Ha! Lord Muffintops said that she would not post a chapter during November, but it was me, Dio!

Hi. So I got ahead on Nanowrimo and had time to write a chapter. I guess a warning is in order? I don't know. Toma is a yandere. As he is his yandere self, I imagine him being into certain... things. Nothing too explicit here, mind you... But yeah. Please enjoy.

~ Michi ~

This memory. I wasn't sure whether to call it pain or pleasure.

I was doodling in my notes during lecture when I felt my phone vibrating in my lap. I had an old flip open model that I'd gotten just in case of emergencies. Getting a call in the middle of class was scary because of that fact, and when I saw it was Toma I swept my things into my backpack and ran out of the room as I answered it.

"Toma? You okay?" He hadn't shown up at school that day, so I'd gotten scared. His parents had been fighting more and more often lately as their divorce turned bitter while a battle for custody ensued. It was effecting him a lot; Toma had lost weight from not eating, his grades were dropping. And then today he'd just been completely absent. I was scared. Shin and I both were, but as Toma's girlfriend my concern was of a different, deeper nature.

"I'm fine." Toma's voice came out strained and quiet. "I need to see you."

"Where are you? I just left school grounds."

"Your apartment. I'm sitting outside."

"Okay. I'll be there as fast as I can! Just hang tight." I hung up and took off in a sprint, not stopping until I'd gotten back home. "Toma!" I barreled into him with a hug after he'd stood upon catching sight of me. "You okay?" I murmured, huffing.

"I'm fine… I ran out though. My parents were going nuts."

I looked up at him and gasped. His cheek was red as if he'd been slapped. "Who did that?" I touched his face gingerly and he leaned into my hand, wrapping it in his own and pressing his mouth to my palm.

"It's okay. I applied to become an emancipated minor and moved out. They weren't happy." He tried to laugh but it fell flat.

"It's not okay! Do you need to stay with us? My dad won't say no. He likes you, and he'd never turn away someone in trouble."

"I've got my own place now." His grip on my hand tightened. "Will you come with me? Just until I calm down."

"Yeah, of course." He kept a firm grasp around my fingers all the way to his apartment.

"Well… Here it is." He locked the door behind us and sighed heavily before laying on the bed. I sat next to him and he put his head in my lap. It startled me, but I ran my fingers through his hair in an attempt to be comforting and his eyes drifted closed in some semblance of peace. "Michi?" Toma murmured, breath warm on my thighs.

"Yeah?"

"Want to move in with me?"

"W-what?" I stammered, getting more and more shocked with each thing he did.

Toma sat up and earnestly looked into my eyes. "I know you're not happy living with your dad, and your mom is out of the picture." He cupped my cheeks in his hands, leaning closer. "I know how lonely that is. I've been feeling alone even when my parents were in the same room for a long time now. When I think of you feeling that way I can't stand it. So?"

"I…" He wasn't wrong. I loved my dad, but life was even harder than it had to be with the bad choices he made. "B-but, um…" I blushed, shifting nervously. "We're both fifteen, and we've been dating for a little while now, so what if people assume, that, um… We have bad reasons for doing this?"

"I don't care what anyone else thinks. All that matters is your happiness." He pressed his mouth against mine.

My heart thumped at his heated, honest words, and I raised my hands to twine my fingers with his before backing away to speak again. "I mean, they can screw themselves as far as I'm concerned, but you know how a person's reputation can affect their job chances in a small town like this. Just look at Shin's dad…"

"I know. But we'd be doing it so we could be happy and have a better chance at life."

I hesitated. I wanted to. I wanted to be impulsive and crazy and say yes to this adventure, this opportunity. But… I couldn't. "Toma, my dad won't make it without me," I murmured. "He needs my support, emotional and financial. If I leave, it'd break him. I can't… even if I really want to."

Toma sighed. "I understand." He shook his head, gazing at me with a sad smile. "You're strong, but you're too self-sacrificing. Please just watch out for yourself."

"I will. And I'll come to see you a lot more now too. Maybe we can start having dates alone instead of having your parents or mine hovering over us the whole time," I laughed.

Toma chuckled. "You always make me feel better. I guess that's why I love you." Both of our expressions turned surprised after he said it.

"Um. What?" He'd say it was just a slip, that he didn't mean it. It had been shocking enough for him to ask me out at the start, but loving me?

"I love you," Toma repeated incredulously, but then he turned serious. "I love you." He kissed me again, arms wrapping around my back as he pulled me down to be laying with him. "I really do," he murmured as he drew back.

"I... I love you too," I whispered. He was my first boyfriend. I'd never taken he or Shin seriously in their advances or harmless flirting or competition as we'd been growing up, but then when we'd gotten farther along in middle school I'd changed. Felt things for both of them at once and not known what to do about it. It was as simple as Toma asking me out first and making the decision for me. I'd rolled with it and now was so happy I couldn't regret it, even with affections for Shin still lurking in the back corners of my heart. "It feels weird to say that…"

"Why?" Toma smiled as he toyed with the ribbon bow tied at the neck of the white buttoned shirt on my school uniform.

"It's like, I'm all fuzzy inside…"

Toma laughed. "You dork."

"You're the dork, you said it first!"

He smiled, kissing me again. Feeling the expression made me happy too. "Hey…" He seemed hesitant all of a sudden.

"What?" Him being nervous made me nervous too, so we were both just a mess.

"Can I touch you?"

"You already are."

He blushed harder. "No, I mean…"

"Spit it out, dork."

He shifted down to press his face into my chest, one arm around the middle of my back and the other around my waist, hand hitting just below my hip and gripping there. "Touch you. Just a little bit. Kiss you in a few places. Nothing too far, promise."

I couldn't even feign shy ignorance, he was making the message so clear. And maybe it was because the moment was so good, so perfect, that… "Okay… But if I tell you to stop you stop. If you don't I'll kick your ass."

"Of course." He moved back up to my face level, an excited new glint in his eyes. I couldn't choose between closing my eyes or looking at him. His looks were breathtaking, always had been, but thinking that made me feel shy. We'd kissed intensely before, so maybe going a bit farther especially when the moment was beautiful was a natural progression. It felt that way. "I'll always cherish you… so just tell me if you don't like something. Or if you do. And you're sure this is okay? It's fine to say no."

I blushed. He was so sweet it made my heart pound. "I'm sure…" I slipped out of the green blazer that was part of our school's uniform myself. I was feeling so embarrassed it was too hot to wear it anyways.

"Okay…" He drew the ribbon at my neck away slowly so he could get at all of the buttons of my shirt, undoing just enough from the top to be able to pull the shirt apart and reveal a good amount of my chest without exposing sensitive areas. I squeezed my eyes shut when he leaned down but opened them again when he pressed a gentle kiss to my cheek as reassurance. I smiled, putting my arms around his shoulders. It'd be just fine.

He moved to touch his mouth to my neck and I arched back, giving him more space to nuzzle there. I twitched when his hand went to my chest and rubbed gently over where cloth still covered, provoking a slight physical reaction. When I giggled faintly and he looked up at me questioningly. "It tickles a bit when you're so gentle…" I explained. So sweet, so tentatively exploring.

"Oh," he laughed too, but then frowned. "So I should be less gentle?"

"Wha-ah!" My questioning of his logic morphed into a shocked exclamation when his hold tightened, his mouth pressing harder onto my neck as he started sucking on it, his free hand moving to bunch up the back of my skirt. I couldn't process it, just reverting to clinging onto his jacket. Simple touching had changed into groping, and it felt strange. It made me strange.

I yelped when his one hand moved from my skirt to wind in my hair and pull on it hard. His mouth moved down, sucking on more spots and leaving a trail of developing dark marks until his hand had to leave my chest because his face was there now, far less innocently than earlier. One hand in my hair then while the other moved to rub at my thigh, trailing up and down along the underside of it, tongue on my chest. I moved my hands to pull weakly at his hair as some sort of retaliation, and he bit down in response.

I let out a sound somewhere between a gasp and a scream and he pulled back. A look I'd never seen in his eyes before; they were dark and intent. "Do you want me to stop?"

"Ah… I…"

He kissed me hard, pushing his tongue into my mouth dominatingly. "Do you want me to stop?" He repeated, pulling on my hair sharply. His breath came out hot and harsh. "Well?"

I squirmed against something gathering in me, finding myself close to tears. "I-I don't know!" What was I feeling? How did he know how to do this? "I… It's so hot," I whimpered. "It's burning me up." It was as if I wasn't even in control of myself anymore.

Toma's eyes widened and he kissed me again before pushing my sleeves down my shoulders and moving his mouth to my shoulder before biting down there too. I moved my arms to cover myself and squeezed my eyes shut, squirming and whimpering underneath him as he bit at my other shoulder and my neck. It hurt; it hurt so much. But I didn't say stop. Why? It hurt, and this side of him, wondering where it came from, was scary. But… but…

But I liked it. I liked the pain, I liked the control, or rather the lack thereof on my own part. And that was what I couldn't stand. It was wrong for me to be this way. So dirty, so depraved. What would he say if he found out how much this treatment affected me? How this simple experiment in some kind of play had me melting? It was too scary to think of the rejection of this awful filthy thing springing up in me. "Stop," I whispered, starting to cry. "S-stop, stop it! What part of this is cherishing me like you said?!" I pushed him off, blaming him because I couldn't admit it to him or to myself.

He looked down at me, shocked. "I thought… But you didn't tell me to…" The sheer confusion on his face was almost heartbreaking. He reached out to touch my cheeks when he realized I was crying. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm sorry…"

"Stay away from me," I snapped, distancing myself by getting off the bed and fixing my clothes, bite marks still searing underneath. I couldn't have him near me anymore to remind me of what I was. "I'm done. It's over. Just stay away." I had to run. Had to get out.

And I came back to reality, away from the memory, on that ending. I gasped and leaped up, leaning on the table for balance when the worst dizziness I'd ever experienced crashed down on me but still slipping and falling to my knees, accidentally knocking a few books over in the process.

"Michi?!" Musca grabbed me. "Gods, your head… It's killing you, I can feel it… Here, you need to lay down."

"No!" I yelled. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I had to get out. But my legs weren't cooperating, my body betraying me just as it had back then.

"Hey!" Toma ran into the room and knelt in front of me. "What happened? You look pale." He put a hand against my forehead to check for feverish temperature and I recoiled.

"Don't touch me!" It was too dangerous. I hadn't seen it coming, but he really was the most dangerous of them all. Everyone else had been right to warn me.

Hurt touched his expression and I felt instantly and deeply guilty. It wasn't his fault I was like this. He was just the one to end up making me realize it fully. It wasn't as if there hadn't been small hints, the way I actually somehow liked how pushy Ikki was, the way Shin pushing a kiss farther, finally asserting himself, had affected me so much. But if they knew how deep it went, how would they react? It was so scary. I couldn't take the rejection.

"… Can you not handle being back here?" Toma asked softly, and I froze. He knew exactly what the problem was without even being aware that I'd just remembered and basically relived it all. "You don't have to stay. It's fine. I just… was so happy to have you reaching out to me again that I probably pushed too hard in asking you to come here. I'm sorry. Just… Please let me take you home. I'm worried about you."

His concern broke my heart again. The breakup hadn't even been his fault. It was mine. I started crying, helpless. I'd loved him, once, and now I loved them all for different reasons. I was such a disgusting person. "Toma," I sobbed. "I hate you."

Despite everything, he still reached his hand out to me.