Note: We move more on to the physical love in this chapter. If that scares you, then bugger off ; ok, ok... just kidding. If that weirds you out then skip this chapter.
---
Amidamaru did not speak much about his experience in the dungeon. In fact, Amidamaru barely spoke at all. As the days progressed, he became more quiet, more introvert. He spent growing amounts of time alone in his room, brooding.
Anna had moved Amidamaru in to the room next to Yoh, which was in the south wing of the house. All the other bedrooms in the house were in the north wing, so only Yoh heard the whimpers and the sobbing that came from the samurai's room at night. It seemed he wasn't the only one who had trouble sleeping these days.
The insomnia had not been kind to Amidamaru; the young warrior was gaunt, his face was permanently pale and there were always fatigue bags under his eyes. Sometimes, if Yoh were up early enough, he would bump in to Amidamaru on the way to the bathroom. Then he would see the tear tracks on his friend's cheeks, the tired downcast eyes. Amidamaru would notice Yoh and put his guard up immediately, insisting that there was nothing wrong.
Yoh had got the impression that Amidamaru was avoiding him. Why? Had the kiss really been that bad? But... surely only a kiss would not keep a trained samurai awake at night?
Yoh got his chance the next morning. He awoke early, at around half past six, to the usual sound of sobbing from the next room. He could not take it any longer, something bad had happened to Amidamaru and Yoh was determined to make his friend feel better. Slipping on some clothes, the young shaman crept out of his room.
He carefully slid Amidamaru's door open and peered in. The samurai was sitting on the bed with his back to the door, head bowed. It seemed he knew he was not to get any sleep; he had not even changed out of his samurai robes.
"Amidamaru?" Yoh asked cautiously. The silhouette in front of him froze, raising its head in shock. Amidamaru turned round.
"Yoh?" He asked. "What are you doing here?"
"I woke up. I heard you crying so I thought I'd see what's up." Yoh shrugged and Amidamaru had to exert enormous amounts of control to stop himself looking away. Since his shared kiss with Yoh, his need for the young shaman had been welling up inside until it was a physical ache.
"I am sorry, Yoh. I should not have disturbed you."
Yoh went to sit on the bed next to Amidamaru.
"It's not that that worries me." He began. "No doubt I sleep too much anyway. No, what worries me is you. You're upset about something, really upset. I haven't seen you anywhere near this bad before, not even when Harusame was broken." Yoh looked his friend straight in the face. "You can't pretend there's nothing wrong."
The samurai seemed to be speechless.
"Was it really that bad when I kissed you?" Yoh asked, moving closer to Amidamaru. It was still cold as the sun had not yet risen, and he was eager to get as close as he could to the source of heat.
Amidamaru looked at the floor, dejected and mournful. Yoh's mind seemed to shut down momentarily, he forgot everything that had happened in the last few moments, he just wanted to cheer Amidamaru up.
Yoh brought his lips up towards Amidamaru's, being sure to let the samurai close the gap between them. He did, but even as their mouths locked Yoh could sense the underlying fear, the nervousness, the hesitation. Yoh pulled away, staring hard at Amidamaru, who was shaking. The tears streamed down the samurai's face.
"Yoh... Yoh... I'm so sorry... I can't..."
Yoh turned away. It was as though someone had turned a light on in his mind, the pieces of the puzzle were all coming together now.
Something had happened that had transformed Amidamaru from a brave young samurai into a nervous wreck. He lay awake at night, crying, unable to sleep. He had become solitary and brooding. Yoh remembered how scared of the voodoo his friend had been; yet Amidamaru was scared of no one. Therefore it must have been something the voodoo had done.
Yoh considered how desperate Amidamaru had been to protect him from the voodoo – that must have been because the man would have done something truly awful to him. Add that with Amidamaru's apparent phobia of being touched in a sexual way... Yoh had seen how his samurai had trembled when the voodoo was playing his games...
Was it possible? Could it really be that Amidamaru had been... well... it must have been. There had been a huge thing about internal injuries, hadn't there? Where else would they have come from? Yoh's mind was made up.
"Amidamaru?" He said determinedly, turning back to his friend, who looked up slowly. "Please tell me. What happened to you in that cell before I came?"
Amidamaru's face contorted in a mix of shock, fear and embarrassment.
"Do you need to know?" He whispered.
"You need me to, Amidamaru." Yoh replied. "Bottling up things makes them grow. If you don't tell anyone then it'll eventually take you over. It doesn't have to be me that you tell, but you need to tell someone."
Amidamaru thought about this.
"It is hard for me to put into words." He said at last, and his voice sounded strange, almost choked. "But I can show you if you want... if you are sure..."
Yoh nodded once.
"Very well." Amidamaru sighed. "Place your hand on my forehead. And close your eyes."
Yoh complied, feeling a bit stupid, but then he bucked forward. He threw out his other arm, expecting Amidamaru to catch him, but there was no one there. The samurai had disappeared! Yoh opened his eyes.
He was spinning in a purple haze. A stone room was materialising around him. In the distance and getting louder, he could hear cold, cruel laughter. He landed on the floor with a bump and realised, as he picked himself up, that he was somehow in Amidamaru's memory.
And there, right in front of him, Amidamaru himself. Chained to the wall, exactly how Yoh had found him, though not quite so bruised or bloodstained. This must have been before Yoh came, what had happened to make him so afraid... the voodoo was on top of him, attacking him and laughing. Yoh could see Amidamaru struggling weakly, trying to avoid a flailing riding crop.
Amidamaru's face was creased with an emotion that Yoh could not identify from where he was standing; yet he could not get any closer. It was a while before he realised Amidamaru – the real Amidamaru, not this memory of him – was keeping him away, protecting him from what was about to unfold.
The voodoo suddenly threw the whip to one side. Mist began to sweep across the scene and Yoh knew Amidamaru was preserving his own dignity as well as protecting Yoh's innocence. The voodoo released the shackles from Amidamaru's wrists. The samurai tried to crawl away, but the other man flipped him over and sat on him, crushing him.
There was a ripping of material. Mist had almost completely obscured the scene now, Yoh could no longer see what was going on. But that did not stop the screams. There was an awful howl of pure agony and a pitiless, humourless laugh. Then more cries, more screams of pain in an almost rhythmic pattern, mingling with laughter and the muffled thuds of flesh on stone.
Yoh was horrified... he knew he had been expecting a rape, there was no other possible conclusion to Amidamaru's strange behaviour, but he had not expected it to be so... awful, intense... heartrending. He heard himself shouting, pleading for it to stop, yelling for Amidamaru.
The screams stopped abruptly. There was a curse in the voodoo's voice, Amidamaru had apparently lost consciousness. Yoh was thankful. At least his samurai was no longer in pain. He shook his head. He was wrong. The event he had just witnessed had caused sleepless nights and a permanent mental scar.
He woke up suddenly, back in his own body, in the real world. Amidamaru was frantically shaking him by the shoulders.
"What... happened...?" He asked groggily.
"You went rigid and fell down." Amidamaru answered, looking guilty and ashamed. "I should never have agreed to show you. I am sorry."
"Don't be sorry." Yoh insisted. "I chose to see."
Yoh suddenly gripped the samurai in a hug, burying his head in the older man's chest.
"I didn't realise, Ami-chan..." He sobbed. Amidamaru looked stunned, patting the boy's head uncertainly. Yoh released him, smiling through his tears.
"You do want this, don't you?" He asked. "You aren't just doing this out of some misguided sense of duty? It is not your duty as a guardian ghost to keep me entertained, you know."
"Yoh..." Amidamaru breathed. "I want this... I want you... more that anything else in the world. And I am hardly your guardian ghost anymore. It's just... I'm... I'm so..."
"Afraid?" Yoh supplied. Amidamaru nodded. "What he did to you was rape, Amidamaru. There is no love in rape."
"I know." The samurai's voice was barely more than a whisper. "It still hurts."
"It's bound to..." Yoh's voice was choked as he spoke. "I promise I won't hurt you. If you don't want me to do this then I won't. I'm not a monster."
"I want you to, Yoh..."
There was a potent pause, neither side moving for a short while. Then Amidamaru wrapped his arms around Yoh's small body gently, pulling the shaman into a hug. Yoh smiled against the samurai's bare chest and snuggled further in, closing his eyes and pulling the muscular body closer to him.
Amidamaru swallowed. Even this, love in its most innocent physical form, was making his stomach do backflips. He felt himself begin to relax and nuzzled into the crook between Yoh's shoulder and neck.
Yoh closed his eyes sleepily – he could stay like this forever with Amidamaru in his arms – more accurately, him in Amidamaru's arms. He loved it, the feel of the soft material of his friend's... no, lover's clothing, the warmth from his body, the rise and fall of his strong chest as he breathed...
"I love you, Yoh-dono." Yoh's breath caught as the words were whispered at a close proximity to his ear. The puff of hot air across his sensitive skin had made him shiver, though he was not cold. He pulled away, wondering if Amidamaru knew how that one sentence had affected him.
From the playful, cheeky smirk on the samurai's face, Yoh guessed that he knew. True, it was Amidamaru's first romantic experience, but the other man was a quick learner and was using this to his advantage. Well. Yoh grinned inwardly. He couldn't be having that...
With a swift push, he forced Amidamaru backwards onto the bed. Yoh was now lying on top of the warrior, who was looking puzzled. Yoh brushed his lips against Amidamaru's cheek, teasing him. He nibbled the young swordsman's earlobe gently, just enough for Amidamaru to shiver slightly, before trailing the kisses down his cheek, neck and shoulder to his chest.
Amidamaru threw his head back, panting, as Yoh trailed the brushing kisses down his bare chest to his navel. Now it was Yoh's turn to smirk playfully, the tables had turned. Now it was he who had complete control over Amidamaru. He had Amidamaru beneath him, writhing, trembling...
The young shaman felt the heat emanating from Amidamaru's quivering body and suddenly realised that Amidamaru was trying to stall, trying to put off the moment when their lips would lock again. Yoh placed a kiss on the coarse skin of Amidamaru's throat before withdrawing completely, leaving the breathless Amidamaru lying on the bed underneath him.
"It's not too late to quit, Ami-chan..." Yoh murmured lazily, stroking the warrior's hair. "You can pull out now and I won't think any less of you."
"I want this, Yoh." Amidamaru's voice was laced with a small amount of confidence, though Yoh could hear it shaking. The fear. It had to be destroyed.
Yoh pressed his lips to Amidamaru's, supporting the other's head with his hand. He could sense Amidamaru's hesitation but this time he ignored it. Like he said, this was what Amidamaru wanted. The fear must be destroyed.
Amidamaru tried to pull away, Yoh's firm but gentle hand restraining him. After two or three attempts, however, he relaxed and became absorbed, mimicking Yoh's actions, pulling the shaman closer to him, crushing their lips together...
"YOH ASAKURA, YOU GET YOUR LAZY ASS DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!" A scream from downstairs ran through the house and the two broke apart like guilty teens who had been caught necking. Yoh looked down at Amidamaru to make sure that his samurai had not been too adversely affected by the shaman's refusal to let him pull away.
On the contrary. Amidamaru was grinning, the first proper smile Yoh had seen on his for days. It was infectious and, as Yoh grinned too, Amidamaru started to laugh. He had not laughed since the day he had complained of indigestion (of course, that was the day where he had apparently given some poor innocent swallow a heart attack, but never mind).
Yoh began laughing too, laughing with relief. It seemed that the assault on Amidamaru's privacy and dignity had not destroyed the samurai beyond repair, it seemed that Amidamaru could still be saved.
Perhaps there was a future for the shaman and his samurai after all.
---
Amidamaru did not speak much about his experience in the dungeon. In fact, Amidamaru barely spoke at all. As the days progressed, he became more quiet, more introvert. He spent growing amounts of time alone in his room, brooding.
Anna had moved Amidamaru in to the room next to Yoh, which was in the south wing of the house. All the other bedrooms in the house were in the north wing, so only Yoh heard the whimpers and the sobbing that came from the samurai's room at night. It seemed he wasn't the only one who had trouble sleeping these days.
The insomnia had not been kind to Amidamaru; the young warrior was gaunt, his face was permanently pale and there were always fatigue bags under his eyes. Sometimes, if Yoh were up early enough, he would bump in to Amidamaru on the way to the bathroom. Then he would see the tear tracks on his friend's cheeks, the tired downcast eyes. Amidamaru would notice Yoh and put his guard up immediately, insisting that there was nothing wrong.
Yoh had got the impression that Amidamaru was avoiding him. Why? Had the kiss really been that bad? But... surely only a kiss would not keep a trained samurai awake at night?
Yoh got his chance the next morning. He awoke early, at around half past six, to the usual sound of sobbing from the next room. He could not take it any longer, something bad had happened to Amidamaru and Yoh was determined to make his friend feel better. Slipping on some clothes, the young shaman crept out of his room.
He carefully slid Amidamaru's door open and peered in. The samurai was sitting on the bed with his back to the door, head bowed. It seemed he knew he was not to get any sleep; he had not even changed out of his samurai robes.
"Amidamaru?" Yoh asked cautiously. The silhouette in front of him froze, raising its head in shock. Amidamaru turned round.
"Yoh?" He asked. "What are you doing here?"
"I woke up. I heard you crying so I thought I'd see what's up." Yoh shrugged and Amidamaru had to exert enormous amounts of control to stop himself looking away. Since his shared kiss with Yoh, his need for the young shaman had been welling up inside until it was a physical ache.
"I am sorry, Yoh. I should not have disturbed you."
Yoh went to sit on the bed next to Amidamaru.
"It's not that that worries me." He began. "No doubt I sleep too much anyway. No, what worries me is you. You're upset about something, really upset. I haven't seen you anywhere near this bad before, not even when Harusame was broken." Yoh looked his friend straight in the face. "You can't pretend there's nothing wrong."
The samurai seemed to be speechless.
"Was it really that bad when I kissed you?" Yoh asked, moving closer to Amidamaru. It was still cold as the sun had not yet risen, and he was eager to get as close as he could to the source of heat.
Amidamaru looked at the floor, dejected and mournful. Yoh's mind seemed to shut down momentarily, he forgot everything that had happened in the last few moments, he just wanted to cheer Amidamaru up.
Yoh brought his lips up towards Amidamaru's, being sure to let the samurai close the gap between them. He did, but even as their mouths locked Yoh could sense the underlying fear, the nervousness, the hesitation. Yoh pulled away, staring hard at Amidamaru, who was shaking. The tears streamed down the samurai's face.
"Yoh... Yoh... I'm so sorry... I can't..."
Yoh turned away. It was as though someone had turned a light on in his mind, the pieces of the puzzle were all coming together now.
Something had happened that had transformed Amidamaru from a brave young samurai into a nervous wreck. He lay awake at night, crying, unable to sleep. He had become solitary and brooding. Yoh remembered how scared of the voodoo his friend had been; yet Amidamaru was scared of no one. Therefore it must have been something the voodoo had done.
Yoh considered how desperate Amidamaru had been to protect him from the voodoo – that must have been because the man would have done something truly awful to him. Add that with Amidamaru's apparent phobia of being touched in a sexual way... Yoh had seen how his samurai had trembled when the voodoo was playing his games...
Was it possible? Could it really be that Amidamaru had been... well... it must have been. There had been a huge thing about internal injuries, hadn't there? Where else would they have come from? Yoh's mind was made up.
"Amidamaru?" He said determinedly, turning back to his friend, who looked up slowly. "Please tell me. What happened to you in that cell before I came?"
Amidamaru's face contorted in a mix of shock, fear and embarrassment.
"Do you need to know?" He whispered.
"You need me to, Amidamaru." Yoh replied. "Bottling up things makes them grow. If you don't tell anyone then it'll eventually take you over. It doesn't have to be me that you tell, but you need to tell someone."
Amidamaru thought about this.
"It is hard for me to put into words." He said at last, and his voice sounded strange, almost choked. "But I can show you if you want... if you are sure..."
Yoh nodded once.
"Very well." Amidamaru sighed. "Place your hand on my forehead. And close your eyes."
Yoh complied, feeling a bit stupid, but then he bucked forward. He threw out his other arm, expecting Amidamaru to catch him, but there was no one there. The samurai had disappeared! Yoh opened his eyes.
He was spinning in a purple haze. A stone room was materialising around him. In the distance and getting louder, he could hear cold, cruel laughter. He landed on the floor with a bump and realised, as he picked himself up, that he was somehow in Amidamaru's memory.
And there, right in front of him, Amidamaru himself. Chained to the wall, exactly how Yoh had found him, though not quite so bruised or bloodstained. This must have been before Yoh came, what had happened to make him so afraid... the voodoo was on top of him, attacking him and laughing. Yoh could see Amidamaru struggling weakly, trying to avoid a flailing riding crop.
Amidamaru's face was creased with an emotion that Yoh could not identify from where he was standing; yet he could not get any closer. It was a while before he realised Amidamaru – the real Amidamaru, not this memory of him – was keeping him away, protecting him from what was about to unfold.
The voodoo suddenly threw the whip to one side. Mist began to sweep across the scene and Yoh knew Amidamaru was preserving his own dignity as well as protecting Yoh's innocence. The voodoo released the shackles from Amidamaru's wrists. The samurai tried to crawl away, but the other man flipped him over and sat on him, crushing him.
There was a ripping of material. Mist had almost completely obscured the scene now, Yoh could no longer see what was going on. But that did not stop the screams. There was an awful howl of pure agony and a pitiless, humourless laugh. Then more cries, more screams of pain in an almost rhythmic pattern, mingling with laughter and the muffled thuds of flesh on stone.
Yoh was horrified... he knew he had been expecting a rape, there was no other possible conclusion to Amidamaru's strange behaviour, but he had not expected it to be so... awful, intense... heartrending. He heard himself shouting, pleading for it to stop, yelling for Amidamaru.
The screams stopped abruptly. There was a curse in the voodoo's voice, Amidamaru had apparently lost consciousness. Yoh was thankful. At least his samurai was no longer in pain. He shook his head. He was wrong. The event he had just witnessed had caused sleepless nights and a permanent mental scar.
He woke up suddenly, back in his own body, in the real world. Amidamaru was frantically shaking him by the shoulders.
"What... happened...?" He asked groggily.
"You went rigid and fell down." Amidamaru answered, looking guilty and ashamed. "I should never have agreed to show you. I am sorry."
"Don't be sorry." Yoh insisted. "I chose to see."
Yoh suddenly gripped the samurai in a hug, burying his head in the older man's chest.
"I didn't realise, Ami-chan..." He sobbed. Amidamaru looked stunned, patting the boy's head uncertainly. Yoh released him, smiling through his tears.
"You do want this, don't you?" He asked. "You aren't just doing this out of some misguided sense of duty? It is not your duty as a guardian ghost to keep me entertained, you know."
"Yoh..." Amidamaru breathed. "I want this... I want you... more that anything else in the world. And I am hardly your guardian ghost anymore. It's just... I'm... I'm so..."
"Afraid?" Yoh supplied. Amidamaru nodded. "What he did to you was rape, Amidamaru. There is no love in rape."
"I know." The samurai's voice was barely more than a whisper. "It still hurts."
"It's bound to..." Yoh's voice was choked as he spoke. "I promise I won't hurt you. If you don't want me to do this then I won't. I'm not a monster."
"I want you to, Yoh..."
There was a potent pause, neither side moving for a short while. Then Amidamaru wrapped his arms around Yoh's small body gently, pulling the shaman into a hug. Yoh smiled against the samurai's bare chest and snuggled further in, closing his eyes and pulling the muscular body closer to him.
Amidamaru swallowed. Even this, love in its most innocent physical form, was making his stomach do backflips. He felt himself begin to relax and nuzzled into the crook between Yoh's shoulder and neck.
Yoh closed his eyes sleepily – he could stay like this forever with Amidamaru in his arms – more accurately, him in Amidamaru's arms. He loved it, the feel of the soft material of his friend's... no, lover's clothing, the warmth from his body, the rise and fall of his strong chest as he breathed...
"I love you, Yoh-dono." Yoh's breath caught as the words were whispered at a close proximity to his ear. The puff of hot air across his sensitive skin had made him shiver, though he was not cold. He pulled away, wondering if Amidamaru knew how that one sentence had affected him.
From the playful, cheeky smirk on the samurai's face, Yoh guessed that he knew. True, it was Amidamaru's first romantic experience, but the other man was a quick learner and was using this to his advantage. Well. Yoh grinned inwardly. He couldn't be having that...
With a swift push, he forced Amidamaru backwards onto the bed. Yoh was now lying on top of the warrior, who was looking puzzled. Yoh brushed his lips against Amidamaru's cheek, teasing him. He nibbled the young swordsman's earlobe gently, just enough for Amidamaru to shiver slightly, before trailing the kisses down his cheek, neck and shoulder to his chest.
Amidamaru threw his head back, panting, as Yoh trailed the brushing kisses down his bare chest to his navel. Now it was Yoh's turn to smirk playfully, the tables had turned. Now it was he who had complete control over Amidamaru. He had Amidamaru beneath him, writhing, trembling...
The young shaman felt the heat emanating from Amidamaru's quivering body and suddenly realised that Amidamaru was trying to stall, trying to put off the moment when their lips would lock again. Yoh placed a kiss on the coarse skin of Amidamaru's throat before withdrawing completely, leaving the breathless Amidamaru lying on the bed underneath him.
"It's not too late to quit, Ami-chan..." Yoh murmured lazily, stroking the warrior's hair. "You can pull out now and I won't think any less of you."
"I want this, Yoh." Amidamaru's voice was laced with a small amount of confidence, though Yoh could hear it shaking. The fear. It had to be destroyed.
Yoh pressed his lips to Amidamaru's, supporting the other's head with his hand. He could sense Amidamaru's hesitation but this time he ignored it. Like he said, this was what Amidamaru wanted. The fear must be destroyed.
Amidamaru tried to pull away, Yoh's firm but gentle hand restraining him. After two or three attempts, however, he relaxed and became absorbed, mimicking Yoh's actions, pulling the shaman closer to him, crushing their lips together...
"YOH ASAKURA, YOU GET YOUR LAZY ASS DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!" A scream from downstairs ran through the house and the two broke apart like guilty teens who had been caught necking. Yoh looked down at Amidamaru to make sure that his samurai had not been too adversely affected by the shaman's refusal to let him pull away.
On the contrary. Amidamaru was grinning, the first proper smile Yoh had seen on his for days. It was infectious and, as Yoh grinned too, Amidamaru started to laugh. He had not laughed since the day he had complained of indigestion (of course, that was the day where he had apparently given some poor innocent swallow a heart attack, but never mind).
Yoh began laughing too, laughing with relief. It seemed that the assault on Amidamaru's privacy and dignity had not destroyed the samurai beyond repair, it seemed that Amidamaru could still be saved.
Perhaps there was a future for the shaman and his samurai after all.