"Was our exit okay, do you think?" Shuusuke asked as he pulled smoothly onto the road from their parents' driveway. "I don't know what they'd-"

"It was fine, aniki," Yuuta interrupted before his brother could start fretting about what was thought of them. "Mother was smiling, and she... well, I think we should come back here together later and talk it through." He glanced over at Shuusuke, who kept flicking his eyes over Yuuta's face instead of paying complete attention to the road ahead. "You'll both be... surprised, I guess."

"Surprised..." Shuusuke said absently; apparently, unusually, unable to concentrate on driving, looking at Yuuta and talking. "We'll do that, then; go back and talk. It'll be easier with you, I suppose."

"Because everything is?"

"Yes."

Yuuta was unsure whether aniki had missed his affectionate irony (unlikely) or whether he'd just chosen to be guileless for once.

"I can't wait to get you home, Yuuta..."

The tone of aniki's voice drew his gaze up to his face, and something within Yuuta warmed like burning honey at what he saw there.

"I want – I need..." Shuusuke lowered his voice and trailed off deliberately, communicating exactly what it was he needed to Yuuta with a quick flicker of his eyes.

"I... want that too... aniki." The honey was enveloping Yuuta as he drank in the atmosphere of indulgence that pervaded their private world: the luxurious interior of aniki's car; the dangerously lustful looks aniki was shooting him; aniki's delicate fingers, capable on the gear stick even when distracted by impulses unabated from Yuuta's bedroom onwards. It was fortunate that they'd left when they had, for however much their parents' disapproval had matured into, perhaps, acceptance, there was no way at all that they would have appreciated the rare, raw passion of Shuusuke undone.

Yuuta shivered at the thought; aniki was humming with sex and sincere worship, black and white and technicolour, laced with the molten honey that was spreading through the inside of the Jaguar. Yuuta knew that they both wanted to pull over and take things to the back seat, but also that neither would allow it. The lucid part of Yuuta balked at being discovered and proclaimed a public disturbance, and the part of Shuusuke that was still waters turned waves wanted an eternity of loving Yuuta that could only be found within the walls, bed and holy garden of his home.

The rest of the journey passed in silence; the honey was too thick for sound to be worth it; and for once, Yuuta found himself feeling at peace in the silence. Settled quiet around aniki usually made him squirm or feel inferior or worried or suspicious, because everything that happened around aniki was exactly to his design, but tonight aniki seemed to have lost sight of any sort of design at all; the blame and thanks laid squarely at Yuuta's feet.

Yuuta felt at peace in the car park, and the lift, and walking along the hall that felt more like it belonged in a hotel than an apartment building, too; it was only when he stepped through Shuusuke's door for the first time in a week that the peace left him, fluttering up and out of the expansive windows of the living room to join the lights of the city outside. Had aniki really changed? Could Yuuta believe – truly believe – this now? Would things revert back to how they had been, slowly and surely like flood waters creeping up the sides of the building, undetected until it was too late?

"Yuuta..."

Shuusuke shut the door quietly behind them and spoke his name in the dark. Yuuta would have expected a touch of reverence there, but anything and everything to do with delicacy and wonder was absent: instead, there was darkness and light, fluid and changing, and within it, Yuuta's name, spoken as if it was the only thing Shuusuke wanted to say.

Shuusuke led Yuuta over to the window, compelling him onwards with waves at his feet, pushing him and guiding him. Yuuta knew that Shuusuke was buzzing with conflicting needs, even if the buzz was buried beneath the soothing sounds of the waters that ran through him; however, the need to show him something apparently outweighed the need to take him to bed, at least for now.

"What do you see, Yuuta?"

"Er, lights. Lots and lots of lights. And I think that's a helicopter over there."

"Anything else?"

Yuuta concentrated hard for a few moments.

"Buildings?" And then, "That's not the right answer, is it?"

Shuusuke laughed, light and heavy all at once, like marshmallow encased in chocolate.

"There is no right answer, Yuuta."

"... Oh. So... why did you ask the question?"

"Why indeed."

"I guess you want me to think about it, right?"

"Perhaps. Why do you see what you see out there?"

"Because I... er... I see things with my eyes." Yuuta knew before he said it that it was lame, but he really hadn't been able to think of anything else.

"True." Shuusuke nodded. "Very true."

Yuuta felt something else was required from him, so he grasped at something he could stall with. He didn't know why aniki was questioning him, but it was probably important – in fact, definitely important, because aniki was delaying passion for this – so he wanted to play along, and maybe understand something that would be good for them.

"What do you see, aniki?"

"Lights. Lots and lots of lights."

"No helicopter?"

"It's gone now."

"Oh. Okay. And, er, why do you see them?"

"Because I see things with my eyes," Shuusuke said, brushing his hand against Yuuta's, although still staring straight out of the window. "And also because," he said, a small smile gracing his lips, "it's dark in here."

"Should we turn a light on?" Yuuta wasn't sure where this was meant to be going.

"Would you like to?"

Was this a test? And if it was, why was it Yuuta who was being tested, when it had been aniki who had had to change?

"No... let's, ah, leave them off."

"And go to bed?"

"Please..."

Their bedroom had not changed in a week; Yuuta wasn't quite sure why he had been expecting otherwise.

"Should we close the blinds?"

"Would you like to?"

Another test?

"No... let's leave them open."

Shuusuke smiled slightly. "Because it's dark in here."

Yuuta wondered if he was starting to understand. Aniki had started to understand, when he'd talked to Kawamura-san, so it was probably Yuuta's turn to understand more about him, although what, and for what purpose, he wasn't quite sure just yet.

"Yuuta..." Aniki looked over at him from by the bed, his face not properly distinguishable from in front of the window's dim light. "I'm sorry for the pain I've caused you."

"You don't have to say it again, aniki; it's fine. I'm convinced you know what you're doing now, so you can just... do it, I guess. I'd like it if you did."

After that, Yuuta couldn't stand it anymore. He shut the bedroom door with his foot (it was probably a security thing, he thought, since there was no real reason to remember to close it when it was just the two of them) and then crossed over to Shuusuke, excitement rising in him as he smelt once more aniki's cologne that, for him, symbolised sex. After months of experiencing it, it was now an instant turn-on, since aniki usually never wore it for anything else.

"I missed you, Yuuta," Shuusuke said, pulling him down onto the bed, pressing against him and sighing with contentment and longing. The car journey and the talk in the living room had dragged on as if he'd been frozen in stasis, trapped in an eternal state of desire that would never be fulfilled.

"While we were coming home, or... oh, while I wasn't here, right?" Yuuta was distracted by the way Shuusuke's body touched his in all the right places, and the clear, pristine sense of discovery of how good it felt to be so close to his brother again after days of separation. When together every day, it was easy to take for granted how warm his skin was, how soft his breath.

"Both. Oh, both." Shuusuke worked a hand beneath Yuuta's shirt and jumper as he spoke, abandoning his usual approach of delicacy, instead taking in as much of Yuuta's chest as he could with his fingers, his palms, his wrists. He wanted it to be his tongue exploring Yuuta's body, but there were still things to be communicated, even if the physical and the emotional both equated to 'I want you'. "I was... I hated that car journey." He laughed to himself, a half mirthful, half desperate affair. "I need to be with you right now, Yuuta. It's... funny. I've never felt like this before. I've always... wanted you, but after all this now, after talking to Taka-san, I... I want – I want..."

Unable to voice it completely just yet, Shuusuke closed his lips over Yuuta's and licked feverishly at them, at the inside of his lips, at his tongue that had moved to caress his too. A discharging of passion in place of eloquence seemed the only appropriate thing to do when he was faltering over words so, never having experienced such a thing before.

When he drew away a few inches, breathing heavily and settling his hands at Yuuta's hips, the sharp angles singing like soft angels beneath his fingertips, he smiled at Yuuta in the dark with his eyes. "I want you to touch me as much as I want to touch you. I want you to be as much my protector as I am yours. I want..." He pressed a kiss to Yuuta's mouth, wetting his lips again but touching only fleetingly. "Yuuta, I want to give myself up to you because I want a pleasure only you can give me. I don't feel so... responsible, for you, anymore."

"Aniki..."

Shuusuke kissed him again, and then said, softly, "Make love to me, Yuuta?"

Yuuta would have laughed at this turn of phrase on any other occasion; aniki would have laughed on any other occasion, for he would have been jesting, regardless of how delicate his normal manner was; but aniki appeared nothing but sincere in his request, and, Yuuta realised, he was entrusting him with something that had never before been shared with him. Look after my pleasure, Yuuta.

They'd been here before, back at the start when aniki had first tried to change for him. That time, aniki had asked him to fuck him. Yuuta wasn't too good at chasing down psychological significances, he'd readily admit, but there was a difference here, wasn't there?

"What... what would you like to do?" Yuuta wished he didn't stutter over important things like this.

"Mmm..." Shuusuke stretched himself out against Yuuta, relaxing completely. Yuuta liked the feeling of aniki flush against him like this; aniki's body had a flexibility to it that he would forever envy, and he found it both fascinating and alluring.

Aniki laughed. "What do you see, Yuuta?"

"Er... not very much. I can see your eyes, and your general sort of outline. Er. And if you mean outside, then there are lots and lots of lights. Again." He paused. "Am I being scored on this?"

"Perhaps."

"So, er, what can you see, aniki?" Yuuta knew he should have been used to rhetoric in bed by now, but he was beginning to accept that it was probably never going to happen.

"Mmn, that helicopter's come back. Besides that, I can see very little, and, I think, that is what I would like to do."

"You, er, want me to blindfold you...?"

Shuusuke laughed; something which Yuuta wished he wouldn't do like that in bed when he was trying his hardest to keep up. It was hard when one wasn't a genius!

"Not quite," he said, voice laced with amusement but tempered by fond affection. "Simply, and perhaps more transparently, I'd like to feel you on top of me, just trusting that you're there. Will that suit?"

"Yes... I... yes!" Yuuta was still unsure that he was following along in quite the way aniki wanted, but he was eager to show that he was at least attempting it.

"I think it's time we got out of these clothes, then," Shuusuke said, possibly the only person in the world able to make a line like that sound refined.

There was no teasing or delicacy to the way aniki alleviated the both of them of their clothing; he had been desperate for his brother since he had walked into his old bedroom hours ago, and now that he had achieved whatever it was he had been designing, he would waste no further time.

As Shuusuke lay himself out on the sheets, turning his head to lay one cheek on the pillows, Yuuta brought out the tube of lubricant from the nightstand on his side of the bed; there was a time for games, and there was a time when they would simply be maddening. Seeing aniki like this would truly have sent Yuuta to madness had he had to wait: aniki's shoulders seemed broader from behind; the sweep of his spine longer; the taper of his waist more sculptured; and then to see his legs spread, waiting for him; it made Yuuta tremble. The room, the air, Yuuta: all were saturated with sex and languid power; Yuuta's head full of the scent of aniki and pulsing anticipation.

"Yuuta..." Shuusuke shifted as he asked for him, rubbing himself against the sheets, excitement building as the sound of his heart thumped in his ear against the pillow. He felt strangely wanton, with his legs wide and his insatiable voracity for Yuuta: it was impossible to hold back a moan when he was finally spread open and Yuuta's weight then pressed down all over his body, firmly, warmly. Yuuta was not heavy, and the pressure would have been relaxing, had they both not been breathing heavily, impatient for pleasure.

Shuusuke knew, as soon as Yuuta started to move within him, that this would not last long; they had been separated for a week, and had been teased by circumstance for hours; so he felt glad for the intensity that Yuuta above him was soaking into him. Yuuta's nipples were at his back; Yuuta's gasps were at his ear; Yuuta's rhythm was shocking through him and pushing him right against the mattress, again and again and again, stimulating him in a way far more pleasing than his own hand could ever be.

Was this what it was like to be selfish for oneself? Was it selfish, to lie down and be loved like this? Once upon a time, Shuusuke had thought that; and once upon a time, he had made Yuuta miserable with his selflessness.

Yuuta on top of him felt good; the clean, masculine scent of his sweat was intoxicating and good; his urging the both of them to an urgent completion was euphoric and good. Was there much else to think on? If he could trust Yuuta to all of this, to weigh him down and pleasure him, all without having to see the security of his face, then there wasn't, was there?

"Aniki...!" Yuuta cried, and bucked his hips short and sharp and hard, gritting his teeth as he thrust and saw white. The weight of Yuuta's collapse and the break of his voice were the last things Shuusuke needed to climax also, and he too collapsed down, limbs limp against the mattress. The sheets were damp from their sweat and from Shuusuke himself, but he was too sated to mind for a few minutes.

"We've never done that before," came Yuuta's halting and laboured voice from above him.

"No, we haven't." Shuusuke's voice was equally weak. They lay quiet for a little while, until Shuusuke then said, "Yuuta, what do you see?"

"Your hair. No helicopters." He breathed out deeply. "What do you see, aniki?" He sounded too tired to be playing guessing games.

"Nothing."

"Because it's dark in here?"

Shuusuke nodded against his pillow. "Aa. Because it's dark in here."

--

There was darkness and light, fluid and changing, and within it, Yuuta's name, spoken as if it was the only thing Shuusuke wanted to say.

--

Selfishness can bring mutual happiness;
light and dark are merely different ways of experiencing the world;
and chains are unnecessary when you trust.