for a few moments. He took several breaths as if he was going to speak, but I heard him exhale immediately afterwards. I became a little nervous. Honestly, I had expected him to just agree with me and let everything go back to normal.

"Usagi," he finally said, "I really appreciate you taking care of Misaki for so long and helping us find him tonight. But you left him all alone without saying a word to him. Do you understand how much that hurt him?"

I felt my heart break at his words. "Yes, I know. We've talked about it and worked things out between us."

"It's not that I don't trust you not to do this again, but I am worried. Misaki was very distraught by this whole ordeal." He paused and sighed again. "But he's an adult and needs to make his own decisions, even if it's something I don't entirely agree with. Does he really want to stay with you?"

It was such a relief that he wasn't going to keep him away from me. "Yes, he does."

"Alright. I'll talk to him tomorrow then. Make sure he gets plenty of rest. Goodnight."

Something seemed a bit off with his voice, but I didn't think much of it. He just didn't think that Misaki should stay with me after what I did. I couldn't blame the guy for being protective over him. I was happy that Takahiro was acknowledging that his brother was an adult and could make his own decisions.

I let out the breath I was holding as my phone snapped shut. "He's very worried about you. I don't think he'll forgive me for leaving you like that."

Misaki finally looked up at me. "He just doesn't understand. He's way too overprotective!"

I shrugged. "Well, I can't really blame him. You understand though, right?"

He nodded before quickly turning away, his face beginning to turn red. I smiled and paused the conversation to drive back to the old penthouse. It wasn't very far from the old bridge. Even though all of my stuff was at the newer apartment, it was a bit further away. I just wanted to get home so we could talk a bit more and go to sleep. As soon as we reached the penthouse, he started to fidget a bit in his seat.

"We're staying at this apartment?" he gasped.

"Yes," I replied as I parked the car in the parking garage. "I like this one much better. I'll get my stuff from the other home tomorrow and cancel that lease. This is our home."

"Um… I don't know. Shouldn't we stay where your things are, Usagi-san?"

"It'll be fine for one night. There are spare sheets in the linen closet for the beds."

"But, um, it's probably dirty in there! No one has been living there for a month now. It's probably very dusty."

Dirty… Oh. That's right. The broken glass everywhere.

Still sitting in the car, I turned to him and held my hand up to his cut cheek. His eyes widened and he blushed. My thumb gently grazed the cut, making his breath catch in his throat.

"I've already seen it." I gave him a sympathetic smile. "You really were hurt weren't you? I'm so sorry."

"I-I'm sorry for breaking your stuff. That was childish, no matter the reason behind it."

"It's okay. I forgive you." I removed my hand. "Let's go inside."

We walked to the elevator and rode up to the penthouse in silence. When the elevator doors opened, he immediately rushed out and started picking up all of the ripped up envelopes and money that was by the mailbox.

"I'm so sorry!" he repeated. "I'll clean up all the glass inside too!"

I knelt down beside him and helped picked up some money. "Don't worry about it. Let's just sleep for tonight and deal with the cleaning up and moving of our stuff tomorrow."

Once everything was picked up, we went inside and threw away the scraps. I tried to convince Misaki that the money was his and that he should keep it. He fought me hard though and eventually I ended up keeping the money. Even though I kept insisting to leave things be, we ended up cleaning up all the broken glass and dishes in the kitchen as well. Actually, I was rather thankful that he did it so that we could talk more.

"Um, so, Usagi-san, was all of this the reason that everyone kept telling me that it would be bad if I stayed with you?"

I was a little shocked at what he said. "Huh? Who said that to you?"

"Everyone! Well, I mean, most of them didn't say it, but they all seemed so surprised when they found out I was living with you. It was your brother that said it, but the way everyone else reacted made me think that they were all thinking the same thing. Even Nii-chan seemed to think that you were a bad person to live with!"

I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard him talk about Takahiro. It kind of hurt to know that my dear friend thought about me in an unpleasant way. It was cruel, but I knew it had nothing to do with what had happened.

"Takahiro doesn't know. My brother, my father, Isaka-san, Aikawa-san… they all know about what happened back then. But Takahiro… he has no idea." I noticed that Misaki had stopped sweeping up glass and was just staring at the floor. "They were all just concerned that I would do something like that again."

"A-Ah," he stuttered. "I see."

We were silent for a few more minutes as we swept up more glass. There were still so many questions I had turning around in my head. I needed to ask him all of them if we were ever going to move on. Besides, we had agreed to be honest and upfront with each other. Even though I was nervous, I just started spilling out all of my insecurities.

"If you say that you love me, then is there any particular reason why you act so negatively towards me?"

Either the bluntness or suddenness of the question caught him off guard. He stumbled with the dustpan full of glass, but luckily didn't drop it. His cheeks became flushed and he started stammering nonsense. I sighed and tried to rephrase my question.

"When I would touch you, you'd push me away. And I don't understand why you had such a hard time before saying that you love me."

The blush on his face became more prominent. He had completely stopped cleaning and just stood there, wringing his hands together in front of him. "Uh, um, I-I don't know. It-It's like, you know, embarrassing and stuff." He didn't dare look up at me. "I still don't understand this whole being together thing."

A small part of me felt relief from his explanation. "You're still embarrassed after all this time?" I chuckled. "I always thought you didn't like me touching you or that everything had been forced."

He slowly glanced up, his eyes soft. "If I seriously didn't want it, I wouldn't have stayed with you."

It was a real eye-opener. All this time I had been worried that he didn't want it; that he didn't want me. Because of what had happened in my past with Ryuto I feared that the same thing was happening again. However, it was just that Misaki was too shy about expressing his feelings. Somewhere in my heart I knew that, but I was too insecure to keep myself believing that, even though it was the truth.

I so badly wanted to reach out and pull him towards me. My body was craving him and I longed to touch him. It was as if my body was frozen right at that spot. I didn't want to upset him or embarrass him by hugging or kissing him since I had promised myself that I would take things slow until he was more comfortable. How long will I be able to do that? I certainly wasn't able to wait at the beginning of our relationship…

He got a sudden burst of energy and continued to sweep up the hazardous material. I continued as well until it was all cleaned up. He reminded me that there was still the mess in the bathroom as well. As we walked out of the kitchen, he stopped and looked at Suzuki-san on the couch. Just as I was about to ask him what was wrong, he rushed over to the stuffed animal and picked it up.

"Suzuki-san…" he whispered as he hugged the bear. "That's the same name as your senpai. Why? Don't you hate him for what he did?"

I shrugged. "That was a coincidence. Suzuki is just a common Japanese name. I've never really had a grudge against him for what happened. Now that I look back on it, he was just some pedophile that took advantage of my feelings. But it was my fault that I listened to him. I don't blame him for what happened with Ryuto."

"Um, Usagi-san," Misaki whispered nervously. "Do you think that you were scared that Sumi-senpai would do something like your senpai did?"

His questions were coming from out of nowhere – however, so were mine. We hadn't talked much about my senpai, only Ryuto. In fact, I never really thought much about him either. I just knew that all the things he told me about showing someone you love them were bullshit. But now that Misaki mentioned it…

"I… I never really thought about that before," I said truthfully. "It's possible, I guess." I gave him a small smile. "Actually, I'm a tiny bit jealous of anything that comes near you." His cheeks flared up. "I don't want anything to come in between us again."

"Um, y-yeah," he quietly agreed as he sat Suzuki-san back down on the couch.

We cleaned up the mess in the bathroom without much conversation. I couldn't believe how much of a mess he made just because I had left him. I really screwed up big time. Now that I thought back on it… that was very cruel of me to just leave him like that. He must have been so confused and lonely. I know how much he hates being left ever since his parents died. I tried to push those thoughts away and just focus on the present and our future together.

When we finally finished cleaning up all the glass, we went upstairs to the linen closet and brought out extra sheets and pillows. We went to my room first and started making my bed. There, I decided to talk a bit more about things.

"So, why were you thinking about jumping from that bridge?"

He stopped and stared at me with the corner of the bedsheet in his hands. "Huh? I wasn't going to jump! I was just taking a walk to think about things. I can't even remember when I ended up on that bridge."

I sighed in relief. "When I saw you there, I was so terrified that you were going to try to kill yourself just like… you know."

Misaki hid his eyes behind his hair. "Sorry."

"You don't need to apologize." I paused as we finished putting the sheets on the bed. "What exactly happened today?"

He fluffed up one of the pillows, still refusing to look at me. "I-I realized I was an idiot. I realized that I should have met with you and talked with you. So I came over here thinking I would catch you while you were dropping off the money, but I came and saw that you had already dropped it off. So I got very angry with myself for hiding from you and hiding from fixing things. It was really stupid of me to break everything like that, but I was pissed for missing my chance to talk to you. So to cool down afterwards I went for a walk. Somehow I ended up on the bridge and you found me."

He barely peeked up at me to gage my reaction. "I see. That was very brave of you to try to come talk things out with me." I smirked a little. "However, it wasn't me dropping off the money. Aikawa-san did it in the morning before she went to work."

His head snapped up. "Huh?! So that was pointless of me?!"

"It wasn't pointless. If you hadn't gone out for a long time Takahiro would have never found me and then I wouldn't have found you."

He followed me to his room and we put the sheets on his bed as well. I had planned on talking to him a bit more about things, but I was getting groggy. I could see that he was also very sleepy as well. When I suggested that we go to bed and talk more tomorrow, he nodded in agreement.

"Thank you for everything, Misaki," I said sincerely. "And I'm sorry for everything else. I really do love you."

He looked at me with wide eyes, taking in a quick breath with my confession. I reached out to ruffle his hair, but stopped in fear. I didn't want to do anything that he didn't want. I told myself that I had to change and I was going to stick with it. He stood there with his head bowed, as if he was waiting for it. When I didn't touch him, he gazed up at me.

"Wh-What?" he stuttered.

"Nothing. Goodnight, Misaki. If you need anything, you know where I am."

With that, I turned and left him alone. It hurt not being able to ruffle his hair, or hold him, or kiss him. I wanted to so badly, just like I used to. Someday we'd get back to our normal life and I could touch him again. Until then, I had to be on my best behavior. I had to get him to trust me again.

It felt weird getting into an empty bed. Even though I had been sleeping alone for the past month, knowing that I had Misaki back made me feel like he should be right there beside me. I had been in bed for less than five minutes when I heard a soft knock on the door.

"Yes?" I called out.

The door opened, but he didn't move from the doorway. "Umm, I just wanted to make sure that everything was okay. Because… cause you were crying so much earlier."

I sat up slowly and looked at the figure in the dark. "I'm fine. What about you? Are you okay?"

"Yes. I just… It's weird… for you to, you know, not want me to sleep with you. S-So, I thought something was still wrong."

I could picture how red his adorable cheeks were getting. "Misaki, do you want to sleep with me?"

"O-Only if you need me to."

I smiled widely. "I would love that."

He closed the door and walked to the bed. It dipped down beside me as he crawled underneath the covers. We both laid still and silent. Now that he was right beside and had come in willingly, the need to touch him was stronger than ever. However, I was trying hard to keep my promise. If he didn't point-blank tell me that he wanted me to do something, then I wasn't going to go anything to him.

Suddenly, he rolled towards me so that our shoulders were touching. It was so quiet that I could hear the thumping of a heart. Whose was it? Was it both of ours? What were we both so nervous about? We were lovers after all. Slowly, I lifted my arm up as if I was going to wrap it around him. I held it up above his head and paused. If he didn't want me to hold him, wouldn't he move away?

Slowly, he leaned in and laid his head on my chest. I gasped at the action. This was so unlike him to want to be like this with me. I gently put my arm down around him and held him close. He sighed, almost contently.

"Goodnight, Usagi-san," he whispered.

"Goodnight, Misaki."

We fell asleep just like that.

Hey all! Sorry for the extremely long wait. I had writer's block pretty bad and wasn't sure what to write and whatever I did write sounded like total garbage to me. But I finally finished and I felt like it was total crap, so I decided to go with it! So, sorry if it's suck and if it's not up to par with what this story has been. I think I'm just all burnt out since we already had that epic climax! But I know I still want to wrap things up. So there will probably only be 2 more chapters - one of which will be an amazing lemon. *wink wink* Thanks for sticking around so far guys!