Kazuya's right eye fluttered open as he slowly woke from the heavy shroud of sleep. The first thing that he noticed was that his left eye didn't seem to want to open, almost as if it was crusted closed, but other than that he swiftly became aware of the pain. Pure, unbridled pain from several different locations. A burning ache resided deep in his shoulders, but he could not fathom why. His head was throbbing with every beat of his heart and there was a dull, biting pain across his face. The skin on his forehead and along his right cheek felt as if it was pulled too tight. The worst of it, however, encircled his wrists with the sensation of his flesh being pinched between two, sharp pieces of metal in small sections. He couldn't help but think the pain was familiar.

With a groan of discomfort, he carefully craned his head upwards to check the damage to his hands. They would not move from their suspended position above him, and when he tried, it only increased the stabbing pain. His eye barely caught sight of his wrists bound with a wire that connected him to the ceiling. His vision was blurry, and in an attempt to rectify it, he blinked rapidly to clear his eyesight. When nothing changed, Kazuya belatedly realized his glasses were no longer perched on the bridge of his nose.

Squinting his eye to focus his vision, he made out the small barbs that were burrowing into the skin of his wrists. Barbed wire. That explained the familiarity Kazuya had from the pain. And if he was strung to the ceiling by his arms, then that solved the ache in his shoulders. The barbs had dug deep enough already to cause rivulets of blood to flow down his arms. Kazuya tilted his head downwards to see that the trails continued along his torso and over his bare pelvic bone and all the way to his feet.

His brain felt muddled and sluggish, so it took him longer than it should have to realize he was stark naked. Normally, Kazuya wasn't self-conscious about his body, and couldn't care less who saw. However, he couldn't shake the feeling of vulnerability at being stripped of the little bit of clothing he had on. Especially as it had to have happened while he was unconscious. That thought alone was off-putting and left him feeling exposed and violated.

The nausea began to build low in his stomach, though not nearly as bad as when it had first seized hold of him. It was more like a small reminder to make sure he hadn't forgotten its presence. However, it was hard to say if it was the same nausea as before, or if this was caused by something else. For all he knew, it could have been nausea due to the constant pain his body had to endure, or even something more simple such as hunger. Kazuya didn't even know how many days it had been since he had last eaten anything. It felt like it had been days, at least, but it could just as well have been mere hours. There was no such thing as a sense of time when one was trapped in a windowless space, with no way to even estimate what time of day it even was. Kazuya couldn't even begin to guess how long he had been unconscious.

At first, he was able to somewhat keep track of the days by going off when they went to sleep, but now it felt as if their schedule was so messed up that it was impossible to judge based on that alone anymore. It seemed like they were always tired lately, and whenever they were tired, they would simply go to sleep. It wasn't like they had anything else to do, anyway. Though unfortunately, it was starting to become routine that whenever they attempted to rest, they would wake up in some unfavorable situation.

The last thing Kazuya remembers before he woke up, was the panic he felt and the fear reflected in Sawamura's eyes as gas freely flowed out of the vent.

Speaking of Sawamura, Kazuya lifted his head once again to scan the room for his misplaced lover. He was still in the space they had, unfortunately, grown accustomed to, as he was strung up by one side, allowing him visible access to the entire space. Sawamura was nowhere to be seen. The only place he couldn't see was the bathroom door as that resided along the same wall he was currently against. Kazuya could only hope that Sawamura was in there, and pray he hadn't been taken again.

His gaze drifted towards the metal table in the center of the room and instantly felt his heart sink and his breath catch in his throat. Kazuya couldn't quite make it out that well, but the crimson splotch over its surface was new, and he didn't need twenty-twenty vision to know what it was. Kazuya has become acquainted enough with blood to not be mistaken. Obviously, something had happened to Sawamura while Kazuya was still unconscious, and part of him wanted to believe Sawamura was just in the bathroom, cleaning up. He wouldn't have any tools available to cut Kazuya down from his suspension, which would explain why he had been left hanging, pun not intended. But that only applied if Sawamura was up and about, and considering Kazuya couldn't hear any noise coming from the ensuite bathroom was enough to disprove his illusion immediately.

That was until a soft groan sounded from his left. Kazuya was startled at the abrupt noise and tried to turn, but between his eye basically being glued shut and his arm, he couldn't see beyond that. Anything directly next to him on his left would be cut out of his line of sight, and he had failed to take that into account when he first scanned the room. Kazuya extended his legs fully down and found that his toes could make contact with the floor; which achieved two things, the first being that it helped ease the weight on his wrists, and the second being that it allowed him to physically twist his body the slightest bit to find the source of the noise. He delicately shuffled his feet along the ground to slowly turn the direction of his body towards the left while simultaneously avoiding any unnecessary movements.

Kazuya already had to fight down the urge to grab hold of the wire with his hands for support, and just the thought was enough to trigger phantom pains in his palms from their first encounter with barbed wire.

It didn't require him to turn that much to see that someone else was strung up to the ceiling next to him. It also didn't require him to have his glasses on to immediately know who it was. Sawamura dangled by his wrist similar to Kazuya, and he couldn't help the relief that flowed past his lips with a shaky exhale at seeing Sawamura alive. Though, his eyes were closed with brows furrowed in discomfort. Curiously, flecks of blood dotted and smudged across his face, and Kazuya couldn't see any visible injuries in the area that could be the source. Like Kazuya, Sawamura had small trails of blood flowing down his naked body; however, Kazuya's gaze stopped on Sawamura's thighs, where he could slightly make out darker lines that cut above his knees. He could see where blood had oozed out of the wounds and painted down the rest of his legs in crimson, and Kazuya could only assume those were also the cause of the blood on the table. They appeared to have been stitched closed, but not well enough to prevent leakage.

"Sawa-" Kazuya croaked out, throat dry. The roughness of his voice tickled as it reverberated in his esophagus and forced him to cough a few times to scratch the itch. "Sawamura," Kazuya tried again with more success, though Sawamura didn't even twitch at his voice, "Sawamura!" He called louder this time, and the reaction Kazuya got was almost instantaneous as Sawamura violently jerked awake, eyes flying open in a panic. His abrupt awakening came to a halt with a cut-off yelp of pain that trailed out into a breathy groan. The biting pain must have been enough to remind Sawamura of where he was and the situation that they were in as he quickly ceased his constrained attempts to flail; finding out that his movements were only causing more pain.

"You okay?" Kazuya prompted when he noticed Sawamura begin to calm down a little and inspect the wire that trapped his wrists. At the sound of his voice, Sawamura tilted his head down to stare, and stare. "What happened?" He tried instead when Sawamura remained silent. However, at the question, Sawamura's eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement with a slight tilt of his head to punctuate the confusion. The action vaguely reminded Kazuya of a dog.

"You don't remember?" Sawamura questioned in utter bewilderment. The tone made Kazuya feel like he had just forgotten a promise to catch for Sawamura, but he's never actually failed to remember those before. Normally he'll lie and say he forgot simply so he could enjoy Sawamura's reaction. Kazuya genuinely does get a thrill out of catching Sawamura's pitches, almost as much as he relishes in riling him up. But being the captain and the main catcher, Kazuya can't play favorites, even for a pitcher that also happens to be his boyfriend; though there have been instances where Kazuya had made time just to catch for Sawamura, but he'll never admit to that.

"I had to sew your stupid face back together!" Sawamura bellowed in indignation. Kazuya squirted his eye at Sawamura as a few, foggy visions surfaced at the statement. He could vaguely recall stumbling towards where Sawamura lay on the table, followed by a sudden flare of pain with the resounding echo of plastic snapping. That would solve the burning ache and tightness on his forehead and cheek. Though Kazuya can't seem to remember too much at the moment.

"Huh," Kazuya said for lack of a better response. Sawamura scoffed at his remark as he turned his head to glare a hole into the floor.

"'Huh', he says," Sawamura mumbled scathingly to himself. Kazuya couldn't help the fond smirk that ghosted over his lips - anything more than a faint smile pulled at the apparent wound on his face. He knew Sawamura wasn't as angry as he was attempting to let on. In fact, Sawamura was very easy to read normally, so it wasn't hard for Kazuya to see what lay beneath the outer layer of annoyance. Sawamura was using his ire to hide the fear and unease like a security blanket. To Kazuya, however, the act was useless. A truly pissed-off Sawamura was determined and oddly focused, but this felt forced. "Asshole can't even bother-"

"Sawamura-"

"-to remember the shit I do for him-"

"Sawamura-"

"-like who the hell does he think he is? I should have let him and his stupid face-"

"Eijun!" As usual, that did the trick in getting his attention. Sawamura's head whipped towards Kazuya with wide, searching eyes, before he suddenly remembered he was supposed to be mad and furrowed his brows into another glare. However, in that small moment, he let slip the anxiety that he was trying so hard to conceal. Kazuya made sure he was looking Sawamura dead in the eye and said, "Thank you." And just like that, the facade melted away like wax on a burning candle. Kazuya observed as Sawamura's eyes took on a glossy shine and the slight wobble of his bottom lip. With a sniffle, Sawamura turned his head away.

"Yeah, whatever." Sawamura retorted, all his previous fervor gone to leave his response wane in comparison. He sniffled again and cleared his throat before continuing, "You're welcome."

Kazuya had just opened his mouth to try and comfort Sawamura, when, abruptly, his toes slipped in the bit of blood that was beginning to coagulate under his feet and forced a hiss of pain through his teeth. The slight loss of balance caused the barbed wire around his wrists to dig further into the flesh, to unleash a fresh torrent of blood to drip down his arms. He quickly regained the little bit of footing he had to relieve the pressure.

"Serves you right," Sawamura grumbled, though there was no heat behind it.