Hi everyone! It's about time I wrote an author's note, as I've just realised I forgot to do it for the other three chapters! I hope you're enjoying the story so far - there is still a long way to go, and much more of Ken and Omi before we reach Ken as he is in the present day! I really enjoyed writing this chapter: I think it's my favourite so far, just for how sweet they are together as a couple. Is there anything sweeter than Ken and Omi together? I think not. :D

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to review - I really appreciate the detailed feedback you've been giving me! Chrysoprase, Hinto Hoshiko, Rock and Yaoi, Kasra, Charlie, Koneko Bombay, and Crazy: you rule. And to Cat, my fantastic proofreader, who's never too busy to read over whatever I place in front of her, and makes the most useful and encouraging comments: thank you. I'd not be able to do this even half as well without you. :)

I remember now, Aya's words, and their significance. Rediscovering how football makes me feel alive was the first step to becoming human again, and now I have taken another, remembering how being in love used to make me feel. Was it what kept Omi and me sane until we went our separate ways? I only lost it after I lost him, after all... but I think, probably, that my descent into madness would have happened anyway. I feel awkward saying that, as it is still hard to accept that there is anything wrong with me at all. This emptiness in my chest, however – an emptiness that is beginning to be filled up, now, but an emptiness nonetheless – and this feeling of wrongness, this feeling that enjoying taking people's lives away should not be a part of me, tell me that there is indeed something very wrong with me. The only way I can think to erase this is to sit here and remember: remember a Ken Hidaka who was alive. And I can't remember a time when I felt more alive than when Omi and I first... well, when we first... y'know...

We'd been together for exactly two months and nine days: I know this because I counted, however soppy that might make me seem. I'm smiling now, just thinking about it! Every last detail is important to me; the more I remember, the more real it remains, and I have a feeling that the more real things are for me the better in a time like this. If I let myself get lost in my own world again, I will undo everything I have worked through today, and I... I want it to stop. I don't want to enjoy causing pain, taking lives, revelling in blood, anymore. If I concentrate on how giving pleasure made me feel, then... well, maybe there is hope.

I had learned very quickly that Omi was nowhere near as innocent as he outwardly appeared – our first kiss had shown me that! – so it was no surprise to me that he set the pace and the mood of the evening. We had already been intimately acquainted with each other's bodies for a while, the most memorable time being that first session in the shower we had together... but the question of going that extra step had not really been voiced by either of us yet. We'd just been content with touching and kissing late into the night, discovering exactly what it was that made the other gasp with passion undisguised.

The first few days in which we had started to go to bed with each other, rather than just he or me creeping back to our own bed in the middle of the night, was when Yohji found out about us. We'd been meaning to sit down and tell him, especially because Aya had already guessed and it wasn't fair otherwise, but he beat us to it. I have always been very... vocal, in bed – I suppose I like to wear my emotions on my sleeve, most of the time – and despite our best efforts to keep quiet when we knew our team mates were home, Omi doing something very interesting caused me to moan loudly in a manner that could never be confused with night terrors or stubbing a toe in the dark. Yohji's room was next door to mine, and when we heard the door open and then the bathroom light flicker on, we looked at each other, in the dim light, and started to giggle. We weren't one hundred percent sure he had heard us – heard me! – but the situation just seemed so funny, as if we were naughty teenagers hiding from our parents, that we cuddled under the blankets for what felt like an age, trying very hard to mask our not-quite awake laughter but failing miserably in a way that only two very naked and very amused people can do.

The next afternoon, when I was sitting in the kitchen on my lunch break, eating a sandwich, Yohji strolled in, on his way to start his shift. He waved at me cheerfully, and all seemed normal, until he clapped me playfully on the back and said, right next to my ear, "Is that all you've been eating, Ken?"

I choked on my sandwich and he laughed, a deep, rich chuckle which went from nought to saucy in under two seconds. I was still choking when he ceremoniously set a small bottle of lubricant on the table, next to my unfinished sandwich, and said, still right in my ear, "Have fun, kittens..." He winked, gave me a grin that was probably illegal in some of the world's smaller countries, and then sauntered off, whistling. It was the most surreal experience I think I've ever had, although the thing foremost in my mind at the time was to rescue myself from suffocation: there was no way I was going to die with a bottle of lube next to my sandwich!

Rather than being mortified, as I had quietly worried he would be, Omi found it riotously funny, and now always had to cough back laughter every time I ate a sandwich when he was in the room. It was an odd food to associate with the unspoken significance that that little bottle held, but then it became a kind of game, to see who could say to Aya or Yohji, "Would you like a sandwich?" with a straight face. The innuendo of the question was not lost on anyone, and just watching Aya try to pretend that it was otherwise was priceless in itself. We gave up on that game after a few days, though – Yohji actually knocking on the door late at night asking in a mock sultry tone if we were hungry was enough of a sign that it was time we should stop – and the bottle was stowed away in one of Omi's bedside drawers, to deal with and discuss later.

We were in Omi's room on the night we first made love. It had been a wonderful Saturday: we'd convinced Aya and Yohji to come bowling with us - Omi had of course won, because his aim is exceptional – and then Omi and I had gone to the park in the afternoon, strolling under the trees in the sunshine eating ice cream. We'd even dared to hold hands for a little while, and had stolen a few kisses under the cherry blossoms when the sun started going down. We sat there for hours, watching the sky change from orange to red to a dusky violet, and when the stars came out, we tried naming some of the constellations, until Omi realised that I was making them up – I still maintain that Orion does have a katana – and punched me lightly on the arm, saying "You should have paid more attention in astrology!"

"That was back in third grade!" I kicked his shoe softly and laughed, pulling him close to me and then shifting my weight backwards, so that we both ended up on our backs, looking up at the stars.

"Know what I do pay attention to?" I murmured in his ear, a small chuckle accidentally punctuating the end of the sentence.

"The soccer results?" Omi was being facetious on purpose, to tease me right back.

"Mmm..." I acquiesced lazily. "But guess again..."

"This?"

I wondered what he meant, until his lips brushed against mine, velvety soft and there for mere seconds before he returned to his original position, lying down on the grass, his arms behind his head.

"You'll have to take me home if you want some more..."

Omi did this every time – I would start teasing him, and then he would turn it around and leave me desperate before I could register what was happening. It was exciting, and I let him know this by running my tongue achingly slowly over his earlobe before purring "Okay..." next to his ear, feeling him shiver as I did so.

Home couldn't be reached fast enough, and as soon as we tumbled through Omi's bedroom door, we were kissing heatedly, pent-up desire manifesting itself in kisses that were deeper and deeper, and yet would never be enough to satiate. It was all we could do to remember to lock the door on the way to the bed, where he settled on top of me, hands buried in my hair as our mouths danced, tongues playing over each other as we struggled to show each other how we felt. I moaned, deep in my throat, when Omi moved his hands from my hair, sliding them under my shirt, stroking my nipples slowly, maddeningly so, and I was forced to intensify the kiss, intensify it so that he could feel my radiating need... but still he teased, very obviously enjoying the reaction he was drawing from me.

"It's getting hot in here, isn't it?" Omi said, withdrawing from the kiss and stretching his arms above his head, deliberately showing off his lithe body in a way that always made me even hotter. He was pretending not to care that he too was desperate to return to my arms and my kiss.

"It's only hot because you're being an unbearable tease," I managed to pant, trying to chide him but only weakening my position by making it obvious that I was completely at his mercy. All he had to do was look at me, or brush me with his fingertips, caress me with his tongue, and I was simply putty in his hands, anxious to do whatever he desired.

"Ken-kun! I'd never tease you!" he protested, all the while inching his shirt off as slowly as he could, revealing inch after inch of enchantingly creamy skin, skin that I longed to taste and touch and possess...

I pulled my own shirt off quickly, knowing from experience that any attempt to emulate him would be closer to funny than it would be to erotic. I just wasn't as sensual as Omi; my charm was more athletic, he told me – flowing movements and endless energy, combined with a flexibility that no natural being should be able to possess. I think he was joking about that last bit, but to an extent it's true, and I enjoy being able to show it off... just like he was doing with that damn shirt!

"'Ken-kun! I'd never tease you!'" I muttered back at him, taking over and easing it over his head, then pulling him back on top of me, our skin flush and our eyes dancing as we drank in the heady sensation of just being close. I thought I could never get enough of feeling Omi's warm body next to mine, of feeling completely loved and secure, as if the whole world were mine...

"God, I love you so much..." I breathed, breaking our kiss and just watching him, enjoying him. He smiled, then, the most beautiful, radiant smile I have ever, ever seen, and he moved closer to me, as if leaning in for a kiss, but he stopped, just inches from my face, so we could see every haze and sparkle of feeling in each other's eyes, and he said, he said to me...

"Ken, I love you too... and..." He paused, wetting his lips. "And... love me tonight?" His voice was so soft and hesitant, and it pulled at my heart, making it thunder even harder, racing so fast that I felt it was never going to stop, and nor did I want it to.

"Omi..." was all I could say, was all my mind could manage, overwhelmed as it was by his request. I wrapped my arms around him suddenly, pulling him down on top of me again and embracing him as tightly as I could, hoping to show him that I could think of nothing I would like to share with him more. He snuggled back against me and I could feel the smile radiating from him, even though his face was obscured from view, and this told me better than any words that he knew how I felt.

And then somehow we were kissing again, many, many kisses, short and staccato and electric, building up into a rhythm that matched our beating hearts, building up the desire between us that was overflowing. He pulled away just an inch, making me lean upwards off the bed to reach his lips, and we liked this so much that we kept doing it – soft, fluttering butterfly kisses, rising and falling off the bed as he made me work for them, each brief moment of contact adding to the crescendo of emotions swirling through my body like molten honey, sweet and thick and warm; oh, so warm...

I was so lost that I nearly didn't register his hands at my waist, fingertips running over my skin gently, just above the top of my jeans, a wordless message. The thought made me shiver slightly as I rested my head back on the pillows after my last kiss, and I shivered once more as he unfastened the button, looking at me with eyes veiled by thick lashes, a sultry smile on his face. He made a show of it, as he had with his shirt earlier, and by the time the article had been dropped casually over the side of the bed, I was nearly dizzy with anticipation. Wanting to do the same for him, I however found that I was too far gone, and relieved him of his own with the same easy efficiency I had managed for my shirt earlier. He didn't seem to mind, though – quite the opposite, as he was now purring by my ear, whispering things to me that made my blood heat and sent euphoria rushing through my veins.

Charged with desire, I clung onto him and rolled, so that it was now I who was on top. I couldn't keep my hands off him, caressing every inch as if I had never touched him before, as if I were rediscovering everything all over again. He moaned, when I moved lower, moaned when I began to stroke him, when I moved my mouth to present him with intimate kisses that conveyed only a fraction of what I felt for him.

"Ken..." Omi whimpered, shuddering softly under me. "Stop, or I'm... we won't..."

Understanding, even in my impassioned state, I moved back up to place a single kiss on his lips before whispering, "Take me, Omi... I'm yours tonight."

He looked up at me, a little dazed, as if he had not been expecting to be the one to make love to me, but then he smiled again, eyes dancing, pupils larger than normal in the low light, and it was at that moment that I knew that Omi Tsukiyono was the most precious thing I had ever had in my life. Nothing was as beautiful as he was; nothing was as perfect, as wondrous, as heavenly...

And it was then that I knew that the world really was mine, because, at that time, my whole world was... Omi.