Katsumi strained round in an attempt to look at Koji's expression, but Izumi slapped him, hard, and grabbed his chin so he was forced to look into his eyes.
An irony. If Katsumi had known Koji had already got a lover then he wouldn't have dreamed of intervening.
"Koji…"
The boy's voice was like glass. Brittle. His eyes were wide, disbelieving. This isn't happening, this sort of thing only happens in TV shows. It doesn't happen in real life. But that's why father said to stay out of those bars. Stay away from that kind of person. You never know who they are, never know if you can trust them. And of course you can't trust them. Father had probably expected that something like this would happen.
Koji held the knife to Katsumi's throat in a hand which shook slightly. He didn't want to do this. But it was Izumi who'd asked. Izumi, to whom Koji had said he'd give anything if he only asked. Izumi, the person he'd said he'd die for. He had made no such promises to Katsumi, though he felt terrible. A few hours ago, the boy had told him he thought he loved him. Guiltily, he realised that the situation was turning him on. Was this all that he had wanted from Katsumi all along? he wondered, as he fumbled with the boy's clothing with his free hand. Had he only been interested in him because he wanted to destroy him?
Izumi hadn't asked for this. But there was no way Koji was prepared to kill Katsumi without having screwed him first.
Feeling Koji's hands on his bare skin, Katsumi trembled as the man undressed him. He was terrified now, too scared to scream. He couldn't see Koji's face, but seeing Izumi's was bad enough - a contemptuous sneer contorted his features. What had Katsumi ever done to him, except fall in love with Koji? Was this what you got when you loved someone? he wondered as Koji pushed him forward onto his front, landing awkwardly due to his tied wrists and bruising his knees. The pain made him gasp. The carpet tickled his skin and he sneezed. Dust and fluff and god only knew what else. Izumi stood a few feet away, just looking, and he blushed again. Being seen. Izumi's eyes were hard and scornful. Derisive.
"I'm a virgin," he gasped, not even realising why he said it. He knew what the game was now.
It hurt when Koji entered him, far more than he'd realised it would. He'd screamed and Izumi had slapped him again and told him to shut up. There was no way he could have even if he'd wanted to and Izumi knew that - he'd just wanted to hit him.
***
Hisaya had been watching the television when the phone rang, startling him and making him spill his drink slightly. He wasn't expecting any calls. Eri had gone back to her flat about half an hour earlier, but he didn't expect she'd be back yet. She'd probably have gone drinking or to a party or something. Standing up and stretching, he picked the phone up and collapsed unceremoniously back into his chair before speaking.
"Hisaya."
***
Sitting in his car at a set of traffic lights, Koji muttered a string of inventive curses. He couldn't believe it. Here he was stuck waiting at a red light at past midnight when the road was almost totally clear in both directions. This had not been what he intended to do with his Friday night. On the other hand, practically none of the events of the last few hours fell into a category he would have defined as even remotely normal for any night of his life to date.
Reaching over, he checked Katsumi's pulse again. Weak but steady. He couldn't believe he was doing this. But he didn't want Katsumi dead, no matter what Izumi said about him. He didn't know how he'd explain it to Izumi, but he wasn't letting the boy bleed to death on their living-room floor.
Fifteen minutes earlier, leaving Izumi asleep in their bedroom, Koji had walked back into the living-room and looked down at Katsumi where he lay on the carpet, his wrists still tied behind his back with Koji's belt, curled up on one side, his eyes closed, the lashes still wet with tears. The light blue shirt he had worn at the beginning of the evening was stained crimson with his own blood, the carpet was soaked with it. The rest of his clothing was scattered around the room. Koji had no idea if he was alive or not before he knelt down beside him, staining the knees of his white trousers red, blood on his shirt, in his long hair, on his hands. Most of it had been there before he had knelt on the carpet.
Koji felt totally disgusted with himself. He had enjoyed himself earlier, enjoyed what he was doing. He could tell by the look in Izumi's eyes that he'd enjoyed it too. Neither could have explained why at the time but Koji now suspected that he'd got a kick from the power he'd felt, and from the fact that he now realised that the reason he'd found Katsumi attractive was precisely because, despite all the boy's attempts to make it appear otherwise, he had seemed so totally innocent, and Koji had wanted to annihilate that innocence. Show him that you can't play dangerous games if you don't know all the rules. It could have been what had motivated Izumi too, although he suspected that Izumi had probably wanted revenge as well. Revenge for what?
Maybe it was guilt that was prompting him to try to keep Katsumi alive now. He hadn't wanted to hurt him like this.
Although he had managed to keep fairly quiet during the rape, Katsumi had started to scream again when Koji had stabbed him. He'd had a nice body, once, and a pretty face. Koji had left his face alone, he didn't know why but he'd seen it as a bridge too far, but if he lived - if he lived… shit, this is so totally screwed up, Koji thought - he'd still be scarred for life. He now sat slumped against the window in the seat next to Koji, deeply unconscious, his bloody shirt and bare legs hidden by the coat Koji had wrapped round him prior to carrying him out to the car. It, too, was rapidly becoming stained with Katsumi's blood. Koji hadn't realised, before, how much a person could bleed, and yet still stay alive.
He hoped the boy was still alive.
***
"You did what?" Izumi yelled. If he had been angry last night, he was furious now.
***
That afternoon, Madoka had just arrived back home from school and was headed to her bedroom when she heard the telephone ring. She herself wasn't meant to pick the phone up, if a call was for her, father would let her know, so she quietly walked back into the hall to eavesdrop on the conversation, one ear to the door of father's study.
Katsumi still hadn't come back. She hadn't been able to concentrate at school for worrying, although she had expected him to be back by the time she came back home. She hadn't expected to come back in to the sound of the telephone, she'd expected to walk in on one of the worryingly intense rows which father often had with Katsumi and which she and her stepmother privately suspected they both enjoyed rather too much. At least it was some kind of interaction, she guessed.
The conversation was quiet, she couldn't hear it. When people listened into conversations in the movies they never had to worry about whether or not they could hear. They could always hear perfectly. Maybe villains in the movies always talked too loud. Looked like she'd just have to ask father what it was all about when the conversation was over. Sighing, Madoka picked up her book bag again, ran her fingers through her short, light brown hair and went back to her room where she collapsed on the bed and looked out of the window. A few minutes later she heard footsteps in the corridor outside and sat up just before her father knocked on the door and opened it. She was mildly affronted.
"If you're going to knock, you could at least wait for me to reply! I could have been getting changed!" Madoka began, then sobered, noticing the look on her father's face. "Is something the matter?"
It was an awkward situation. Madoka and her father didn't speak that much. He was pretty distant towards her and had been towards Katsumi. The only reason he spent so much time fretting over him now was that his son's behaviour was giving him grey hairs. The tension in the air was palpable. Madoka knew her father wanted to tell her something, but what?
"Who was that on the phone?" she asked. "Did Onisan call?" Her father's silence was enough to tell her that was not what had happened. "Does someone know where he is?"
***
Koji looked at Izumi across the washing-up bowl of water he had set on the floor near to the stain on the carpet and smiled at him. Izumi, dressed in a pair of shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt, was cleaning the walls with a sponge. He wore a pair of rubber gloves and didn't notice Koji's smile, concentrating as he was in washing the stains off the wall. Looking away again, Koji looked down into his bowl and noticed that the water he was wringing out of his own sponge, like the water in the bowl, had taken on a pinkish tinge.
"Do we have any stain remover?" he asked, after a pause.
The pair fell silent for a while as they once again concentrated on cleaning, but when Koji got up to go and change the water in the washing-up bowl, Izumi spoke again.
He's joking, Koji thought as he refilled the bowl in the kitchen. He has to be joking. What does he mean, next time? He had been on the verge of laughing it off when a thought struck him. What if Izumi means it?
Next time? He wants to do it again?
Part 4