MAY 28TH, 2020 / HARAJUKU, JAPAN

Akiyuki Koji was nearly asleep when the phone rang.

He struggled to lift himself up and pry open his eyes to answer it but stopped once he felt Shouto's chest brush lightly against his back as he reached an arm over to answer the phone himself. Akiyuki grumbled quietly to himself, flopping back down onto his stomach, wondering who could possibly be calling their unlisted phone number and waking him up from his well-deserved jet-lag induced sleep marathon. He heard Shouto answer the phone with a soft "Hello?" before drifting off again. He'd downed three six-packs on the plane ride back from Paris and was beat.

Then, Shouto's voice sharp and curious was filling his ears. ("What?-") and he was yanked back to the world of the waking.

"Get that damn thing off me, Sho." He grunted, submitting to the fact that he wouldn't be sleeping anytime soon. Shouto readjusted, lifting the cord of their home phone up, and freeing Akiyuki from its entanglement. His red and white hair was a mess of waves, still managing to look glossy and perfect despite the fact that it hadn't been washed since they had left France over twelve hours ago. Akiyuki wrinkled his nose, noticing how much attention it drew to shouto even in their darkroom- surely if anyone were to walk in right now, it'd be the first thing their eyes would be drawn to. Shouto's hair. Whore's hair.

Shouto's mismatched eyes don't stutter toward him to try and gauge the mood he's in, and Akiyuki Koji doesn't like that one bit. He frowns. His head was starting to ache. Shit, it had probably already been aching, but when you were asleep you didn't know it.

He went into the bathroom, urinated for what felt like eons, and then decided that as long as he was up he ought to get another beer and try to take the curse off the impending hangover.

Passing back through the bedroom on his way to the stairs, a man in white boxer shorts that flapped like sails below his considerable belly, his arms like slabs (he looked more like a dock-walloper than the president and general manager of Todoroki Fashion Co.) he looks over his shoulder and yells angrily: "If it's that pigheaded piece of shit,
Natsuo, tell him that you're an adult now and don't need your ""big brother"" sticking his goddamn nose in your business!"

Shouto glanced up briefly and shook his head no to indicate that it wasn't Natsuo on the other end of the phone. He turned back, eyebrows furrowing while he listened to whoever was on the other side of the line, without a word.

Akiyuki frowned.

Akiyuki felt his muscles begin to tense, and his teeth begin to grind. That had felt like a dismissal. Akiyuki Koji didn't get dismissed by the likes of Shouto. This was beginning to look like it might turn into a situation- like Shouto might need a little refresher course on who was in charge around here. It was possible. Sometimes he did, after all, he was stubborn- and a slow learner to boot.

But he'd get it eventually. He always did.

He cracked his neck, grunting a little as it popped and crackled (stiff from the long plane ride) and headed back towards the bedroom. He could feel his heart starting to pound in his ears (Ka-boom, Ka-boom, Ka-Boom) and he could feel it pulsing in his wrists and chest- he didn't like it. He needed a good night's rest, but the stupid cunt he was married to was still on the phone and it was pissing him off to no end.

"I understand that Denki... yes... yes, I am... I know... but..."

Then there was a pause as Shouto listened to- whoever the hell it was. 'Denki?' Is that what he had said?

"Denki... I... really? He's going to be there? You're sure?" And though his voice was barely above a whisper, it was still too loud for Akiyuki's liking.

He was just outside the sliding, traditional door that leads to their bedroom now- leaning against the frame. His red eyes are on Shouto with a fierce intensity, arms crossed over his chest. He didn't much care to know who his husband was talking to, nor particularly what he was saying. Instead, he focused in on the subtle, barely there, rising and falling tones of his mostly monotone voice- feeling the ever-so-familiar rise of dull rage.

He had met Shouto in Sapporo, at some singles bar event four years ago. He had noticed his hair first, and then the giant burn scar on the left side of his face, and finally his heterochrome grey and blue eyes. The conversation had been easy enough, as they both worked in the same office building complex and knew several of the same people. Akiyuki Koji worked in public relations for a car insurance company on lot 14. Todoroki (as his name had been then) Shouto was an assistant designer at Yukiteru Designs on lot 12. Yukiteru Designs catered to designing for young children- and its pieces were often found in department stores selling for ¥3700 or less.

By the end of the night, Akiyuki Koji knew two things for certain about Todoroki Shouto: He was desirable, and he was vulnerable. In less then a month, he knew a third: Shouto was talented. Extremely talented. In his scribbles of casual dresses and blouses, he saw a money-machine of almost scary potential.

Not in the department stores, though, he thought, but did not say (at least not then). No more bad lighting, no more knock-down prices, no more shitty displays somewhere in the back of the store. Leave that shit for the small-timers. He was going to mold Shouto and his potential into the six-figure enterprise he knew it could be- his own little cash-cow.

Akiyuki had known a great deal about him before Shouto had even realized that he had any sort of real interest in him, and that was just how Akiyuki wanted it. He had been looking for someone like Todoroki Shouto his entire life and had moved in at the speed of a lion making a run at a slow antelope- Not that Todoroki Shouto's vulnerability showed on the surface-

No, when you first looked at Todoroki Shouto, you saw an ethereal beauty with a rare set of features and a great body. The burn scar wasn't ideal, but his long legs, surprisingly curvy hips, and nice ass made up for it in the long run. Akiyuki Koji was very much a thigh-man, and tall guys were almost always a disappointment in that regard- but not Shouto.

Oh, he had been some kind of fine-looking alright. With those tight jeans and intoxicatingly sexy-bored expression as he passively twirled a cherry stem in-between his thumb and forefinger- leftover from one of the several drinks he had been ordered that night. But underneath that blank facade, he was weak, somehow. It was as if he was sending out signals only he could receive. You could point to certain things, like the carton of nearly empty cigarettes balanced on his lap, the restless way his eyes seemed to move- never quite meeting with whoever he was speaking to, his habit of biting his lower lip when he got nervous, or the way he looked almost like he didn't know how to talk to people- never starting conversations and trailing off whenever they mentioned something he didn't know about or understand- you could point to all those things, and you'd know he was weak.

He had known then, after only five short minutes of observation, that he'd have Shouto in the palm of his hands by the time the night came to a close.

Suddenly he heard a sound that jerked him rudely out of these memories-the snap of Shouto's cigarette lighter.

That dull rage was back again. His being filled slowly with hot anger. Smoking. He was smoking. They had had a few of Akiyuki Koji's special seminars on the subject, and yet here he was, doing it again. He was a slow learner, all right, but a good teacher was always at the top of their game with slow learners.

"Yes," Shouto said now, nodding a little. "Alright, uh-huh... yes." He listened, and then he uttered a chilling, quiet, little laugh that Akiyuki had never heard before. "Since you asked, book me a room... maybe even send up a prayer or two, I don't know... uh huh... yes. Alright, Goodnight, Denki."

Shouto was hanging up as he came in. He had meant to come in gun's blazing, arm raised ready to backhand him into next week, yelling at him to "PUT THAT THING OUT RIGHT NOW!"- but when he saw him- really, saw him- the words died in his throat and the arm ready to strike wilted back down to his side.

He had seen the look on his husbands face before- In fact, he had seen it every day for the past week right before the models draped in Shouto's hard work hit the runway for this year's Fashion Week- as well as when they had traveled to New York City two years ago for the International Fashion Awards, and again when Shouto had handed over seven months of hard work to the Prime Ministers wife right after her husband's re-election.

Shouto was moving across the bedroom in long strides, his white and purple pajama shorts riding up his legs a little, the cigarette clamped between front teeth (god he hated the way it looked in his husband's mouth) sending back a little white ribbon over his right shoulder as he went.

But it was his face that made Akiyuki pause, which caused the planned lesson to die the moment his ruby-red eyes registered it in his mind. His heart lurched, and he had to angrily tell himself that it wasn't fear that he was feeling, but only the surprise of finding him this way.

Shouto was the type to only really come alive when his work began to spike towards a climax. Each of those remembered moments had been career-related, all huge milestones that had been reached. During these milestones, Shouto transformed from the damaged, vulnerable, weak, person Akiyuki knew so-well into a scarily determined, competitive, and strong individual that fucked Akiyuki's fear-radar into oblivion. The man who came out during these times radiated with a power and sense of unpredictability so strong that Akiyuki could barely stand to be around him.

Shouto's mismatched eyes were wide, all traces of much-needed rest was now gone. His hair bounced around his face in a peppermint cloud, And... oh, looky here, friends and neighbors! Oh, you just looky right here! Is he taking a suitcase out of the closet? A suitcase? Why he sure is!

'Reserve me a room... say me a prayer...'

Well, he wasn't going to need a room in any hotel- because Akiyuki Shouto was going to be staying right here at home, thank you very much- possibly -probably- taking his meals through a feeding tube for a good little while.

Oh yes, Shouto very well might need a prayer or two before he was through with him.

Shouto tossed his suitcase on the foot of the bed, before sliding open the door that led into their bathroom and slipping inside. He returned moments later with two pairs of jeans and a pair of military green cords. He tossed them into the suitcase before returning to the bathroom, cigarette smoke still streaming out behind him. He comes back out with a sweatshirt, a couple of T-shirts, and the knee-length black jacket he had made himself some months ago (that Akiyuki thought he looked hideous in, but the stupid slut refused to give up) and tossed them in as well. Whoever had called him mustn't be a jet-setter, because this was dull stuff.

Not that he cared who had called him or where he thought he was going since he wasn't going anywhere. Those were not the things which pecked steadily at his mind, dull and achy from too much beer and not enough sleep.

It was that cigarette.

Supposedly he had thrown them all out- that's what Shouto had promised him, anyway. But he had held out on him, the proof was clamped between his teeth right now. And because he still had not noticed him standing in the doorway, Akiyuki allowed himself the pleasure of remembering the two nights which had assured him of his complete control over Todoroki Shouto.

"I don't want you smoking around me anymore." He had told him as they headed home from a Halloween party Shouto's older sister, Fuyumi, had put together. "I have to choke that shit down at the office all day every day, but I don't have to choke it down with you. Do you know what it's like? I'm going to tell you the truth-It's like having to eat someone else's snot."

He had that thought this would bring some faint spark of protest, but Shouto had only looked at him in his somewhat shy, wanting-to-please way. His voice had been low and obedient. "Okay, Koji."

"Pitch it then."

And so he had, stamping it out with the heel of his shoe. Akiyuki had been in a great mood for the rest of the night.

A few weeks later, after a movie, he unthinkingly lit a cigarette in the parking lot and puffed it as they made their way to the train station. It had been a bitterly cold night, the wind blowing so hard that they had both stumbled back on more than one occasion. He had let Shouto smoke that cigarette, he even swiped his Japan Railways card for him with a kind smile. They got inside the station, finally sheltered from the bone-chilling cold and neck-breaking wind, and he turned to him and went: "Sho?"

Shouto had taken the cigarette out of his mouth and turned to him with an almost unnoticeable quirk of his eyebrow- inquiring him. And then Akiyuki had smacked him pretty good, hard enough that his palm tingled and stung and Shouto's head rocked back so far that it hit the wall behind the bench they were sitting on with a loud 'thud' sound. His eyes had widened with surprise and pain, and... with something else as well. Something Akiyuki hadn't been able to place at the time. Shouto proceeded to just sit there, blinking, hand halfway raised to touch his face or maybe grasp the back of his head- but had eventually fallen limply back onto his lap.

Akiyuki looked at him, eyes narrowed, mouth pulled back into a casual smile. He had felt alive, wanting to see what Shouto would do next, how he'd react. School was now in session.

He replayed what had just happened. Shouto's face. What had that third expression been, there for a bare instant and then gone? First the surprise, then the pain, then the- then the?...

(Nostalgia)

-look of a memory... of some memory. It had only been for a moment. He didn't think Shouto even knew it had been there, on his face or in his mind.

Now: now. It would all be in the first thing Shouto didn't say. He knew that as well as his own name.

It wasn't "You son of a bitch!"

It wasn't "See you later, fucker."

It wasn't "We're through, Koji."

He only looked at him, his expression blank but his eyes swimming with hurt and betrayal, and said: "Why did you do that, Koji?"

"Throw it out."

"What?" Shouto had bitten his lip, shaky hands grabbed the hem of his shirt. His hair had been windswept and his eyes were shining with equal parts fiery anger and complacency. He kind of liked seeing Shouto that way. It was messy, but there was something sexy about it, too. Dirty. Kind of exciting.

"The cigarette. Throw it out."

Realization. Anger. Guilt. In that exact order. "I forgot."

"Throw it out, Sho or I'm giving you another shot."

Anger. Submission. He looked around before spotting a trash can that sported an ashtray on top and pitched the cigarette. Then he returned to him, like a loyal dog to its handler.

They had both fallen quiet for a while.

"You aren't supposed to hit me. That's a bad basis for a relationship."

Akiyuki had caught the slight, defeated-sounding, edge in Shouto's voice immediately.

Akiyuki smiled. He had regressed him. The skittish mannerisms and anxious lip biting were showing through more than ever- crumbling his blank-faced facade. He had been sitting next to little more than a child.

"Can't and aren't are two different things, Sho." He said, He had kept his voice calm but inside he had been cheering victoriously. "And I'll be the one to decide what constitutes a lasting relationship and what doesn't. If you can live with that, fine. If you can't, you can take a walk. I won't stop you. I might kick you once in the ass as a going-away present, but I won't stop you."

"Maybe you've already said enough," Shouto muttered under his breath, and Akiyuki shoved his face harshly into the side of the vending machine to their right- using much more force then he had the first time, because nobody smart-assed Akiyuki Koji.

Shouto's nose had collided with the machine so hard Akiyuki could still remember hearing the crack of his nose breaking. Blood had begun gushing moments later, and then Shouto had stood up to leave- anger burning behind his eyes- but after a few seconds, it faded, and he slowly sat back down, blank stare returning.

Akiyuki had looked at him for a long while, before standing, and harshly gripping Shouto's wrist- yanking him upwards off the bench once more. "You want to leave, Sho? Huh? You stood up, so I guess that's what you want right? I asked you to do something and you said you would. Then you didn't. So you want to get up? Come on. Get up. What the fuck, right? Get up. You want to get up?"

"No." He had whispered, his eyes trained on the ground- blood was still flowing in a heavy stream down his face.

"What? Can't hear you."

"No, I don't want to stand up," Shouto had tried a little louder.

"What-those cigarettes giving you emphysema? If you can't talk, I'll get you a fucking megaphone. This is your last chance, Sho. You speak up so I can hear from you: do you want to leave or do you want to come back with me?"

"I want to come back with you." He had sounded dead, looked it to. It made Akiyuki grin.

"All right," he said. "Fine. But first, you say this for me, Shouto. You say, "I forgot about smoking in front of you, Koji."

Shouto kept his dead eyes trained on the ground, Akiyuki had watched as he gripped angrily at the hem of his shirt with his free hand. His mannerisms said "don't make me do this, Koji. You can, but please don't. Can't this be over?"

It couldn't. Because that was not the bottom of Shouto's wanting, and both of them knew it.

"Say it."

"I forgot about smoking in front of you, Koji."

"Good. Now say you're sorry."

"I'm sorry." He said back robotically.

They hadn't been the only ones in the station that night. Several people had watched as this went on, all pretending like they were anywhere but there- all just as weak and complacent as Shouto.

"Now say you'll never do it again without my permission."

"I'll never do it again without your permission," Shouto repeated, like a trained dog.

"Good boy." And Akiyuki released Shouto's wrist, sitting back down with him on the bench. Neither of them said a word as they heard the screech of the trains breaks swiftly approaching.

Half the relationship had been set in the train station, the second half had been set forty minutes later in Akiyuki's bed.

Then, as they had laid together, panting and bathing in the after-glow, he had reached into the pocket of Shouto's discarded coat and pulled out the pack of cigarettes. He delicately took one out, before tossing the package into the bedside table, and handed the single stick of tobacco to Shouto.

"You can have a cigarette now."

They had been married in a civil ceremony three months later. Two of his friends had come; Shouto didn't have any friends, so the only people on his side had been his older sister and his mother Rei. The hot-headed bastard he called a brother, Natsuo, had been invited- but hadn't shown, having been against the relationship from the beginning. Neither had the eldest Todoroki sibling, Touya, but he actually had a decent excuse. (Something to do with work)

All these memories flashed through Akiyuki's brain in the span of five seconds, like a speeded-up piece of film, as he stood watching him from the doorway. Shouto was tossing underwear into his suitcase now- not the sort of stuff he liked, the delicate lace or slippery satins, this was all plain old Cotten boxer shorts- some with busted hems or tiny holes worn into the legs.

Shouto took a step back from the suitcase and looked inside from above, seeming to be going over what he had and hadn't packed.

Akiyuki Koji, meanwhile, moved across the wood floor towards the bathroom as quiet as a mouse. Once inside, he pushed open the sliding door to his closet, scanning the expanse of its large size for something in particular...

That damn cigarette. That was what had really gotten him mad. It had been a very, very, long time since Shouto had forgotten that first lesson. There had been other lessons to learn since, a great many, and there had been hot days when Shouto had worn long-sleeved sweatshirts or even coats buttoned all the way to the neck. Gray days when he had worn sunglasses. But that first lesson had been so sudden and fundamental-

He had forgotten the telephone call that had wakened him out of his deepening sleep. It was a cigarette. If Shouto was smoking now, then he had forgotten Akiyuki Koji. Temporarily, of course, only temporarily, but even temporarily was too damned long. What might have caused him to forget didn't matter. Such things were not to happen in his house for any reason.

There was a wide black strip of leather hanging from a hook inside the closet door. There was no buckle on it; he had removed that long ago. It was doubled over at one end where a buckle would have gone, and this doubled-over section formed a loop into which Akiyuki Koji now slipped his hand.

He flipped the loose end of the belt over in his hands once and pulled the loop snug. Then he closed his fist over it. It felt good. It made him feel like an adult. The strip of leather hung from his clenched fist like a dead black snake. His headache was gone. He could feel himself smile.

The thought that this early-morning call might have been from a lover surfaced briefly in his mind and then sank again. That was ridiculous. If Shouto were going away to meet a lover he wouldn't have packed his faded T-shirts he'd gotten from a bargain shop years ago and his cotton K-Mart boxer-shorts with the pops and snarls in the elastic. Also, he wouldn't dare.

"Shouto..." He called softly, and Shouto turned to him with startling large mismatched eyes, his hair bouncing prettily around his face.

The belt hesitated... dropped a little. Akiyuki stared at him, feeling that little bloom of uneasiness again. Yes, Shouto had looked this way before the big milestones, and then he hadn't gotten in his way, understanding that Shouto was so filled with a mixture of fear and competitive aggressiveness that it was as if his head was full of illuminating gas: a single spark and he would explode. He had seen the shows, not as a chance to split off from Yukiteru, nor to make a living or- even a fortune-on his own. If that had been all, Shouto would have been fine. But if that were all, he also would not have been so ungodly talented. Shouto had seen those shows and milestones as a kind of super-exam on which he would be graded by fierce teachers. What he saw on those occasions was some creature without a face. It had no face, but it did have a name-Authority.

And here it was, all over his face now. But it wasn't just on Shouto's face, it was all around him- clinging to him like some sort of unnatural aura- A sudden electricity that made him more alluring and dangerous then he had seemed to Akiyuki in years. And He was afraid because Shouto was here, all here, the essential he as apart from the he Akiyuki Koji wanted him to be, the Shouto Akiyuki had made.

Shouto looked extremely exhilarated, Akiyuki felt like if he were to touch him, he'd be treated to a nasty shock of energy.

The cigarette was still in his mouth.

That damn cigarette was jutting out of Shouto's mouth at a slight up angle. Just looking at it caused fury to burn through Akiyuki's veins- Faintly, far back in his mind, he remembered Shouto, speaking in a dull and listless voice: "Someday you're going to kill me, Koji. Someday you're just going to go too far. You'll snap."

He had answered: "You do it my way, Sho, and that day will never come."

Now, before the rage blotted out everything, he wondered if that day hadn't come after all.

The cigarette. Never mind the call, the packing, the weird (frightening) look on his face. They would deal with the cigarette. Then Akiyuki would fuck him. Then they could discuss the rest. By then it might even seem important.

"Koji." Shouto started, the cigarette bouncing a little as he spoke around it. "I have to-"

"You're smoking, Sho... where've you been hiding them? Hm?"

"-Look, I'll put it out." He crushed the cigarette against his bedside table, brushing his hair out of his face. "Koji, that was an old friend, An old old friend, I have to-"

"Shut the fuck up, that's what you have to fucking do!" he shouted at Shouto. "Just shut up!" But the fear he wanted to see-the fear of him-was not on his face. There was fear, but it had come out of the telephone, and fear was not supposed to come to Shouto from that direction. It was almost as if he didn't see the belt, didn't see him, and Akiyuki felt a trickle of unease. Was he here? It was a stupid question, but was he?

"Gotta give you a whipping, Sho," Akiyuki said, pulling himself out of an existential spiral, and thwacking the belt for emphasis. "A bad one too... but maybe if you start acting right, I won't make you look like you were shoved out of a car going 80 down the highway."

He had seen that mixture of fear and aggressiveness before, yes. Always brewing below the surface of Shouto's Psyche. It was one of Akiyuki's favorite parts- watching Shouto battle with his own will, just to lose out and submit to punishment every time...

But now for the first time ever it flashed out at him.

"Put that down, Koji. I have to get to Tokyo international as soon as-"

THWACK! the leather belt cracked through the air and caught Shouto's bare leg. Akiyuki heard Shouto let out a hiss of pain, and smiled- surely now things would fall back into the status quo-

"Listen to me, Koji- there's been some trouble back home. I had a best friend back then- we called him Deku and he had a really bad stutter- he's a manga author now, you've read one of his series before- "Breathe" I think it was called-"

'What?... why was he still?... why wasn't he cowering?...' Akiyuki gritted his teeth, and with another loud crack, the strip of leather wrapped it's way around Shouto's arm painfully.

Shouto let out another hiss, falling back a little toward the bathroom, before looking back up at Akiyuki. "-that manga sat around here for weeks and I never made the connection. I should of- but- we were kids when I knew him and I haven't thought about him- or any of our friends- or even Irusu for a long time-"

Thwack. Hiss.

"-Deku had a sister named Eri, Eri was killed before I really knew Deku. She was murdered, actually- but, then that summer we-"

But Akiyuki was seeing red now, anger coursing through his body in strong waves.

("Someday you're going to kill me, Koji.")

Akiyuki brought the belt down so hard he felt a lurch in his shoulder. He could feel his heart pumping painfully loud in his ears, and it only got worst when Shouto attempted to dodge- the belt striking his right shoulder instead of the intended target of his chest.

"Gonna whip you," Akiyuki repeated. His voice was sane, but his teeth showed in a white and frozen smile. He wanted to see that look in Shouto's heterochrome eyes, that look of fear and terror and shame, that look that said Yes you're right I deserved it, I feel your presence. Then love could come back, and that was right and good, because Akiyuki did love him. They could even have a discussion, if he wanted it, of exactly who had called and what all this was about. But that must come later. For now, school was in session. The old one-two. First the whuppin, then the fuckin.

"Koji, don't-"

He swung the belt sidearm and saw it lick around Shouto's hip. There was a satisfying snap as it finished on his buttock. And...

-And Jesus fuck, he was grabbing at it! Shouto was grabbing at the goddamn belt!

For a moment, Akiyuki could only stare in astonishment as Shouto made a grab for the black leather belt in his hands. He blinked, honest to god not knowing what to do or say, until Shouto gave a harsh tug, causing the loop to tighten around Akiyuki's hand and bring him back to reality.

The anger was practically exploding out of him now. "DON'T YOU EVER TRY AND GRAB SOMETHING FROM ME, YOU HEAR ME?! YOU TRY IT AGAIN AND YOU'LL BE PISSING RASPBERRY JUICE FOR A MONTH!"

"-Koji, stop it." And his tone made Akiyuki want to batter him with his fists alone. "I have to go. This is no joke. People are dead, and I made a promise a long time ago-"

Akiyuki barely heard any of this. He bellowed and ran at Shouto with his head down, the belt swinging blindly. He hit him with it, driving him away from the bathroom door and along the bedroom wall. He cocked his arm back, hit him, cocked his arm back, hit him, cocked his arm back, hit him. Over and over, again and again. Shouto was defying him, not only had he been smoking- he had also tried to grab the belt away from him, and oh friends and neighbors, Shouto had been asking for it- and by god was he going to get it.

He drove Shouto along the wall, hitting him with the belt as they went. His hands were up to protect his face ('as if it weren't damaged already with that burn scar taking up half of it' Akiyuki thought to himself somewhere between the waves of rage) but he had a clear shot to the rest of his body. The belt made thick bullwhip cracks in the quiet room. But Shouto did not scream, as he sometimes did, and worst of all he did not beg Akiyuki to stop, as he always did. The only sounds were the belt and their breathing, Akiyuki's heavy and hoarse, Shouto's quick and light.

And then suddenly, Shouto was shoving- SHOVING- past him toward the bathroom and the vanity table near it. Akiyuki walked slowly after him, shaking so badly with rage he could feel each tremor. Shouto was tall, standing at an even six feet at full height, but Akiyuki was bigger and much, much broader. His weight had gotten a little (a lot) out of control in the last couple of years, but the muscle from his competitive bodybuilding days way back in university was still very much there.

("Someday you're going to kill me, Koji.")

Shouto reached the vanity, and for a moment Akiyuki thought he was going to try and crawl underneath it- instead, he turned and reached for something behind him- and suddenly the air was filled with projectiles.

A bottle of Perfume, ("Sugi" by monocle) hit him squarely in the chest- exploding on impact and cutting up his face. Akiyuki gagged, the scent overwhelming his senses, burning the fresh-cut and his eyes, as he stumbled backward.

"Stop it you stupid cunt!-" he roared.

Instead of obeying, Shouto continued to toss whatever he could get his hands on. Perfume samples sent home for collaboration purposes, Colognes for personal use, moisturizers, nail polish- the works.

Shouto had cut him.

Akiyuki didn't pay much attention to the objects flying past him. Instead, he was focused on the feeling of his stinging cuts and the warm droplets of blood trailing down his neck and chest. Shouto had cut him. SHOUTO had CUT HIM.

Shouto wouldn't be waking up in a hotel tomorrow morning, oh no, the next time the little whore opened his eyes he'd be in a Hospital room after being beaten within an inch of his life-

A jar of cream suddenly struck him in the forehead with a startling amount of force. Akiyuki heard a dull 'thud' from somewhere inside his head and he was sent reeling backwards. A bottle of yellow nail polish struck his stomach next, and burst open, spilling out all over him and the wood floor below- and- and was he?- he was- Shouto was yelling at him!

"I'm going to the airport, you son of a bitch! Do you hear me? I have business and I'm going! You want to get out of my way because I'm GOING!"

Blood ran into his eye, but Akiyuki barely noticed it. He was to busy staring wide-eyed at his husband as if he had never seen him before. Shouto's chest rose and fell rapidly, his face flushed an angry red, his teeth bared in a pissed off snarl, and the fear that managed to cut through the anger blazing in his eyes still wasn't of him.

But, Akiyuki observed, the vanity was empty.

"You put those clothes back," Akiyuki said, struggling not to pant as he spoke. That would not sound good. That would sound weak. "Then you put the suitcase back and get into bed. And if you do those things, maybe I won't beat you up too bad. Maybe you'll be able to go out of the house in two days instead of two weeks-"

"No."

"What?-"

"No. Koji, you listen to me." Shouto's hair was falling over his left eye, covering his scar almost entirely. His visible eye, the grey one, shined with a sense of danger so strong Akiyuki felt his heart skip a beat. "If you come near me again, I'll kill you."

Akiyuki's mouth was dry, he moved to say something (what, he had no idea- probably a threat of some sort) but was cut off before he even had the chance.

Shouto's voice was Icy cold, and horrifically steady. He meant what he was saying. "Do you understand me, tubguts? I'll fucking kill you."

And suddenly-maybe it was because of the utter loathing on Shouto's face, the contempt, maybe because he had called him "tubguts", or maybe only because of the rebellious way his chest rose and fell-the fear was suffocating him. It was not a bud or a bloom but a whole goddam garden, the fear, the horrible fear that Shouto really would kill him.

Akiyuki Koji rushed at his husband, not screaming this time. Instead, remaining silent to try and catch Shouto off guard. His intent was no longer to just thrash and beat him, instead it was to do exactly what Shouto himself had just so rashly threatened to do to him.

Akiyuki thought Shouto would run, to the hall maybe, but instead, he stood his ground. Shouto's hip thwacks the wall, and suddenly he's throwing all of his weight at the vanity. It teetered on the edge of falling, and Shouto shoved himself into it again, ripping two fingernails down to the quick as his sweaty hands slip on the slick wood.

The leading edge slams into Akiyuki's thigh before he can process what's happened. Bottles and who knows what else crash against the closed drawers as the vanity takes him to the ground. The mirror shatters with a loud crash, and Akiyuki is barely able to cover his face in time to save his eye from being gashed out by a large shard of glass. He was bleeding, badly.

Shouto was standing above him now, his breathing coming out in ragged gasps of breath. Time after time he had seen himself leaving him, leaving Akiyuki's tyranny as he had left his father's, running away in the night to Natsuo's apartment in Sapporo, bags piled in the trunk of his white Buick. Shouto was not stupid, he knew there was a reason as to why he put up with Akiyuki's abuse- just as he had put with his boyfriend's abuse before Akiyuki, and his University boyfriend's abuse before him. There was a reason, yes, and if he thought hard enough about it he could almost grasp it-

But before he could, Kaminari Denki's exhausted, but kind and easy-going, voice filled his head: "it's come back, Roki... its come back... and you promised..."

The vanity heaved up and down. Once. Twice. A third time. It looked as if it were breathing.

Shouto skirted around the edge of the vanity, doing his best to avoid the shattered glass cascaded across the floor, gabbing control over the belt just as Akiyuki heaved the vanity over to one side. Then Shouto backed up, sliding his hand into the loop. He shook his hair out of his eyes and watched to see what he would do.

Akiyuki got up. Some of the mirror-glass had cut one of his cheeks. A diagonal cut traced a line as fine as thread across his brow. He squinted at Shouto as he rose slowly to his feet, and he could see beads of blood agonizingly making their way down his tall body.

"You just give me that belt," He said.

Instead, Shouto took two turns of it around his hand and looked at him defiantly, eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Quit it, Sho. Right now-"

"-If you come for me, I'm going to strap the shit out of you-" Just who was this caveman in the bloody undershorts, anyway? His husband? His father? The lover he had taken in college who had broken his nose one night, apparently on a whim? "I can do it, too. You're fat and slow, Koji. I'm going, and I think maybe I'll stay gone. I think maybe it's over."

"Who's this guy Denki?"

"Forget it, I was-"

He realized almost too late that that had been meant as a distraction. Shouto ripped the belt through the air, not really thinking as much as driving on autopilot, and felt the shock of the impact burn through the belt and up through his arm as the leather made contact with Akiyuki's jaw.

Akiyuki screeched, hands gripping his jaw as blood began to drip steadily from his lips. "You broke my goddamn jaw you bitch!- you stupid fucking bitch you broke my mouth!"

And then Akiyuki's coming at him again, his lips busted nastily in two places and the crown on one of his teeth knocked loose.

Part of him was backing away from this scene, sick and moaning, wanting to shut his eyes. But that other Shouto felt the exultation of a death-row convict freed in a freak earthquake. That Shouto liked all of this just fine. 'I wish you'd swallowed it!' that one thought. 'Wish you'd choked on it!'

It was this latter Shouto who swung the belt for the last time-the belt he had used on his back, his legs, his chest. The belt Akiyuki had used on him times without number over the last four years. How many strokes you got depended on how badly you'd screwed up. Akiyuki comes home and dinner is cold? Two with the belt. Sho's working late at the studio and forgets to call home? Three with the belt. Oh hey, look at this-Shouto got another parking ticket. One with the belt... across the chest. He was good. He rarely bruised. It didn't even hurt that much. Except for the humiliation. That hurt. And what hurts worse was knowing that part of him craved the hurt. Craved the humiliation.

'Last time pays for all,' Shouto thought, and swung.

He brought the belt in low, brought it in sidearm, and it whacked across Akiyuki's balls with a brisk yet heavy sound, the sound of someone striking a rug with a carpet-beater. That was all it took. All the fight promptly went out of Akiyuki Koji.

Akiyuki let out a high-pitched, whining squeak as he fell- letting out another when his knee was cut open on a loose pane of glass.

'The blood,' Shouto thought, backing away a little 'Fuck, he's bleeding everywhere.'

'He'll live,' this new (old?) Shouto- who seemed to have surfaced after Kaminari Denki's call- spoke in his mind coldly. 'You just get the hell out of here before he decides he wants to go for another round. Or before he picks up one of these glass shards and stabs you to death.'

Shouto backed away, feeling a stab of pain in his foot as he stepped down hard on a piece of glass. He bent down, never taking his eyes off of Akiyuki, and took the handle of his suitcase before backing out of the room and down the hall. His bloody foot leave behind footprints on the wooden floor.

In the living room, he flinched as something brushed against his leg- it takes him a moment, but he eventually realizes its the belt, the loop wrapped around his hand still. He chucks it with look of disgust at the wall, before unzipping his suitcase and pulling out a clean change of clothes.

He was covered in blood and didn't want to be anymore. Without taking his eyes off the hallway, Shouto began to get undress, pulling on a faded T-shirt and his cords.

"SHOUTO YOU GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE!"

He payed Akiyuki no mind, pulling the custom black, knee-length jacket on before slamming the suitcase closed and hastily zipping it up again. His heart pounded in his ears, just knowing that Akiyuki was going to appear any moment now.

"I'll KILL YOU, YOU BASTARD! YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!"

But Akiyuki doesn't come. Instead, he continued to yell from their bedroom. Shouto took one last, quick, look around suspecting he'd never see this house again, before sliding open the door and stepping into the warm air of the early summer night.

He was headed home.