Yes, he'd said. I want you to stay with me.
All at once I melted, heart and soul, when those words reached my ears. It was a soft touch that they had on me, gently and tentatively spoken. I was above him, but it felt as if he'd whispered that affirmation into my ear. He wouldn't have done so, of course, regardless of our position. Not yet, anyway. Still, the impact they had on me was unparalleled by any phrase I'd ever heard.
After hearing those words there was no way I could control myself. I plunged into him with full force, my head swimming in a whirlpool of desire and euphoria. His scream only sent me deeper into the whirlpool, until I was completely lost in the lovely sounds he managed to produce. Shockwaves rippled through me with every thrust, and soon enough the thin dam holding back my emotions ruptured. A tsunami of pleasure rushed forth and erupted into him, filling his insides with every ounce of my love.
Even now, two weeks later, standing in the catacombs, I still shuddered when I thought of that night. He cared about me. He wanted to be with me. And even if it was only one percent as much as I did, he loved me. Enough that he trusted me with his life.
We'd gone over our route a few times in the days before, ensuring that everything was memorized without issue. I'd also planted the weapons I'd acquired within a barricade, the same place where I'd release the bombs. From there, Souichi and I would continue with our escape. Initially I'd thought that he would've been taken away in the morning, but the guards had waited until around eight at night to take him away. As Souichi had predicted, I'd been allowed to escort him down to the catacombs, but the guards with him had told me to go back after we'd reached a certain point. I obeyed, of course. However, they never specified how far back I had to go, so after turning a corner, I followed stealthily behind.
The barricade came into view, and instantly I sprung into action. I'd already put on the mask that would guard me from being affected by the gas, and I'd placed one on Souichi earlier to act as a gag. Withdrawing the bombs and matches from a hidden pocket in my cloak, I struck the sticks and lit the end of one bomb. As the fuse started to sizzle, I peered out from behind the corner. Souichi's head turned my way, and though the gesture was subtle, I saw him nod. I waited a few moments, letting the fuse shrink further, then tossed the bomb down the hallway. In midair the gas released, enveloping the space in a purple cloud. The force of four guarding Souichi made to put the masks formerly around their necks on their mouths, but by the time they'd tied them, they were already on the floor.
Once I was sure they were asleep, I left my hiding place and joined Souichi at the barricade. I rooted through the guards' belongings until I found a ring of keys, the largest of which I stuck into the hole on his restraints. A twist later two sets of chains lay on the ground, his wrists and ankles now free. In silent urgency we removed the weapons planted in the barricade, and after strapping everything on, we embarked on our escape route.
We darted through the dimly-lit halls, our pace consistent until we reached the first barricade. It was of weak construction, typical of ones located in the middle regions of the catacombs. Worms crawled about the holes pockmarking the rotten wood, the beams of which were bent to the point of nearly cracking. I pulled down my mask, knowing we were far enough away from the gas to remain unaffected.
"How should we do this?" I asked.
Souichi pulled his mask down as well. "Kick it?" he suggested.
"Will it work?"
Experimentally he grabbed a beam and pulled. Moments later it snapped, sending splinters and bugs flying into the air. "Yeah," he affirmed. "It'll work."
Our booted feet assaulted the rotted beams, powerless to resist our superior force. A few rats emerged from their hiding places the more the boards disappeared, and I was fully confident that their feces had been used as an adhesive in place of nails.
I lifted my foot to deliver another kick, but Souichi grabbed my wrist and tugged me through the hole we'd created before I could. With a cry I stumbled forward, luckily catching myself before I landed in a mound of shit. "What're you doing?!"
"Are you deaf?" he hissed. Without waiting for me to fully recover he started running again.
Standing upright and dusting myself off, I followed. "What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said."
I groaned under my breath. Times like these almost made me doubt my feelings. But then I remembered just how sweet he could be…
"Could you elaborate?" I requested.
He didn't reply, instead continuing down the hallway. Frustration festered in my heart like an infection in an open wound. My eyes narrowed, and my fists clenched. Harshly I growled, "Souichi, don't—"
He grabbed my shirt before I could finish, and forcibly he tossed me to the nearest wall. My head cracked against the stone, sending sharp pain rattling in my skull. A grunt left my lips, and a string of obscenities prepared to leave my mouth. A hand on my mouth shoved the curses back inside.
"Shut up," Souichi whispered. "Listen."
So I fell silent, our respective breaths the only audible noises that hung in the air. I couldn't help but blush at our positions. He wasn't sitting in my lap, but the way he hovered over it, he may as well have been. Parts of his body pressed against my own, particularly in the middle of his groin. Had it not been for the shouts of guards echoing behind us, I would've tried to explore this contact a little further. Even if Souichi thought otherwise most of the time, I wasn't stupid. Well, I wasn't that stupid.
I tried to ask him something, but it came out as muffled grumbles. He pulled his hand away. "How far away?" I whispered again.
"Two halls back if we're lucky," he replied. Souichi rose, and I felt a little sadness at the lack of his touch. "So get off your ass and keep moving."
"You threw me on it in the first place," I mumbled as I stood.
I wanted to scream to the heavens and open up the sky in a storm of destruction and calamity, but since that would only give us away, I swung and cracked my knuckles across Morinaga's face. His head whipped to the side, and I was fairly confident that I'd broken the skin. It was as dark and unused as a homeless person's anus, but there was just enough light that I could see something splatter onto the wall next to him. Whether it was saliva or blood I didn't know, but I did know that if I would've aimed lower I probably could've sent his teeth down his throat.
"What the hell was that for?!" he shouted. Fire burned in his eyes, and based on the darkness trickling out from under the hand holding his cheek, my suspicions were correct.
"Shut up," I hissed at him. "You're loud."
"Why'd you hit me?!" He still shouted it, but at least it was a whispered shout.
"Because it kept me from stabbing you." I pointed at the barricade in front of us, made of solid stone. "We're trapped."
Morinaga was a man who had little control over his emotions, so naturally I expected him to share if not exceed my dismay. But instead, he scowled. Half-heartedly, but he still scowled.
He approached the barricade with a sense of purpose circling about him. After touching a few of the blocks, his hand settled on one to the right. Force flowed from his arm and into the block, which slowly but noticeably slid out from its spot. With a grunt he gave a final, slightly more effortful push, and a thud sounded from the other side of the barricade.
I shared his flat gaze when he turned it on me. "You're sure we're trapped?"
Now I scowled. "I was supposed to know that how?"
"By checking." Once again he turned to the barricade, particularly the space around the block he'd already pushed out. The one below seemed loose as well, based on the way it wriggled around as he pushed, but it was wedged in enough that he couldn't release it on his own.
"Move over," I instructed. Despite his newfound bitchiness, he moved over enough for the small space to accommodate me. I pushed with him, and instantly I found why he struggled so much on his own.
"Where'd they go?" a voice shouted from behind.
"Shit," Morinaga mumbled. "This isn't working…!"
"I have an idea." I scooted back from the block and pressed my foot against it. "It'll go better if we kick."
"You're sure?"
"Do you really think there's time for you to question me?" I snarled.
With a somewhat depressing sound of affirmation, he placed his boot beside mine. We counted in unison up to three, then simultaneously struck the block. As I'd predicted, it jerked back.
"Again," I ordered.
Again we counted, again we kicked, and again the block moved. Two more of these processes and the block came completely free. He made to check another block, but I grabbed his arm before he even skim the stones.
"There's no time," I told him. "They can't be far behind us."
He stared at the space we'd created, then looked back at me. "Are you sure that's enough?"
"It'll have to be." The blocks weren't particularly small, but the space wasn't particularly large enough for my liking. "I'll go through first, since I'm smaller." And if the guards caught up with us, at least I'd be able to get out alive. Morinaga could join later if he truly wanted to, though I still didn't like the idea of putting him in danger when he'd done nothing excessively wrong.
"Wait," he said.
"What now?" I groaned. I already crouched before the hole, ready to crawl through.
"Put your mask back on," he instructed. "If they catch up I'll release the other bomb."
"And if they're wearing masks, too?"
"Do we really have time to worry about that?" he retorted.
As much as I wanted to, I couldn't hit him again. Not only would it have wasted time, he would've also probably been knocked unconscious. I could've carried him on my shoulders, but I preferred to have him well enough to at least travel through the hole by himself. I obeyed his order and slipped my mask back on.
Either I was smaller than I'd realized or the hole was bigger than it seemed, because I found little struggle with making my way through. Concrete scratched my shoulders and sides, and whenever light befell us again, I was sure I'd find my clothing torn and skin scraped. But none of that mattered now. What did matter was that I stood up before the rats could eat my face. The nearest lantern hung a few yards away, but beady eyes glanced up from their crumbs and sex as I moved through. Little feet scurried across the stone and toward me, but before their claws or teeth could sink into my flesh, I stood upright. Easier than I expected.
Frustratingly, the same didn't apply to Morinaga. He made it halfway through before I heard footsteps thud toward the barricade. There was no physical way for me nor him to retrieve the second bomb, and even if we could, there wasn't any way to throw it back. Before the smell of shit in this space could grow stronger, I grabbed his hands and pulled.
"Get through," I growled through clenched teeth.
"I can't!" Morinaga denied.
"Bullshit! You're just not trying hard enough!" Even if I had his arms erect, he could still move himself with his legs or propel himself with the rest of his body. His stupidity truly knew no bounds.
Despite all his doubt, he made it through. The dark couldn't mask his injuries, far greater and far more abundant than my own. A fresh cut streaked across his forehead, and blood trickled down his face. It didn't look too severe, but wounds to the head always bled more severely than others.
"Throw the other bomb," I ordered. "Now!" My shout echoed throughout the hall, and a few rats screeched in response, as if to outdo me. Foolish rats; I was the king of shouting.
Too slowly for my liking but probably as quickly as he could possibly go, Morinaga lit the other bomb and tossed it through the hole. By some magical or divine force our minds synced, and at the same time we crouched to replace the blocks. I couldn't lie, I was impressed. Despite all the bitchiness and dismay and anxiety the situation provided to him, he had a respectable amount of common sense in him.
It took a bit of time, and even when the blocks were back in they were crooked and visibly loose. But it would do for now, especially considering what had happened on the other side of the barricade. Even if the guards were unaffected by the gas and just momentarily stunned, they'd need to either tear down the barricade or go a completely different route to find us.
The only other route available would've taken them the whole way around the western half of the catacombs, a ten-minute journey even if they ran. If they took that route I didn't know, nor did I really care. By the time ten minutes had passed, Morinaga and I had reached the final barricade. The wood composing it exceeded the strength of the first one, enough that we only managed to splinter the boards.
"Any matches left?" I asked.
"Yeah," he replied. "Three."
"Light it," I ordered. "That's the only way we're getting through."
I expected him to question the dangers of sparking a fire in such a small space, but a glint in his eye told me he understood. After a quick strike, he threw the match into the barricade. A beast of flame emerged seemingly from nothing, and it ate away at the barricade's powerless form. Smoke enveloped the space, and though we still wore our masks, both of us fell victim to an intense coughing fit.
I endured for a few minutes longer, and the moment I heard the barricade collapse, I grabbed Morinaga's wrist and pulled him through the flaming barricade. Tiny needles of smoke burned and stung our eyes, and a thick haze of blackness twisted and addled all thoughts in my head. We made it somewhat of a safe distance away from the fire before stumbling. I crumpled onto my side, tripping over either a rock or a rat, and landed with a hacked grunt. Morinaga tripped as well—probably over me—but managed to catch himself before he could cover me. Warmth enveloped me, and I couldn't tell if it was from the nearby fire or from Morinaga. It didn't matter too much. Not in this situation, anyway. Otherwise I would've shoved him off.
"You have a knife with you?" I questioned.
He coughed a bit—courteously he moved his head away from me—before replying, "Yeah. Why?"
"Do you—" I hacked as smoke clamped its suffocating hands around my neck. "—need it?"
"I don't...think so."
"Throw it in the fire."
"Why?"
"They'll think we died in the fire. At least for a little."
"All right." Metal slid against leather, then it clattered across the stone until it landed—hopefully—close enough to the fire to imply death.
"Morinaga."
"Huh?"
"Get off."
He tensed, and hastily he stood from me. "S-Sorry." As if in apology he grabbed my hand and pulled me up. "I didn't mean to—"
"Shut up," I interrupted. "It didn't hurt, and you didn't fall on me fully." Nodding to the side, I ran as quickly and as straightly as I could away from the fire, Morinaga behind me, not stopping until we emerged from the catacombs into the embrace of cool night air.
