Days Without Sun
Chapter Three: Rules
At some point, after Misaki regained the use of his limbs, food came.
There was a knock and a young voice called a word first, in what Misaki figured was Portuguese. He so wished he had a better head for language. Then he heard the light voice say in heavily accented English, "breakfast." Misaki shot up from his bunk as a beam of light pierced his cell. A tray was pushed through an opening near the bottom of the door.
It was amazing how frightening it was to eat something when you couldn't see it and had no idea what it was you were being served. It was hard too, to eat with bound hands and no utensils. Misaki found he couldn't do it, despite his hunger, and pushed the tray to the side.
After this first meal had been given, Misaki camped himself out by the door and waited the interminable length of time it took for the next meal to come round. As he sat there naked and shivering, he muttered softly to himself, practicing in his broken English what he would say. Misaki shook partly because the dark cell was cool, but he also tremored at the idea, that if what Korovin had said was true, somewhere the man could be watching him.
The next time that the port for the food opened, Misaki darted his hand through the slot and grabbed the wrist of whomever it was that was feeding him. "Please, help me!" Misaki choked, his English raw with all the tears he'd been swallowing. However, no sooner had he said this, than he gasped and dropped the hand which retreated immediately.
Misaki's heart pounded with the horror of what he had just seen in the dim light cast through the portal. The hand had been young and only slightly smaller than his, but it had been missing two fingers and the back of the hand as far up the forearm as he could see had been covered with a maze-work of scabs and scars.
How much time passed after this encounter with the hand until Misaki suddenly heard Korovin's voice in his cell, he didn't know. Time didn't seem to exist in the dark. "Takahashi, close your eyes," Korovin directed.
This time Misaki obeyed immediately.
Again the bright light filled his cell; the glow of it flooded his eyes with warm color behind his closed lids. Within moments of hearing the door scrape open, however, this was lost as the blindfold was replaced over his eyes. He felt strong hands grab his own still-bound ones by the tie and haul him up from where he was crouched on the floor.
He was roughly dragged from his cell, almost half-carried. His bare feet were abraded as he was pulled along the hard concrete floor. When he resisted this forced movement strong hands pushed him down and he crashed to the ground.
He heard the sound of a buckle jingle and leather hiss as it slid through belt loops (these were noises he could easily identify after having lived with his dear horny rabbit for so long). The sounds panicked him and he tried to struggle up, only to feel a heavy booted foot on his hip, forcing him back to the ground. Misaki cried out when the crisp leather suddenly kissed his low back with a sharp snap!
"I suggest you behave."
His captor's cold voice cut Misaki almost as sharply as the strap had. After this, Misaki allowed himself to be picked up and more or less carried to wherever it was he was being taken to.
He panicked again, however, when he felt himself hauled into another room and his slender frame was forced up onto a hard, long, flat surface. A strap was quickly fastened around his narrow, naked hips and his bound hands pulled up over his head and fastened there by a metal clip.
Misaki kicked out as a hand large encircled his ankle. This action was immediately reciprocated with a blow to his stomach that left him curling into himself as much as his confinement would allow.
"Please," Misaki gasped, sobbing, as soon as enough breath returned to him.
"Ah, Takahashi…" Korovin's voice sounded rather regretful. "How many rules do you plan on breaking today?"
The large hand returned and pulled Misaki's bent legs down one at a time, securing the youth to the table he was laid out on.
Misaki blinked as the blindfold was removed. He turned his head as the sudden brightness assaulted his eyes. A moment later the light in the room dimmed.
After his sight adjusted, Misaki looked over at the man who had abducted him. Cold blue eyes regarded him and an evil smirk quirked up the corners of his captor's mouth.
Korovin set down the remote dimmer for the lights and moved over to a small tray set up next to the table that his captive was strapped down to.
Terrified eyes scanned the room now that Misaki could see. It seemed almost like a physician's office and he was tied down to an examination table. When he looked over at the tray and its contents, a low moan built in his throat. Another followed as Korovin picked up one of the instruments that lay upon it.
He was holding a scalpel.
"Please, Korovin-san!" Misaki begged. "What do you want?" Though it made him feel terribly degraded he found himself saying, "I have a wealthy friend; I am sure that he'll pay you to let me go!"
"Oh, I know all about your boyfriend, Taka-chan," Korovin cooed. "I have been watching the two of you on the beach for almost two weeks now; you and your famous author, Usami Akihiko." He laughed when he saw Misaki's eyes widen at this information.
"No, I have plenty of money and I don't have any desire to send you back to him at the moment.
"No, you and I are going to have a lot of fun together."
Korovin laid the flat end of the scalpel on one of Misaki's small tight pectorals and dragged it down slowly toward the young man's heaving belly. He delighted in the pained hitch of Misaki's chest as his prisoner tried to bite back his terror.
"But first, we need to see about teaching you to behave a bit better. As I said before... honestly, Taka-chan, how many rules had you planned to break today?
"All this talking out of turn, after I specifically told you it was forbidden. Not to mention grabbing your feeder, and fighting back both in the hall and on the table. That's three infractions right there.
"So before this unruly conduct becomes a habit, I'm going to show you just one of the things that happens when one of my boys breaks the rules."
Misaki was terrified by the man's words and the cold steel Korovin was now running over his low belly. That his Kidnapper had said "boys" added another layer of horror to the hand he'd seen earlier. There was a part of him, however, despite his terror, he rebelled at the unfairness of what Korovin had just said: he was being informed he was going to be punished for breaking some rules he hadn't been told about.
Despite his anger at this, Misaki remained silent as he felt the scalpel turned onto its edge.
"You know I have to be so careful with these instruments, I keep them so sharp, sometimes I don't realize just how deep I am cutting." Korovin lifted the blade and his ice-bright eyes scanned over Misaki's unblemished torso.
"It's too bad really, Taka-chan, I had hoped to fuck you while you were still unmarked, but…"
Misaki gasped not only because of what Korovin had just said, but also because in that instant the scalpel flashed and thin red line appeared just inside the hollow of one of his hips. The blade was so sharp he barely felt it at first, but within a few moments it began to sting terribly.
"One cut for each infraction, but where should the next one go? You tell me, Takahashi." Korovin offered the choice along with his terrible smile.
"Wha…" Misaki stopped himself, he gaped at the man through his tears. "Y... you can't be serious."
"If you don't tell me, I'll have to choose myself," Korovin clucked. The scalpel drifted lower, precariously close to Misaki's fear shriveled genitals. Korovin raised his cruel instrument, looking as though he was readying to strike again.
"Okay! Mmm… my arm! "
Just saying those words was more painful than the cut on his hip that was still weeping crimson. The blood from this first slash was now dripping over the side of Misaki's slender sun-kissed hip. Misaki immediately began to sob in earnest as soon as the words left his mouth.
His captor's wolfish grin widened. Korovin moved away from Misaki's vulnerable jewels to the top of the table. His calloused hand brushed the damp hair almost tenderly from his new boy's sweaty forehead.
Misaki turned his head away as much as he was able. He was glad he had not eaten: Korovin's touch made his gorge rise and Misaki suddenly felt as though he might get sick.
The man's hand moved down from his forehead and grasped his chin, turning Misaki's face back to him. He waited until Misaki's wet eyes finally lifted back towards him.
"Interesting choice… Oh, Taka-chan, we are going to have so much fun together, you and I…" Korovin chuckled lightly.
Then Korovin shocked Misaki completely, bending down and collecting his first kiss from his captive's unsuspecting mouth, before he set about the business of collecting his first scream.
Misaki was breaking.
He was sitting on the bunk in his black cell sobbing desperately. He knew he was going to give in to Korovin. The cruelest part of it was, the "Doc," as Korovin informed him he preferred to be called, had presented the situation to him as though he had a choice, just like with his first punishment.
Misaki's shoulders shook harder. His thin frame was wracked with tear-filled gasps as he realized there was never really any choice at all. It had all been a wicked farce, another cruel game, a test to see how long he would last.
Misaki's hand unconsciously traced the thin scab that ran down his arm from shoulder to wrist.
At least it doesn't itch as much today.
The Doc's first cut had been only about three inches long, not so the one he'd forced Misaki to choose. Misaki's hand left his arm and now grazed lightly over the scab at his hip that sealed that slice too. Finally, he reached up and traced the final strike, a cut that had followed the entire length of one of his collarbones.
Korovin had given this to him as one of the options for his third cut after growing impatient when he was unable to decide where his last punishment should go following the trauma of what the man had already done to his tender flesh.
Misaki tried to shift his mind away from these thoughts and focus on something more pleasant. He spent most of his waking hours these days combing his distressed mind for good memories to dwell in.
He thought a lot of the time he and Usagi-san had together. Misaki had been surprised at how sharply he could hone his recollections without anything else to focus on.
Little things he'd never paid that much attention to, like the light stubble on the man's cheek in the morning when they woke together, or the particular way the man held his mug (differently with tea than with coffee) were suddenly of tantamount importance. He could not bear the idea of losing a single detail of the man he loved; the man he knew was and would never stop looking for him.
I hope.
Misaki had to believe this, it was the only thing keeping him sane at this point.
Without any light, there was absolutely no way to keep track of time. He had tried to measure the length of his captivity by keeping track of the number of meals he'd been fed.
Misaki couldn't tell, but though he felt that their timing was uneven, still food was being given to him at what seemed like relatively regular intervals. When this was brought, it was the only light during his otherwise perpetually darkened day. According to his count, he had now been kept captive for twenty-one meals, possibly seven days roughly if he was being fed three times a day, if it was twice, maybe ten.
Though he had no appetite Misaki forced himself to eat. He knew that he needed to keep his strength up if he was to survive this.
Misaki was trying so hard to be strong, but the darkness was winning. He had never known such complete blackness. He tried to keep his eyes closed as much as possible now. His head ached so fiercely when his eyes were open for any length. Trying to see, they quickly strained in the absence of light that he was being held in.
A shudder coursed through him as he recalled the last thing that Korovin had said to him as the man was taping the marks he had inflicted on his previously unmarred skin.
"I am going to fuck you, Takahashi, but I am no common rapist. When I take you it will be because you have given yourself to me."
Misaki felt fresh tears in his eyes as he remembered so clearly the cruelty in his captor's gaze as he'd continued.
"Until then I will wait, as I have on more than a dozen other "projects" I am also involved with at the moment. So don't think that just because I have chosen you that you are really quite so special."
Korovin had paused after saying this to add, "those big green eyes of yours do something to me, however, I will admit, Taka-chan. So I will offer you this… when you do finally give yourself to me, I will reward you with a measure of light."
That said the blindfold had been replaced and Misaki had felt himself released from the table, carried back, and deposited in his black cell again.
Misaki pulled himself from this terrible recollection. While he so wanted to stay true to Usagi-san, he honestly did not know how much more of this darkness and isolation he could stand without truly losing his mind.
'Will Usagi-san be able to understand if I strike such a terrible bargain? If… I mean... when he finds me will he be able to forgive me for betraying him? Will I be able to forgive myself?'
At these questions a new wave of tears washed over Misaki and he suddenly found himself lost in an entirely new kind of darkness.
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