Yuki was rooted to the spot.

This wasn't couldn't be happening. What was he seeing?

Had he finally lost it?

He hadn't used any drugs recently... so then why was he seeing Tohru sitting there? On the couch... in the lounge where clients claimed him for the night... at the Estate?

He glanced back at Hiro who nodded meaningfully in the direction of Tohru.

"That's her," he whispered, "The client who requested you."

Yuki was sure he looked utterly gormless as he stared in wild confusion at him. Hiro nodded his head, his widening eyes telling Yuki to move.

So he did.

Unsure and concerned he stumbled across the lounge to where Tohru sat. On shaking legs he sank onto the couch opposite her, not sure whether to trust his eyes.

Hiro asked Tohru if he could get her anything to drink and when she politely declined he inclined his head respectfully and disappeared, merging into the background, only seen when he was needed.

So Hiro could see her too then, at least it wasn't just Yuki, though he thought... maybe that might be better... better than her being here.

She smiled at him but he couldn't relax. Eventually he managed to speak.

"What are you doing here?" He hadn't meant it to be harsh, but his anxiety made his voice rough and rushed, and smothered his usual manners.

"I mean how- how did you...?" He tailed off pathetically. He realised he was blushing.

"Well I... before the last time at the park... I already had a-a suspicion you worked here." She was blushing too, it made her look younger.

"You... knew?"

She nodded. "Well I told my friends about you, and one of them is very... intuitive. She had a feeling... I would have asked you, eventually." She was twisting her tiny hands in her lap.

Yuki realised she wasn't wearing her pink scrubs. He had never seen her without them.

"You still met me, even though you thought I worked here?" He asked, mildly incredulous.

"Well... yeah." She smiled again. "You seemed nice, and... lost. You seemed very sad, Yuki."

He couldn't deny that, couldn't say anything at all.

"After the last time we met my other friend asked around and eventually found that someone like you did work here. So...I came." Her voice rose at the end, like a question, and Yuki could tell she was just as nervous as he was.

He tried to smile at her. It was strained and awkward.

"But... you came to find me? After what that woman- I mean it was true what she said... what I did-" his voice caught in his throat surprisingly and he couldn't go on. It was embarrassing.

"I just wanted to see if you were alright after last time... she said some horrible things, and you seemed so sad and scared. I can go, if you want, honestly! I just wanted to check... sorry."

Yuki was already shaking his head. "No, stay! Stay... please."

They sat opposite each other and Yuki smiled. A real smile, and it felt like his face was coming alive for the first time in ages.

He was suddenly aware of his presentation. He was wearing a loose-fitting shirt which did a poor job of hiding his protruding collar bones. Had he shaved today? Had he showered? He couldn't remember. What was his hair like?

As he fretted she gazed around the grand room.

"It's very beautiful," she commented.

Yuki could tell she was skirting around the question she really wanted to ask. The one which hung in the air between them; a toxic gas which would slowly and painfully kill them both if ignored. It would be easy Yuki thought, to entertain her, to talk about the room and the Estate until they ran out of words. They would be two moths dancing around the flame. But he knew that couldn't last.

He plunged himself into the flame.

"I'm a whore."

He answered the question she may never have asked.

The words were strangely painful to say aloud. He hadn't expected that... was so used to being called whatever the clients or Akito wanted. So many names. Sometimes soft and loving terms of endearment. Sometimes sharp ugly words, not to be used in the light of day. Why should it be so difficult to admit what he was?

She looked mildly startled, but quickly rearranged her features, nodding.

"I thought you might be..."

She didn't show any disgust or outrage. She gazed evenly at him, and Yuki had a sudden urge to shock her, to scare her, to send her running from this dark world.

"Every night," he continued, "...Every night I sell myself. Men and woman, sometimes they're young, sometimes they're old. I do anything they want, and I'm good at it. The most popular here, well-requested. And my boss too, I share his bed... anything he wants. I'll have a client tonight, a few hours from now I'll be doing whatever they want. Maybe I'll be tied up, maybe they will, it could be anything. Maybe they'll pay for an hour, and I'll have them gasping in half that time. Maybe it'll be an all night thing and it'll be slow and sweet. I don't know, it's not up to me. I'm not free to choose. Maybe I'll get hurt...it's a nasty business."

He stuttered to a halt, breathless and strangely light-headed. Putting it in words like that, bare and exposed, was nasty. His voice was not his own, it was cruel and rough. He wasn't sure quite what he was doing but Tohru's shocked expression told him he had succeeded.

Leave. Just leave. Get far away from here... from me.

She didn't respond for a moment, seeming to gather her thoughts. Then...

"Do you like working here?"

"What?" Her question surprised him. What did she mean?

"Do you like working here?" she repeated calmly, "I mean, you're eighteen right? Did you want to work here?" Her voice was so even that Yuki thought that she wouldn't judge him either way.

"No..." he finally muttered.

Tohru nodded as though she had known this. She waited but Yuki didn't elaborate.

Sighing, she shifted forward. "I'm sorry if I overstepped by coming here. I'll go now." She rose with dignity, her face calm.

"If you want to talk... you know where to find me."

She put her coat on and began to walk away. Yuki watched as though in slow motion.

A stronger man would let her go... a better man. It was the right thing to do... to let her leave this lounge... this Estate... this underworld.

But Yuki knew he was not strong, or good. He was weak...

"Stay."

His mouth had formed the word before his mind had consciously decided.

That moment... he knew what he should do. Knew what the right thing was... chase her away. Send her running. But he was selfish, and lonely, and sad. He just wanted to count her freckles. Stay.

She turned immediately.

"Stay," Yuki repeated, and this time he knew what he was doing.

It would become a moment he looked back on with mixed feelings for the rest of his life.

She turned and sat down again, not removing her coat. Yuki hoped Hiro and Kisa hadn't noticed anything; him calling after a leaving client wasn't professional behavior.

There was a moment of silence and Yuki realsied she was waiting for him to speak. He supposed he had been the one to call her back.

"I was raised here... that's how I work here..." She nodded slightly, inviting him to continue. "Ak- my boss- he raised me, since I was four. I've been working... nearly three years."

Yuki was anxious. He shouldn't be doing this. He shouldn't. His leg tapped rapidly against the couch, almost beyond his control. A drink would calm him... a drink would be perfect.

"We're just talking about me," he complained, "How about we get drinks and take turns asking questions?"

"Like 20Q?" Tohru asked. Yuki didn't know what this was so he nodded. Tohru showed no inclination to rise.

"Erm, would you mind getting my drink? Just it's not...professional for us to help ourselves to the clients' bar." She looked sideways at him, slightly sharply. She was intelligent, he thought.

"Sure," she eventually responded, "What are you having?"

"The biggest vodka they'll give you," he responded without hesitation or shame. His throat was itching. She looked mildly taken aback but went to the bar.

When she returned a moment later with a vodka and coke and an orange juice, Yuki beamed at her.

He took his drink eagerly and finished it in three gulps. Then he exhaled deeply and sat back. He felt better already.

She stared at him for a moment, before sipping her own drink.

"So... what do you want to know?" she asked.

.

They talked for more than three hours, the longest they had spent together. Tohru complied and got Yuki a second vodka but refused to get him a third.

Their questions started off vague and polite; favourite colour, favourite food and so on, but soon became more probing and personal.

For her eighth question Tohru asked if Yuki had gone to school or been home-schooled.

After a moment, and with difficulty, he told her he hadn't been schooled... that he couldn't read.

For his thirteenth question Yuki asked Tohru what had happened to her father.

He had died, she said, when she was very young. She told Yuki about him and he listened attentively.

For her sixteenth question Tohru asked Yuki why his mum had left him.

Yuki told her he didn't know. He said that she had always seemed to hate him and hadn't been able to cope apparently. Reluctantly he told her about Ayame.

For his thirtieth question Yuki asked if Tohru was a virgin.

She blushed and replied yes with a laugh.

For her thirty-seventh question Tohru asked if Yuki had a drinking problem.

Yuki hesitated and answered yes.

And, piece by piece, they slowly came to know everything about each other, every ripple of their souls laid bare for the other to see.

It was a difficult process for Yuki. He clung tightly to some of his answers before releasing them. And with each answer, he lowered a piece of his armor. In a way it was freeing to be able to live without the burdensome weight of his secrets. But it was also scary to make himself so vulnerable. With his lowered defenses and the pieces of his soul he had shared with her, Tohru now had the power to destroy him.

Of course by this logic he also had the power to destroy her, but that thought didn't occur to Yuki.

He told Tohru that he wasn't allowed to leave the Estate without permission and she had been shocked. He impressed upon her that she must not tell anyone they had met outwith the Estate. She promised she wouldn't.

As they talked they moved to share one couch to talk more privately as they shared their secrets. Tohru ordered soup for them both and Yuki ate gratefully; suddenly he was very hungry.

There was a separate section of the Estate devoted to business. There clients could rent function rooms for meetings, and that was where Akito hosted his business meetings. The main lounge however was free for the use of patrons in the afternoon, as they would buy food and drinks, or request a little 'extra', in which instance one of the workers would be summoned to meet with them.

The two elderly clients had left, with many furtive glances over at Yuki and Tohru. A member of staff entered to switch shifts with the current bartender. She approached them.

"Miss," she spoke directly to Tohru, ignoring Yuki as thoroughly as if he had been a piece of furniture. It was always that way. "I'm sorry but I am afraid the lounge will shortly be closing to afternoon clients. If you would like to spend the evening, would kindly accompany my colleague to confirm this." She smiled slyly as she spoke, as though sure this girl would want to spend the night with Yuki.

Tohru however blushed. "Oh of course, sorry. I'll be going then."

The woman looked unimpressed. "I'll go get your bill then, Miss."

Tohru paid the bill for their food and drinks which was extortionate and they left the lounge.

Yuki felt awful about her paying. When they were outside he told her to stay and dashed away. He hurried stealthily into Akito's bedroom, then into his smaller room and grabbed several of the notes he had received as tips, and tried to bribe the tutor with. He ran back but stopped suddenly as a thought occurred to him. He turned and hurried to the gardens. In the rapidly fading light he picked an orange tea rose, the same as he had given Tohru before. He sprinted back to her, thrusting the money and rose at her inelegantly.

"For the food and that" he muttered. She stared in surprise at the money.

"But this is far too much!"

"Well, come back and maybe I'll let you buy me another drink." He said it lightly with a distinctly humorous and cheeky edge to his tone, but he couldn't remember the last time he had cared so fiercely about the answer to something. He wanted, so desperately, for her to come back. It was wrong... but he wanted it.

"I will."

And everything was right. His muscles were moving, pulling his face into a smile, and it was a wonderful feeling to smile genuinely when you're so used to faking smiles.

She smiled at him and left, glancing fondly at the rose.

Yuki was floating.

He knew, oh he knew so well that it was wrong. He shouldn't be doing this, not at all. Should not be leading her... inviting her... into the dark labyrinth of his underworld. She shouldn't be here, in this place of secrets and lust, of nightmares and passion.

But he was weak. And he wanted her.

And the thought of her was so strong and vibrant that all other thoughts of consequences and morality seemed pale and unimportant.

As he lay in bed that night, his thoughts were devoted solely to Tohru. The way she laughed and smiled, the way she had frowned slightly and asked her questions bluntly, without embarrassment or reservation, the ordinary clothes she wore, and the way she moved close to him on the couch.

Seventeen.

He had counted seventeen freckles. And that thought burned through his mind like a fire, turning all reasoning to ashes.

Again, I'm sorry not much happens in this chapter but I'll have the next one up soon! :)

I would like to now very highly recommend that anyone who likes this reads "Lament of the Underworld" by The High Queen of Angst, an amazing piece, which to my great honour, was inspired by this story. It is well worth the read and I can honestly say it far outshines the original xD

Thank you all for reading! :)