Hello, thanks go to all who reviewed. Just one thing – if you notice a grammatical mistake or a typo, don't hesitate to tell me about it. I'm proofreading every chapter a couple of times before posting, but you know, other peoples´ mistakes are always easier to spot than your own. Anyway, enjoy your read.

Chapter VI - The Faithful Dog

The pupil, a lanky girl in junior high school uniform, said her thanks and left. Teru's mother tidied up the note sheets and spread the dark forest green cloth over the keys before shutting the dark brown lacquered lid.

She gave her son a small smile and went to the kitchen to make some more tea.

She gave a few piano lessons, but otherwise she was fully dependent on the financial support of her son, with which he was more than generous. On the top of the piano, just next to the picture of his father, there was another one showing his mother and aunt posing in front of the Eiffel tower.

Teru remembered how happy his mother was when he bought them the trip, and that thought made him feel just a bit proud of himself. It didn't last long, though.

His mother brought in the tea, and the mother and son spent some time in comfortable silence, sipping their beverages.

"It is such a pity that Ann left," Keiko Mikami suddenly spoke up.

Not this again, Teru thought miserably, his mood ruined. Ann was a post-gradual law student from America and also, more importantly, his ex-girlfriend. In fact their relationship had hardly ever overstepped the boundaries of a very good friendship; moreover, when her year stage was over, she really didn't find anything in this country compelling enough to stay, so she just went back home with no definite plans to ever return to Japan. Unfortunately, Teru's mother took to liking her a lot and considered her the ideal match for her son.

"She wasn't happy here," he commented flatly.

"That's nonsense. Any woman should be happy anywhere as long as she is with you," Keiko objected with a warm smile and cocked her head to the side.

She took one of his hands into her small, cold palms.

"You've become a wonderful man, Teru, it makes me so happy," she said affectionately, "your father would be proud of you."

Proud of me? That's ridiculous.

It wasn't the fact he was in love with other man he was ashamed of, but the very nature of their relationship, which was far from equal. That had become even clearer these last few weeks.

Since the first time he went to that drug addicts' haven or whatever it is.

And he couldn't do anything to change that. He really was so weak, so pathetic…

He quickly pushed those thoughts away, lest his mother would notice that something was wrong with him. He tried to focus his attention elsewhere, his eyes roaming freely through the room. Everything looked just the way it always did. Old, but meticulously polished furniture, white porcelain set with a red line around the edges and numerous souvenirs. Not a specter of dust to be seen, his mother had always taken a great care of that.

Finally something caught his attention. It was a picture of a dog hanging above the small library. Teru was sure it wasn't there the last time he visited.

"Is that Hachikō?"

"Of course," his mother smiled, delighted that he noticed, "I found it at the flea market the other day and thought it'd fit there just nicely. Isn't he lovely?"

"Yes, sure," he replied unconvincingly, for the painting wasn't really much. It was just something you could get from a flea market – cheap colors had already started to fade and the brush skill of the painter wasn't any better.

Raito would have delivered a long scathing speech about that, Teru thought, but he didn't want to hurt his mother's feelings.

Moreover, Hachikō the dog was really a model example of loyalty, wasn't he?

…

"So he beats you now," Hamaguchi said with an unpleasant smirk on his face.

Teru's hand involuntarily rose to the bruise under his right eye.

"I had an accident in the garden," he said, trying to keep his voice calm.

"What, you stepped on a rake?" Hamaguchi sniggered. Then his expression grew serious.

"This is getting way too far, Mikami. I thought I've already told you that this is a respectable firm, not some okama circus. What will be next, huh? You coming here dressed in drag? Your boyfriend showing up at your trial giving you a ´well done´ kiss? Or-"

"I told you that my personal life has nothing to do with you OR our work," Teru interrupted him, his face turning so pale that it made the bruise stand out even more than before.

"You're wrong," Hamaguchi hissed. "Just look at yourself! You're a walking disgrace for this company!"

This left Teru speechless. Everything he had achieved so far was just spat upon and dismissed like a pile of trash. How was he to defend himself?

But he wasn't even given the time to come back with anything, because Hamaguchi just threw a last threatening glare at him and headed for the door. With his hand already on the door handle he paused and turned back once more.

"I won't tolerate it anymore," he said, "I'm going to talk to Katō-san."

…

The 8:30 train was so packed that he could hardly breathe. He may have looked just like a drop in the sea of men in business suits clinging to plastic handles with their eyes staring apathetically out of the window, but his thoughts were whirling around in a frantic pace.

He should be concerned about what Hamaguchi was going to tell their boss. As he knew him, it wouldn't be just unfounded rumors. There would be some kind of a proof, like a picture of him and Raito together, maybe. He might not be able to deny it.

He might be penalized somehow, even fired. But that wasn't what sent that chilly feeling crawling up his spine and made his breathing erratic.

He felt like that because he didn't know what would be awaiting him at home. His eyes mechanically skimmed through the advertisement texts on the train walls, as his mind offered him all possible scenarios. Some of them made his insides freeze.

He could find his things roughly packed in the middle of the living room with a brief goodbye note lying nearby, or maybe even without that. Or it could be Raito's things that would be gone – but that'd be absurd because it was Raito's apartment and the writer liked it way too much to leave it behind as a parting gift – no, most likely he'd just find Raito waiting for him with a serious expression on his face. We need to talk. Or worse, it's over.

When he reached his station, there was a light drizzle so he took out his folding umbrella and opened it. He slowly walked home, his legs becoming heavier with every step.

If Raito told him to leave, he'd have to go to some hotel, he thought. He still kept his own flat, he wasn't that stupid, but he was now renting it to a thirty something couple on a contract that was due to be renewed in another six months. He couldn't go to his mother's place, no, that just wasn't an option. How would he ever explain this to her? And hotels in the capital were expensive; six months would be hardly affordable even with his salary. And he still wanted to support his mother– what'd she think if he suddenly stopped?

The rain was getting heavier. Teru instinctively hunched his back, still lost in gloomy thoughts.

Finding a new place for a reasonable price was so hard these days, with the rents rising steadily. He shivered when he imagined those infamous suburban hostels with their thin walls, urine stink and drunken workers brawling at night. Maybe even some cockroaches under the plank floor, if he wasn't lucky.

Raito would scold me for thinking in stereotypes, it suddenly occurred to him. That idea amused him for a few seconds.

He reached the front door. The automatic light switched on and flooded the windowless corridor with artificial white light. The lawyer pressed the elevator button.

Or he might end up like one of those wretches sleeping in internet café boxes. One has to admit that they are quite nicely cushioned, though.

The elevator stopped and Teru couldn't suppress a bitter smile. Who was he trying to fool? He was fully aware that he wouldn't mind living in a cardboard box, if it meant that Raito would stay with him.

He approached their door and took a few calming breaths. Then he opened it.

He saw Raito sitting at his desk with his back turned to him, typing something on his computer.

"Hello," he said tentatively.

"Hi," Raito replied, his eyes never leaving the screen, "I'm kind of in a middle of something here. Wouldn't you mind making me a sandwich?"

This was an option Teru hadn't thought of. Raito was working.

…

A few days passed in the same way. Teru went to work every day anticipating to be called into his boss' office, but still nothing happened. He was sure Hamaguchi was doing it on purpose just to make him nervous.

And when he came home, Raito was always there, writing. Nothing whatsoever indicated that he ever left the place during the day.

He was like in a trance, with his fingers frantically running over the keyboard and eyes firmly fixed on the screen. From time to time he would suddenly leap off his feet and start pacing the room, muttering something to himself, while occasionally scribblingsomething hurriedly down on a paper from the pile he kept close. He didn't drink much alcohol – he only resorted to that when he temporarily ran out of the ideas – instead he was drowning himself in coffee that Teru was ready to brew again whenever the pot had gone empty, which was often.

This behavior, although seemingly unpredictable, occurred unfailingly every time Raito reached a certain phase in writing a new work, so Teru had already discovered some kind of reassuring pattern in it.

For that reason he was now able to quite relax in a presence of someone who bystanders would probably consider a madman.

Raito crumpled a piece of paper in his fist and his eyes fiercely darted around the room, as though he was looking for a fire to burn it.

Then he just threw it away, sat back to his chair and resumed typing. Teru stood up and walked to the writer's desk. He checked his coffee mug and found it almost empty.

"Do you want some more coffee, Raito?" he asked and received an affirmative answer. He then turned to leave, but something caught his attention. It wasn't the words on the screen; no, he didn't care about those at all. What concerned him was the curve of Raito's back, for it looked quite tensed. It had to be painful.

He instinctively placed his hands on the writer's shoulders to give him a massage as he used to, but then he pulled away and took a step aback. How long am I going to pretend that nothing happened and everything is alright?

…

Raito was once again muttering something furiously to himself, but Teru didn't understand a word of it, for he had been listening to music from a solid pair of headphones for some period of time now.

Bach's Brandenburg Concerto in D major had ended and he dropped the headphones, now hearing just the staccato of the keys. He yawned and nestled more comfortably into the sofa, his vision slowly narrowing, until finally he saw nothing more than the brown head of hair leaning over the laptop. He wanted to capture that view just a little bit longer, but it soon dissolved into brownish darkness.

For the first time in weeks he was almost happy.

…

The fingers flew across the keyboard.

Suga looked to the sky and watched the white clouds of unidentifiable shapes, as she thought of dying.

Writing was the only thing he could do at the moment, otherwise those memories would come and swallow him.

Memories of white knees only a white crumpled shirt away from the rough wooden floor and a pair of slender hands leaning against that floor with an improbable mixture of resignation and determination, a gesture that should have done anything but to arouse him.

Just flashes of white.

His tired eyes left the screen to gaze at a couple of blurred yellow points out of the window, not really seeing them.

Those hands clinging to him almost desperately, leaving red marks on his shoulders and back that were sadly gone by now, the feeling of cool skin underneath his touch that suddenly changed into a burning sensation.

Her world was ablaze.

Raito sipped his coffee that had already turned cold.

He heard a sound giving away an existence of another human being. Or maybe it was just the TV; it didn't really matter.

He heard the sound again. It turned out to be a voice. It said something with his name in it. So there was another human after all and it was Teru Mikami asking something about coffee.

"Yeah, thanks," Raito muttered. Then he felt a light touch on his shoulders, but before he had the chance to react, it was gone. All the while his fingers continued typing.

She didn't expect it to happen. When the borders of the two worlds disappeared, it caught her by surprise.

There were words, sweet-talk and nonsense and maybe brilliant verses, but he couldn't hear them for the blood roaring in his ears. But he wanted to hear just one word coming from that sweet mouth, just one. When he was losing himself in that perfect body, no, that whole perfect being, which just watched him with those ink-black eyes that held strange sparkles of light and only small indiscernible sounds escaped those soft lips, the only thing that didn't melt in the white-hot nothingness enveloping his mind was the need to hear that word.

"Say my name," he commanded and kissed L on the mouth, sensing his release drawing near.

He didn't get any response. The poet just arched his back even more than before, slightly trembling.

"Say my name," Raito repeated, his voice now hardly more than a breath.

The last thing he saw were ink-black eyes shutting closed. Then his climax hit him with burning intensity and he collapsed on the body beneath him, blindly embracing it, pressing it even closer.

"Just… say… my… name," he heard himself babble uncontrollably in a tear strained voice until he ran out of breath.

He didn't know how long they just lay there like that, but his breathing eventually began to steady and he felt the chilling touch of cold spring air on his still hot skin.

When he finally opened his eyes, he saw that L's were still closed. He was lying there perfectly still, his breathing shallow. He was unconscious.

Because at that moment when everything stood still, she realized that she was all alone in the world.

Raito shut the computer down and rested his head on his forearms. Tonight, writing didn't really seem to be a solution.

…

"Tell me what happened!" The female doctor Raito hadn't met before commanded, as she leaned over to check the poet's pulse.

"We went for a walk and when we got here, he…he just-"

Raito couldn't find words to continue; he was completely overwhelmed by shock mixed with feelings of guilt.

"Why didn't you take the wheelchair?"

"He wanted to walk on his own. I thought he was a little bit weak for that, but-"

"Then you shouldn't have let him!" The doctor interrupted him, anger flashing in her eyes.

"You should've at the very least informed one of our staff. And why is- why he has his shirt the wrong side out?" She asked with suspicion clearly written in her face.

"I don't know," Raito mumbled, looking to the ground.

"I think that the visiting hours are over for today," the doctor said sternly.

Raito just stood there dumbfounded.

"But I'd… I'd like to wait to see if he is okay," he stuttered.

"And I would like you to leave. Now," she said firmly and then turned her head to the other two white-clad figures approaching them with a stretcher.

Then she turned to Raito again. When she saw the look of sincere concern on his face, her expression softened a little bit.

"He should be alright. He just fainted, nothing more. Now go."

Raito walked away on wobbly feet, casting so many backward glances that once or twice he nearly fell, until finally the figures disappeared from his view behind the linden trees.

…

In Teru's dream, everything was black and white. His sense of smell, which had grown somewhat sharper, was overwhelmed by an odor of sweat and slightly burned yakitori.

He was at the train station surrounded by a crowd of people. Lots of them wore yukatas or old-fashioned suits. His eye level was, strangely enough, at people's knees.

Just a few steps for him stood a boy holding a stack of newspapers constantly screaming something about a murder and fraud. He went there, not really knowing why, and saw a man in a grey suit giving the boy a couple of coins for a newspaper.

At that sight he felt a wave of such love that it made his heart almost burst. The man looked at him with gentle brown eyes.

Teru wanted to say something to him, something nice, but all that came out from his mouth was a bark.

"Good boy," the man said, patted his head and walked off to the train.

As the train engine started, Teru gave out a long howl. He knew that he would never see that man again, that he was doomed to stay here alone until he died.

Then fortunately something woke him up. He blinked a few times at the daylight that now entered the room, while his brain struggled to assess the information that he was Teru Mikami the lawyer, and not Hachikō the faithful dog.

The sharp odors of the 1920's train station were finally gone and he realized what had made him open his eyes. It was Raito's voice; he was talking on the phone with someone. He sounded furious.

"What do you mean, forbidden? I know he's the one paying the bills, but it doesn't give him the right to do something like that."

There was a short pause.

"No, that isn't true. He is not- he just can't be- listen, if he were, how'd he be able to publish anything?" Raito exclaimed with triumph.

Then he received a response that made his face fell. It took him almost a whole minute to resume talking.

"I see. I… could you- could you let me talk to him?"

"Why not?" Raito asked immediately afterwards. His eyes widened in fear.

A moment of silence.

"What? Why would he say that? I don't believe you!"

"Doctor? Are you still there?"

Another silence came, this time obviously mutual, because Raito let his phone slowly slip from his fingers, as he turned to the sofa.

TBC

I switched from spelling the long vowel /o:/ in Japanese names as ou to ō, because I just couldn't bring myself to write Hachikou. It just doesn't feel right. I hope everyone can see it just fine. For those interested or not having a clue, Hachikō the faithful dog and other things Japanese mentioned in this chapter are easy enough to google.

Just a random piece of advice – if you're in Tokyo and want to meet with someone, DO NOT choose Hachikō as your meeting place. Why? Because that's what EVERYONE ELSE is doing. I once spent like an hour there looking for my friends, so I know what I'm talking about.

See you next time; reviews are more than welcomed.