For a while Akihito only lay there, in the dirt, breathing up the light dust that covered the little chunks of soil, with his face turned away from his lover in shame. Asami had settled back to the wall again, stretching out his bleeding knees and the cuts in his thighs. He felt his strength slowly slip away into the darkness, with his eyes fixed on the boy, in deep regret.
Akihito started to move only after he heard his name for the first time through the silence. He shakily pushed up onto his intact arm, cautiously sitting back to pull his trousers back up. He then curled against the wall, tucking his head onto his knees, with his broken arm cradled inside the egg his body was forming now. Placing the other arm over his head in protection, he faintly started to sob into his chest. Not once had he looked at Asami. It broke his heart. He struggled against the chains again, feeling the pain emitting from his wrists.
"Akihito", he said, not knowing how to follow up.
Akihito only held his hand up to stop him. It shook in terror. It took all the air from Asami´s body. He collapsed back into his posture at the wall, sensing his sight darken slowly.
"Asami!"
...
"Asami!"
He slowly opened his eyes.
Akihito was crying, leaning against the metal bars, stretching his right arm through one of the gaps, trying to grasp Asami, even though he was about 6 feet away from him.
Asami coughed. For a moment he looked around him, searching, then finding Akihito´s gaze. When he saw the outstretched arm he immediately moved to get closer, only to realise that the pain from every inch of his sore body would no longer let him strain his muscles.
"I started to think you´d left me."
"I´ll never leave you", Asami whispered. Neither did he have the courage nor the strength to speak louder.
Strengthless, he closed his eyes again. Oh, how he wished to touch his Akihito right now. Only a mere caress would take away all the pain, the hunger, the weakness. But his body had won this battle, and in dark certainty, he felt his senses gradually slip away.
Akihito didn´t know how long they had been in there, when Asami´s men finally broke open the doors to their cells. He screamed in pain, when one of the men tried to pull him up by his now blue and purple arm, waking Asami briefly in the process.
The drug had finally left his system by now, allowing him to walk out by himself, running after the men carrying out his lover, only to hold his bloodied hand.
Asami had lost so much blood by now, he looked pale and dead. Akihito wasn´t even sure how long he had been with these guys before they had caught him. It had all happened too fast to actually process anything.
Why had Asami given away the names? How could he load all this guilt onto Akihito´s shoulders? Hundreds of people would die now. Some of them probably already had. Akihito looked down onto his blood stained hand, feeling as if the dark red started spreading further and further.
As they stepped out into the night, Akihito let go of the big hand and tried to breathe in properly. He just couldn´t seem to understand why he was alive while others were to die because of it. His head wouldn´t process it all anymore, Akihito looked around in the messy darkness in tears. When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he jumped away, only to see one of Asami´s men showing him towards the ambulance where he already lay, ready to go. Hearing, but without being able to decipher a single word the man said to him, he blindly followed him and got sat down next to his lover, before the vehicle started to move instantly.
He was given a cup of water which he drank down in one sip. The blurry lines of his lover´s body still wouldn´t move. Silent tears escaped Akihito´s burning eyes. His chest felt as if about to explode with all the pain and sorrow and the vast amount of other feelings he was unable to process. He felt the white plastic cup slip from his fingers and drop onto the floor of the ambulance, then a pair of arms catching him as he lost balance and when trying to blink his vision wouldn´t come back on.
The faint beeping of machines hooked up to his lover´s still body filled the room. The door shut behind Suoh. Trembling, Akihito only stood there for a few moments, watching Asami breathe.
He felt the cast on his arm weigh him down and his headache tire him. This wasn´t good. Nothing was good. Asami would heal. He always did. But would Akihito? He had just been made responsible for a war. How could he have been so blind to follow this man into the darkness? How could Asami do this to him? Up to this point, Akihito had thought Asami really loved him, but with that he disproved it. Asami should have sacrificed everything, including him, in that cell, only to save these lives. How could he have been so selfish? All he had ever wanted was to possess Akihito, with no attention to what Akihito wanted.
Akihito felt tears once again run down his cheekbones. Before he swayed away in exhaustion, he took a step forward to hold on to Asami´s bed. He loved this man so much, he would have done anything for him, would have gone into death without fear, would have followed him anywhere. But not like this.
Akihito took a step back. He inhaled abruptly and turned on his heel. As he walked out, he swallowed down his tears and avoided Suoh´s eyes.
It was only when he reached into his pocket that he realised he had no money or his phone in there, and he had lost his camera during the kidnapping. He had no way of getting home unless he wanted to walk there. He wouldn´t be able to walk in his state. He sat down trying to think something out. He couldn´t call Kou or Takato, he didn´t know their numbers. He couldn´t pay for a taxi or the train home. How would he even get in there without his keys? He had left them at the penthouse, rarely had he used them lately, his apartment was empty, still the rent was paid monthly from his bank account. His bank account. He could just walk into a bank and ask for a withdrawal. But he had no identification with him, how would they ever just believe he was him?
"Would you like to go home, Takaba-san?"
He blinked, then looked up to Suoh. One last time. He could get some of his stuff back before leaving. Asami would surely not wake up any time soon to stop him.
"Yes. Please."
He couldn´t really say anything more than that.
Only two minutes later, the car pulled up in front of the hospital.
"Do you need any assistance? Shall I get someone to the condo?", Souh asked while helping him into the car.
"No, thank you, I´ll be fine."
He was about to say goodbye when he realised that Suoh would probably lock him up in the penthouse if he would. He would never see this face again. Akihito swallowed. He turned his eyes to the driver to see if he knew him. One of the few he didn´t know by name, bus still somewhat familiar. Probably all the higher ranking guys were securing the hospital right now.
He didn´t say a single word. If he had, he would have broken into tears. He was about to leave the love of his life, about to leave behind the feelings he had never known he wanted, about to leave the securing arms of the tall man he had belonged to for so long now.
He would have to learn how it felt belonging to only oneself.
Akihito felt his legs becoming heavier and heavier every instant on the way to the penthouse. He would give himself an hour to get his stuff, find Takato´s number, and get him to pick him up and get him home. He needed to go home. He needed sleep. He needed rest. He needed to heal.
He started with the call to give his friend an hour to get there. He actually had no idea what time of the day it was until he saw it on the phone in the penthouse. 7:35 am. Hopefully Takato would not be at work just yet. The signal on the other end felt like hours.
"Hello?"
"Takato? It´s Akihito."
"Hey, you, where are you? I tried to catch you last night, it was great fun, what number is this? Where is your phone?"
"Uhm... Takato, I need you to pick me up. I´m in Shinjuku, at a friend´s place, and I need to get out of here."
"What´s wrong, Aki? Are you okay?"
"Kind of. Can you please come get me?"
"Okay, sure. Where exactly are you?"
"Let´s meet at the Yoyogisan Post Office, okay?"
"Sure. Akihito, what happened?"
"I´ll tell you then, alright?"
"Okay, I´ll be there in 45 minutes."
"Good, thanks."
"See you then."
Akihito rushed into the bedroom to pull some of his clothes out of the closet and into a cardboard box Asami had still stored in there. He then took his cameras and put them on top of that. On the desk in the small bedroom Akihito had taken he picked up his passport and keys, and left the keys to the penthouse there. That was everything he packed. He wouldn´t need more. He was done with this, needed to get out of there, to get rid of the burden he was made to bear. But he never would, would he?