(A/N: Trigger warning for self harm and mentions of underage sex. Also. Just. Loads of angst. Loads of it. Like bucket tons. Like buckets as big as dinosaurs.)

"So this is where you live." I scanned the area that was his house. It was a quaint studio, perfect for one or two people with all the needed living supplies. It wasn't as swanky as my place, and the view from his window was of the run down nail salon next door/ It definitely needed a new paint job, and the building was old enough to still have traces of asbestos, but despite it's shortcomings, it was just so filled with life. The walls were lined and caked with layers of posters, the furniture was mismatched, and this place just looked so... livable. It wasn't just four walls with a bathroom, it was someone's home.

"It's not as nice as your place, and it's a bit messy, but I'm still proud to call it my own," he smiled.

After leaving Kuronue's secret hiding spot, the air between us became a little more tense, but not necessarily in an uncomfortable way, it just seemed... new. This was another turning point, another clue to better my understanding of who he actually was.

"You wanna see it?" he asked as he shrugged his parka off and threw it on one of his kitchen chairs. "I mean there's really no point in hiding it now."

"It's not exactly on the top of my bucket list, but yea. I wanna see it," I stepped closer to him as he showed me the inside of his left wrist like he was modeling a new watch. His arms were just as pale of the rest of his body, and everything looked completely normal except for the huge scar that that stretched from the tip of his wrist up to his forearms. There weren't a million tiny gashes like I imagined, no burn marks, no bionic arm, just one very long and deep scar.

Without thinking, I reached out and touched it, feeling the uneven skin beneath my finger tips. I could feel him want to pull away, but he stayed in place.

"You could say I went through a phase," he tried to laugh it off, but he found it hard to keep his smile up.

"That was one hell of a phase, what happened?" I asked as I looked up from his scar. His face was stoic, his eyes half lidded as if he was weary of the subject.

"A while back, I was in love with someone and they didn't love me back."

He sounded so tired, so unlike the Kuronue I was used to, but I realized that the much more somber side of his was probably more true than the Kuronue I met at the Pink Flamingo.

"Was it unrequited?"

"No. At least I don't think so," he sighed heavily and ran his hands over his face. He looked confused, and I felt terrible for making him remember something he probably didn't want to. "One day he just woke up and decided he didn't want me anymore."

"I'm sure that wasn't the case," I said reassuringly, but I immediately wanted to swallow my words down when he looked at me like I had no idea what I was talking about. And I probably didn't know. I've only known Kuronue for a short period of time, but I know that whatever made him create that scar wasn't out of something petty.

Kuronue just shook his head and as his expression became apologetic. "I'm sorry, this was supposed to be a good night. I shouldn't have brought up something so heavy. We should stop talking about this now."

"But I asked. I wanted to know—"

"Please."

I took a deep breath and glared at him, and without losing eye contact, I slipped his parka off me, took off my shirt, and pointed to my shoulder.

"I fucked up on a mission big time, and I got this scar from a bullet just grazing the top of my right shoulder." Next I pointed to my stomach "This one I got from a knife fight, it was unfair really since I didn't have a knife. I was pretty fortunate that he didn't stab me through any of my vital organs. I stayed in the hospital for a week."

"What are you trying to do exactly?" he looked a little insulted. "I didn't take you here to compare tragic backgrounds, and I know that whatever I went thorough may be small and insignificant to you, it's not—"

"Some people deal with shit different ways," I prompted, cutting him off from his rant. "Some people do yoga, or work out, or binge eat. Some people take drugs, some people try to immerse themselves in work, some people try to kill themselves. For example, I stole shit, I got into a lot of fights, I thrived on danger and adrenaline just to make it through the day, and these were the scars I got because of it."

He looked even more confused and I just sighed, trying to make the words formulate correctly.

"What I'm trying to say is, even though you have physical things to remind you of memories you want to forget, or pasts you want to drown out, you can't. Whatever happened to you or me, or anyone else, you can't drown those things out, so you shouldn't care what people think of it. I'm not telling you to wave your scar around like a giant flag, but I'm telling you not to be ashamed of it. Those cuts and bruises and battle wounds, they represent who we are, and it's a part of us that used to be there, whether we changed or not. It's a reminder of what we got through, or what never to go back to," I concluded, putting my shirt back on.

"You aren't any less different to me, and I don't like you any less," I added. He looked a little dumbstruck, and the silence was beginning to get more awkward by the second. "I'll still treat you like the loser that you are," I said, trying to lighten the mood.

He didn't say anything, rather, he pushed me up against the nearest vertical surface and gave me one of the most bruising kisses I've ever encountered. He pinned my arms against the wall and kissed me like it was the only thing he knew how to do, like it was the only way he could convey how he felt. And I let him. This whole thing felt electric as I tried to match the pace he was trying to go at.

Never in my life I've synced with someone like I've synced with Kuronue. It sounded cheesy beyond belief, but we understood each other in a way that only people who've experienced our type of pain can understand. We actually barely spoke of our problems, we brushed them aside, skirted on the surface, but in a way we understood what we were going through. I didn't have to know exactly what he went through, all I needed to know was that there was a point in his life where he was on the brink of killing himself, and he knew that I had trouble letting people in.

He broke apart from our kiss. I could hear the heavy rise and fall of his chest.

"Don't tell me that whole depressing yet slightly motivational spiel got you horny," I laughed, trying to catch my breath. But that was quickly cut short as he swallowed my words with his mouth, and I found myself being led onto his bed until I felt my back hit the mattress.

I laughed into the kiss, feeling the plastic rims of his glasses touch the bridge of my nose.

"Hey, wait a second," I said, pushing his face away from mine. "Let me take these off, they're getting in the way." I lifted his glasses from his face and placed them on the makeshift nightstand on his bed consisting of a cardboard box with stacked up books.

"Don't do that, I'm serious. I'm like Velma without her glasses," he made it sound so serious, I actually thought I might have offended him if it weren't for that smile he cracked afterward.

I held his face in my hands. "Can you see me?" I asked.

"If I go any closer you might be a little unfocused, but right now. You're perfect."

I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks as I let go of his face. "Stop being a sap, you're ruining the mood."

"I was talking about my vision, but I guess that could have a double meaning too. Now that I think about it, you look absolutely ravishing tonight," he purred, as he nuzzled my collarbone.

"You're stupid," I said as I began lifting his shirt up.

He pulled off the rest of his shirt to reveal a very nicely toned torso. I mean, I thought he looked cute, but I never knew he looked like this since he tended to wear his clothes at least one size up.

"And you might be the best thing that has happened to me in the longest time," he murmured, all traces of humor gone.

I had a specific type of relationship with Kuronue, ninety percent of it being purely insults and maybe five percent sincerity, so when he's being honest about his emotions towards me, I'm usually left speechless, like I am now. I'm so accustomed to insults, it's hard to think of anything else to say.

"If I'm the best thing in a long time, you haven't been going out a lot."

"I'm serious Kurama. I don't know what it is about you, but for some reason you found a way to worm into my conscious. I know it sounds cheesy and outplayed, but I never really tell anyone about me, at least not this early on, but you somehow managed to earn my trust in this short amount of time, and I find that kinda irritating."

My eyes widened slightly as I threw my head back and let out a loud snort. "That's exactly how I feel about you, you idiot."

He lowered himself until his lips were centimeters apart from mine. "And I want to kiss you so badly, but I'm scared to because this whole fucked up thing we have seems so perfect and I'm not entirely sure if all this is real. If this whole thing will stay. And I don't want to be too deep into this if you decide to..." he trailed off and suddenly he had this world weariness about him.

"You have to trust me," I whispered next to his ear. In my life time, I would think that I was the one who had an obsession with being cautious around people, but it was actually Kuronue who had a bigger issue with it.

He laid his forehead against mine for a minute, closed his eyes, and just breathed deeply. And he kissed me, and he kept kissing me until our lips were numb, to the point where I wasn't mad that he didn't answer me, because I forgot there was anything wrong in the first place.

"You're ignoring me you asshole. Don't you trust me?" I teased after I broke apart from the kiss.

"It's complicated—"

"It's a yes or no answer Kuronue."

"Then it's a no." There was an unnerving silence between us, and I always knew I wasn't exactly the most honest person, but it still caught me off guard that Kuronue would think that. "It's not that I don't want to, and it's not that I think you're a bad person. But you just got out of something not to long ago, and from what it seems, you're still not completely over him."

I mean, Kuronue was entirely right with that statement, but he was doing a fairly good job helping me forget Yomi.

"Where's that smooth talking guy I met at the bar around a month ago. He seemed so confident and sure of himself," I said as I tucked a strand of hair behind Kuronue's ear. "I never expected him to be like this."

"If you're trying to have a one night stand with someone, you'll do and say whatever you can to get in their pants. But you're not someone I'm trying to be with for only one night."

I pursed my lips, realizing I was dipping into a territory I wasn't very good at. I liked throwing things under the rug, not having to deal with situations head on, grazing over important facts because I didn't want to put emotion into everything I was doing. But Kuronue wanted to strip that all away from me. It wasn't like he wanted to have a feelings circle every time we talked, but he wanted to know what makes me tick, how someone could hurt me. And I wasn't sure I even trusted myself to figure out that information about myself. We were both hurt by different people, but we dealt with our misfortunes in very different ways.

But maybe it was time to change that, because I tried to swallow it many times before, but no matter how hard I tried, I cared about Kuronue. At first, I wanted him physically and only for that purpose, but the more time I spent with him, the more I wanted to know him, the more I cared. It sucked, having this foreign sense of responsibility, and the only think I could think of was how wrecked I was when caring about Yomi, and how hard it would be to care about someone as much as I cared about him.

And right then and there, something in me clicked as I stared back at that pale face with his undeniable hurt expression.

He was important.

Even through my shallow insults and glares, when it boils down to it, at the end of the day, I wanted him to be happy. Because God knows whatever he's been through, it hasn't been pretty.

"Alright, well then if you don't trust me..." I began as I pushed him off of me and sat up.

"Wait you're not gonna leave again are you—" he sounded panicked as he reached for my shoulders.

"I'm not going to leave, I was going to say that if you don't trust me, I'll find a way to make you." I sat

cross legged and patted the space in front of me, commanding him to sit.

"Sex won't do it this time kiddo," he teased as he ruffled my hair.

"I wasn't suggesting sex idiot. I want you to tell me everything, starting from the beginning."

"Kurama—"

"If you think about it, it's only fair. You know too much about me, and I don't know jack about you."

"I'm not sure I want to get into the whole tragic back story thing. It's not my forte."

"Please," I said, actually being sincere for once. "You won't find me saying those words again. But you said yourself you want whatever this is to be serious, and if you keep avoiding my questions then we'll just stay stuck in this infuriating game," I placed my hand over Kuronue's and saw his eyes change from unwavering to nervousness.

"Fine," he sighed relentlessly. "But if we're going to do this, I'm gonna get something to drink.

"Fine by me."

"Red zinfandel or moscato?"

"Moscato."

He got up and walked to one of his cabinets, pulling out a wine glass and a tall bottle moscato. At first I thought he forgot a glass, but he handed me the tall wine glass as he unscrewed the cork and chugged.

"Feel free to have as much as you want, I have a box of it. It's just cheap department store wine," he told me as I poured myself a glass. I didn't know wine very well, but I always had a soft spot for moscato, no matter how cheap it was. The sweet flavor hit my tongue and I felt like I was back in Napa on that trip Yomi took me on my third month on the job. That trip consisted of three main things: cheese, wine, and a lot of sex, and although that's all behind me, it was a fun vacation nonetheless."

"So where do we start?" he asked, taking another generous gulp. I was actually afraid he might pass out before he would tell me anything.

"You could start by taking it slow on the wine, and after you do that, I want the earliest. Even trivial shit. Just spill it all out."

He wiped some of the wine that dribbled from his chin and plopped himself on the bed next to me, looking more serious than I'd ever seen him before.

"Um.. let's see. My parents were lovely people from what others have told me. She was a student and he was studying to be a doctor when they first met. They fell in love, got married, and then excitedly prepared for their new born, also known as me, all that shebang in under a couple of years. I was born in a hospital like most kid, my mom died shortly after, my father cracked. And it just goes downhill from there. Right at my birth. Sad isn't it?"

"Wow that's shitty," I told him as I poured more wine.

"Yea I know. It feels kind of surreal talking about this now, I mean I haven't seen my dad in seven years, and I don't plan to. It's like it wasn't even my life, like I'm telling you a story of someone else, of a movie synopsis or something." he paused for a second, trying to find where he left off.

"I was a child born out of unconditional love but never felt any of it. I learned to speak at an early age and received pretty good education since my dad was well off, but I would rarely talk. He drank a lot, but was well hidden since he has a reputation to keep in the community. Actually, I'm pretty sure he solely drank when he wanted to beat me," he laughed.

"I don't think you should be laughing about that," I warned him.

"I'd rather laugh or get angry at something than be depressed. It's easier to cope," his mouth was a thin tight line as he continued, all traces of laughter gone. "And fuck he knew where to hit, and he knew specific places where it wouldn't openly show, kicked me hard enough not to break, probably one of the perks of going to medical school. But my stomach would have fat bruises, and sometimes I wouldn't be able to move for days, I remember one time he beat me so bad I actually coughed up blood on the floor. Sucked for him, it was on white carpet," he shrugged, taking another chug.

His face looked stoic, but by the way his hands trembled, I could tell this was troubling him, and the last thing I wanted to do was bring him back to a place that was too painful to revisit.

"You can stop, you know that right. I'm not forcing you to say anything else."

He only glared as he continued. "It's okay, I promise. Plus, I know I have to tell you this someday, and I want to say it all in one go so I won't have to repeat it. Anyways, continuing where I left off, you could imagine I was pretty fucked up as a kid. I was a nervous wreck, I wouldn't speak for days on end cause I was so scared that I would say the wrong thing. He would say pretty terrible things, considering I was like six at the time."

"Like what?" I asked. And I was honestly curious. I was loved as a child, probably loved better than most children. I've dealt with some fucked up people in my late adolescence up to adult hood, but my childhood was never tainted.

"The usual. My mom should have lived, I was worthless, I never should have been born. For a time I believed him, up until now I still kind of do. I've only heard kind words coming from other people's mouths, and not that fake shit they only say when a person is dead, like you could tell people truly loved her. Later on by the time I was in middle school, the words were just a buzzing sound, like a broken record on repeat and I trained my body to just feel numb afterward. I didn't know which was worse, to feel nothing or to feel everything." he stared hard at the bottle, as if he was muttering the story to it rather than me.

"You okay there?" I tilted his chip up, bringing his gaze up to mine. I needed him to keep focus, to remind him that there was a point to telling me all of this.

"Yea, I was just thinking about how much it sucked back then. I kind of became a shell of a person, crawling through school with shitty grades. My anxiety used to be at it's peak, I'd be scared of everyone and everything, and one day, it just became nothing. I became nothing. I just felt.. I felt so fucking guilty for taking my mom's place, and I didn't understand why the world would take her in place of me, someone with absolutely nothing to offer. And all this self deprecation didn't come from nowhere, I was literally trained to think this way."

Never in my life I thought I was worthless. I mean, sometimes I felt like people were better than me, but those times were too few and too far apart, and I was much too proud for that. I was born into this world with a mother that made me the center of her universe, so you can't really blame be for being a bit spoiled.

Kuronue stopped drinking altogether and placed the bottle on the floor of the bed. "I left when I was fifteen, fresh out of sophomore year. Left with nothing but a note reading 'don't find me' knowing full well that he won't. Maybe if I left, we'd both be happier. He could mourn in peace without having a constant reminder of what killed his wife in the first place, and I could live on the streets for a couple of weeks before being mistaken for roadkill. I never wanted to be born, I never wanted to take my mom's place, but some sick twist of fate allowed me to live while she died. And I believed every drunken word he said about me, and above all this, I hoped that he could forgive me, that he could somehow find peace."

"This is getting really heavy for me," I admitted as I was the one who started chugging the bottle.

"Do you want me to stop?" he gave me a sardonic grin.

"No." I answered simply, as he nodded.

"The night when I ran away, I tried to sleep in one of the nearby parks I used to play in while I was a kid. It was a stupid place to hide, but I was an idiot. Sakyo was 10 years my senior and had taken a liking to me. I followed him cause I had nowhere to go and he took me in honestly because he probably got off on it. He was rich, not bad in the look departments, and had long black hair. Sound familiar? I had my fair share of those rich business types too you know," he flashed me a grin and I rolled my eyes, debating whether I should throw the rest of the wine on his face.

"But I knew what he was after, so I didn't really form that close of a connection. He wanted me for my body, and I wanted him for a false sense of company. Most of the company could consist of me being completely drugged out while sucking him underneath a mahogany desk, and to be honest, I actually don't remember most of my time with him. Being his toy had it's perks though, I traveled a lot. He was into some really shady businesses, the worst being human trafficking. We'd go to Singapore, America, parts of Europe. He took me to Italy once, that's where I met Itsuki who was studying to be a master sommelier."

"You were a sex slave?!"

"First of all, I willingly left with him. And second, you're a hitman. Tomato tomahto."

"That's not the same."

"Both different types of fucked up. Do you want me to continue or not?"

"Please, go on," I said, raising my glass. "I'm buzzed enough where the interesting part outweighs the painful part of it.

"One day he messed with the wrong people. His men kidnapped someone they shouldn't. First I was lying on the ground curled up next to his leg, next thing I know, five of his men were dead, he booked it before I could see him get up his chair, and I was standing in a pool of blood that wasn't mine."

"So who was it?"

"There was this kid, and he was the most amazing thing I've seen at the time. He could shoot anything no matter how far, as long as the bullet could reach. Apparently, one of the girls Sakyo was planning to sell was his sister, so he found Sakyo's hide out, hid for who knows how long, and just killed nearly everyone in that room. I'm telling you, he would be a dead ringer in a biathlon if his skiing was as good as his shooting."

"A name would be nice," I said, as I began to get agitated in virtually nothing.

"Kaname Hagiri," he said quickly, as if the sound of his mouth burned his lips. His voice sounded thick and his face looked so far off. At first I thought he wasn't going to talk anymore, but he grabbed the bottle, took a small swig, and continued.

"He was quiet and was extremely ambition driven. He was just a few years older than me, maybe one or two, but mentally so much older. Apparently, ever since his sister turned eighteen, it was only them two from then on. And he is by far one of the most ruthless people I could think of, he never cared about anything or anyone unless it pissed him off. And he was the first person I grew to care about."

"Well then how did you get close?"

"It was actually really simple. He saw me lying on the floor in a bloody heap and didn't bother killing me probably because he didn't see me as a threat. And then I asked if I could tag along."

"And he let you?"

"Well he didn't say no. He allowed me to follow him back to where he lived, we didn't talk on the way there. It was almost like I was a ghost, or someone that was in his peripheral vision that he'd notice from time to time. I was kind of just a squatter that used his house, he didn't seem to mind, and he always left the door open if I decided to go outside and leave. I tried getting small jobs, leaving any money that I could give for rent, doing little things like making coffee or tidying up the house. Although we didn't talk, it was kind of him to let me stay, and we lived like this for what seemed like months. Just comfortable silence. We would start off with one word conversations, and it grew to sentences, and one day I didn't even notice that we began to talk."

I twirled the wineglass in small circular motions, watching the legs of the wine slowly drip down, not really knowing how to contribute to this conversation.

"You don't know what living with a person can do to you unless you really think about it. I started to know how he would act in certain situations, what he liked to eat, how he wrote, what agitated him or gave him joy. He became less of an enigma and more of a person, I just didn't look close enough the first time. It was like being invisible and watching someone go on with their daily life, seeing the most pointless yet intimate parts about them that no one else really gets to see."

"That's some voyeuristic shit," I laughed, feeling the alcohol get to me. I probably had my bitch face on right now. I didn't like the way Kuronue talked about this guy, but I was too drunk to hide how I felt.

"Not in that way. He just acted like I wasn't there and went on with his day casually. And when he did start acknowledging me, that's when it kind of all went downhill, because then I got this horrible romanticized idea about him caring about me. He would talk about his past, how he learned how to fight, why he was so reserved, and I would listen, and I would soak in all the information he gave me, anything to help me better understand who he was. And one day, he put a movie on, I think it was Fight Club or something along the lines of that, and then I just leaned in and kissed him."

"And then after that is the porn right?"

Kuronue blushed as he almost dripped the bottle he was holding, I could see the blood rush up to his face as he glared at me. "Well it was my first time touching someone with my own accord, so I probably sucked a lot. But..." his eyes fell to his lap and his grimace was soon replaced with a soft expression. "for a person who could brutally murder anyone without batting an eye, he was surprisingly really patient."

"This is sounding like a really bad romance novel," it was my turn to grimace.

"It actually seemed like it for a while, and this whole thing might sound really stupid, but I literally never had anyone care about me before, so in my mind, this was more than enough for me. It was just nice to wake up to someone and looking forward to them coming home and having someone just for once care about having you at the other end." he rushed the rest of his words as he knit his eyebrows in frustration.

"One day, he just left. I..," he stared at me with an expression that read nothing but despair. "I can't explain the rest. You won't understand. I sound stupid."

I slammed my fist on the bed, cursing at the fact that it didn't make the loud dramatic sound I wanted it to. "You have seriously gone way too far to not finish. And I don't care what you think, just continue."

"I just completely lost it," he muttered the next words under his breath like a sin. "It was more than just being a little sad that your boyfriend left you, he was literally everything I had. I grew up having a father that fucking hated me to the point where I believed everything else hated me too, and finally I get one good thing and it just turns out to not be true and I realized that I was just another play thing that had a slightly better care taker this time and I just lost it. And it's just cause he didn't want me, it was everything."

I knew he wanted to cry by the way his voice quivered, and whatever jealousy I had boiling inside me, it simmered down till everything was ice cold. Whatever I felt with Yomi could not compare with what Kuronue faced. I had a mother who loved me, even during my thieving years I had people who looked up to me, and even though Yomi kept a bunch of things hidden away from my field of vision, he still cared about me. And having Kuronue going through his whole life with not even the slightest bit of recognition made me angry.

"I don't know why he left or where he went, all I knew is that he was gone. And I didn't feel like I didn't matter, I knew I didn't matter. No one knew me, and the small people that did know me wanted nothing to do with me, so I decided that I didn't like myself either. And.. well you can piece the rest together." he stared at his arm with a forlorn gaze.

"Just.. finish it. Please." I knew what he meant by not wanting to retell this story twice, and honestly, I liked his idea of saying everything in one go. But he looked so sad and just so done that I didn't bother to push him forward.

"Kurama... I'm tired," he replied as he laid down on the mattress and moved around till he laid comfortably on his back. Nothing could sober me up like this conversation did, and for once, I didn't want to drink away this problem.

"I'm sorry," I said, as I sat down quietly beside him.

"It's okay, I wanted to tell you. Plus, I'm a lot better now," his empty gaze remained fixated on the ceiling.

"They're a rotten crowd, you're worth the whole damn bunch put together," I said aloud, hoping he would understand my reference.

He turned to me slowly and smiled, and I almost felt relieved that the Kuronue I knew was back. "You read the Great Gatsby?And how did you know I love that book?"

"First of all, everyone who went to school had to read it. Second, I guessed. No one reads Great Expectations for fun. Unless they're into classic literature."

I laid on top of him, lowering myself until my legs were tangled with him and the top of my head was placed underneath his chin, trying my hardest to comfort him but probably just looking really awkward. I felt his arms snake around me as he held me.

"But in all honesty Kuronue, You're so much more than what anyone says." I muttered into his chest. I couldn't put it into words, and I knew compliments wouldn't do anything in this situation. I had no way or form to express how much Kuronue was worth it, how much he didn't deserve any of this, so I just held him, hoping that I could somehow convey my thoughts through my actions.

He kept quiet and held me tighter.

I didn't know what he meant by that.

(A/N: I love writing Kuronue. He's just so flexible and fun to write. Also, I'm still debating whether to go more into depth with Kuronue's back story like I did with Kurama's. This chapter didn't explain enough about Kuronue's past (and specially Kaname's/Sayko's) but it was intentional, so please tell me if you didn't understand anything and I'll clear it up in the next chapter! Again, thank you all for reading and reviewing, it means a lot to me.)

michaelkitty8: No they aren't really boyfriends. At least not in the orthodox sense. More like very good friends who touch each other for comfort.