A/N: If you wanna read the disclaimer, it's in the first chapter! (If you're really that interested..^_^)  And I feel this chapter isn't as good as it could be… I don't know, it needed angst, and I wasn't in the mood of writing the angst required, so… Well, I hope you'll like it anyway..^^

And loads and loads of thanks to these guys too: Miss Mew, anonymous, joyeuse femme en pain d'epices (*ducks and covers head* Please don't kill me with evil Pikachu's!!), Nine, Misty Ishida, Crysie, SakumaRyuichi, babydragon, Spirited-Away, Linnda, Moonlite (Musuku's an original character, I kind of made him up because I needed a "bad guy" and didn't wanna bash one of the DD's^_~), ColourBlind, yamatoforever, Sasha, Sheelena, Sazzie, nEo-cHaN, Willow, and Trisha!

I've had a kind of rough time the latest months, and you've really helped me with encouraging me to continue to write. I really feel I should apologize for the long wait as well, and I hope you still remember this fic:-)

Linger by ThatGirl

~chapter three, ~

"What… What was that?" Tai asked, resisting the urge to spit, almost as if he still could feel Musuku's tongue caress the inside of his mouth.

"You didn't like it?" Musuku wondered, almost looking a bit hurt.

"You just kissed me!" Tai stated the obvious in an accusing tone. 'Shock' or 'surprise' would have been a major understatement to describe what he was feeling.

"Well, yeah."

Tai just gaped, not caring about the fact that he must've looked about like a dying fish flushed up on a shore.

*****

He doesn't even care, he doesn't. Probably never has, and I was just too blind to see it… Matt's mind raced as he tore through the traffic. He did not care if the angry drivers honked like crazy at him, and hell, he would not have cared if they had stood on the gas pedal and accelerated either! A terrible pain was nagging in his chest, radiating up to his throat, and he clenched his jaws to prevent tears from slipping out of his eyes.

He had been right… all this time.

Every night he had stayed up late, waiting for Tai to come home from "work", every dinner that had slowly gotten colder and colder on the kitchen table, every evening that his face had screwed up and he had forced back the tears… he had been so… damn… right...

And every time, Tai had denied it.

Why, to cause him more pain? Or had he been afraid he would crack like an eggshell once his boyfriend told him he didn't want him anymore? That he had found another who wasn't a fucked up mess with an attitude problem? Someone who… who maybe… just was not Matt. All the things Matt did wrong, the ways he wasn't perfect, the old scars after the divorce and those horrible lines his parents threw at each other that still rang in his ears sometimes, and the flaws that…

Matt shoved the thoughts out of his head. He had heard them so many times before, always creeping around in the back of his head, the doubts and the never-ending fear. Feeling like squeezing his eyes shut and scream, clasping his head and shake it until they went away, he wanted them to go away, but at the same time, he was to weak to make them.

He had not even noticed that he had gotten to the apartment building where he and Tai lived, just gone into it by mere instinct, taking the stairs because the elevator was broken again, then locked up the door and gone inside.

No-one was home, and Matt had not been expecting anyone to be. Tai was doubtlessly still with Musuku.

That strange pain in his chest was clasping his heart tightly by now. It tinged in his fingertips when he quietly ran his hand over the chest of drawers in the hall as he passed it, and went into the bedroom, where he laid down on the bed. He blinked once, and when his eyes opened again, they were burning.

Something warm and wet trickled down his cheeks, but his brain didn't register.

It hurt…

He was so weak.

Matt swallowed and looked up in the ceiling. Taking a deep breath, he simply ignored the feelings, burying them somewhere deep below his surface where they would not escape, and then he sealed the lock the way he had learned to seal it. All that remained inside of him was a strange, yet familiar, emptiness that was not really empty, but… only hollow. He felt hollow. Though he did not care, because it was better than…

No, he would not think of it... He would not. Did not want to.   
The world both spun and stood completely still as he closed his eyes.

Why were those warm, wet drops still running down his cheeks?

*****

Tai picked up his cell phone from the pocket of his jacket. He had made it clear for Musuku that he had wanted him to leave quite quickly, and Musuku had done just that a good fifteen minutes ago, but Matt still had not shown up.
Could he tell Matt about what had happened?
Tai did not know…

How would he react? Would he be relieved when Tai told him that he had shoved Musuku off him and then told him about what had happened, or would he be angry, hurt, sad?

If this only had not happened…

Tai bit his lip and tapped nervously at the table with is fingers. He had taken a seat in the café after Musuku had left, dreading and hoping Matt would show up sometime soon. It did not seem that way though. He had waited for, Tai glanced at his clock, almost an hour now.

Maybe Matt had forgotten it. That was not like Matt to forget like that at all, but maybe he had, just this time.

Tai fidgeted a little with the sleeve of the jacket and waited another twenty minutes. And another twenty, and another twenty, stubborn as he was.

Eventually though, he gave up. Matt was clearly not going to come.

Tai left "The Green Hunter" without having ordered anything, and hurried down the street to get home to the apartment.

By the time he got there, Matt was long gone. There was something about the atmosphere. It had been almost two hours since IT had happened, and if Matt had been home at all, which Tai still somewhere in the back of his head had a feeling of that he had, he had left again in maybe an hour. The only question was to where.

Tai absentmindedly locked the front door behind him and not caring about taking his shoes of, he took a few steps into the hall. It was so quiet. He looked into the kitchen. The daily little pile of mail was on the table, and a dirty plate and a few glasses were in the sink, waiting for someone to do the dishes. It hit Tai that he almost never did the dishes, Matt was more than often the one to do that. The living room was just as eerily the same and empty. Tai flicked the light on and then off again when he saw that there was nothing out of the ordinary there. The bathroom door stood half open and inside it was dark, so he did not bother to check, just stared at it for a while. When he got to the bedroom, the small knot of… fear, despair, he could not quite identify it, grew to its maximum yet. He scrunched his eyebrows together and his eyeballs swelled and felt hot. There was nothing in the room except for some wrinkles on the bedspread that told him that someone had been lying there.
Tai swallowed and touched the silky material with the tips of his fingers, and not surprisingly, the somewhat stiffer traces of salt, dried tears, were what he felt. Tai sank to his knees by the bed. His head dropped onto the bed as if he had been a puppet that had gotten a small push from behind. Matt's scent filled his nose when he took a ragged breath, and he knew what had happened, even though he did not want to.

A sudden wave of anger washed over him and he slammed his fists into the bed, gritting his teeth to bite back the scream that wanted out of his throat. Tears leaked out of his eyes. God, he wanted to scream. Scream and beat something, most preferably himself or maybe Musuku, but also maybe Matt, into a bloody pulp. Or no, not Matt. He had not done anything wrong, and Tai knew that all too well. As fast as the anger had come, it was gone and left him only with a mix of sorrow and guilt. Which was not a very pleasant thing either.

Then, a horrible noise cut through the room. The phone was ringing.

A/N: So… What did you think about it? Please review!