ALL IS NOT LOST

Manga : Sekaiichi Hatsukoi

Characters : Kisa Shouta, Yukina Kou and Ijuuin Kyou

Rating : T; Second half is 'M'

DISCLAIMER : All characters rightfully belong to Nakamura Shungiku.

Summary : Life takes a hideous downswing for 32 year old Kisa Shouta when his worst suspicion is answered – that of Yukina's messing around with him. The one comforting him at this time is the person to whom his existence scarcely mattered before : Ijuuin Kyou.

The tiny embers of his suspicion had been stoked when he first found a bunch of pornos, with positively explicit covers, stashed in a hidden corner of Yukina's bedroom. Shouta had at that time chided himself for his frequent baseless suspicions, telling himself that Yukina was a healthy young man with an equally healthy libido. If he thought back, in his heyday he too had leafed through many an X-rated mag. Even though he was the archetype of his ideal conjured up prince, he couldn't be expected to be gratified only with Shouta. As it was, with his erratic work hours and the younger man's part-time in the bookstore, they had, admittedly, very limited time left to spend with each other.

Scrolling to the bottom of the page, he sighed heavily at discovering, in blaring print, the sales figures for his author's manga had once more dwindled. In itself, even initially the number had been only fair, so seeing the plunging digits did nothing to ease the slab seemingly laid over his conscience. Checking out the rankings and stats of the other more popular, recently released works, he groaned out loud at realizing the causative agents accountable for the dip in the sales : Yoshikawa Chiharu's manga (again at its abominable first spot), followed closely by Ichinose Erica's, AND Mutou Yukina's managed by rookie editor Ri-chan, was also doing splendidly! A small respite for him was in the form of the more than stellar sales of his manga in the Marimo bookstore, presided by none other than Yukina at the helm of promoting his author's work.

Thinking of the thought, time and effort his lover put into each of his ideas for selling his books made him feel lower than a gnat for the constant spurts of doubt he kept having about him. There were times when he couldn't help it; the decade long chasm between their ages, Shouta's innate insecurities and Yukina's naturally gentle and undemanding nature made him paranoid, eliciting the absolute worst ends to long-term relationships, like the one he shared with his younger man, in his mind.

The latest cycle had just ended and so the entire Maiden department was strewn with pink plushies, stuffed-toys and dolls, with the whole surrounding area suffused in different shades of pink. But even the cheery ambience did nothing to pull him out of his depressing brood. With a sniff, he lowered himself onto his desk to put his head down. But he wasn't allowed to wallow in self-pity in peace. Someone had to tap him on the shoulder to disturb him even then. He twisted his neck to look at the intruder bothering him with barely concealed hostility on his face. It was Ritsu. Finding no reason to drag him into his self-imposed headache, he arranged his features into some semblance of a watery smile. He normally didn't make it a habit of publicly expressing his innermost feelings and didn't intend to start now.

Ritsu was looking at him with a worried look on his face. Frowning a little, he asked, "Kisa-san, are you feeling alright?" Patting the younger man's hand in a friendly way, he eased his worries. "Yep, Ri-chan. I'm good, I'd just tired myself ragged these past few weeks, that's all."

Still not convinced, the younger man shook his head. "That's not the problem, Kisa-san. The cycle's been over for a week now but despite that you've been fairly moping throughout. Its not my place to say this, but if you're having problems, any sort of problems, you can talk it out…" Getting those words out, Ritsu blushed slightly. He should have been annoyed at the younger man's nosiness, but in spite of himself, Shouta grinned. It was sometimes hard to reconcile the uptight, stiff, standoffish Ritsu with the present open and friendly one. In response, he tried to refuse and ward him off, but when he found no success, relented at last.

Drawing his desired answer out of Shouta, Ritsu smiled, a rare occurrence that was since since there was mostly a distressed expression playing about his face unceasingly. Still smiling, he added, "Okay, lets get out somewhere after work. My shout. And also, don't back out at the last minute…" He was about to say more but was stopped short since Takano was hollering his name in the distance. Shouta felt a little sorry for the guy as their formidable editor-in-chief constantly amused himself by bullying him. Grimacing, he nodded politely in his direction and rushed off to the source of the irritated roaring.

Pacified for the time being, Shouta got down to work, making some calls to enquire about the story's progress from his author, then busied himself answering the calls he received. Although it was a bit of slack time for the department, he wanted to be ready this once for the upcoming all round assault to his senses in the form of the future cycle, which he should normally be prepared for but never was. The remaining day hightailed in the midst of his making and answering calls, missing his lunch in the process. All through, he was aware of his cell phone buzzing with new messages, and from the one look he could afford to sneak, it turned out to be Yukina. Shouta didn't know what to reply in answer to his ever polite texts, so refrained from answering at all. He was sure Yukina would understand.

He thought Ritsu would forget, but he didn't. They did in fact leave the office to land up at a new, much talked about restaurant. Shouta wondered if it was his fate to hover around the places Yukina would inevitably be in. This bistro was situated opposite the Marimo bookstore, where Yukina must still be selling books with his charm. Now that he thought about it, getting out of the stuffy workplace was a welcome distraction from all the tedious thoughts gnawing at him from the moment he woke up. He and Ritsu took a seat in a vacant corner, away from the eyes of all the people coming in and out of the place.

They must have arrived at quarter to eight and surprisingly, the bistro was brimming with people within a scant few minutes. Behind the alcove their table was in, both enjoyed a pleasant and frivolous conversation ranging from general Marukawa affairs to the ongoings, skin-deep however, of their life. Ritsu ordered a café mocha for himself while Shouta stuck to the usual stuff, black coffee. Both were having quite a lot of fun talking about idle things till Ritsu's cell phone began to ring. He cracked up seeing the plethora of emotions running over the younger man's face. Whoever the caller was, he had made him look annoyed, confused, forlorn, lovesick and annoyed again in the span of an instant. The younger man adamantly kept silencing the call, whereas the caller determinedly continued calling. He couldn't keep himself from laughing out loud at all the abject looks of embarrassment crossing his face. Finally, Shouta winked at him and said, "Answer the call already, Ri-chan. Who knows, it must be an important message or something."

Agreeing reluctantly, Ritsu fled for a private corner and began to animatedly talk to whoever had called. Assuming the call to be from his girlfriend, Shouta chuckled and thought to himself he would tease the younger guy later. After a few minutes, the younger man came back and apologized, "Kisa-san, I'm really sorry, I have to go… Something urgent has come up and… I was the one who had invited you but then…" The poor guy couldn't go on any longer, mortified to death that he was. Shouta brushed off his sorrys with easy affability."Its okay, Ri-chan, no need to apologize. You said its something urgent, so don't waste your breath. Scram!" Putting in a few more guilt-ridden words, he rushed off.

He didn't have any particular appetite, but went ahead to order a sub for himself anyway. While waiting for his order, he sipped coffee and checked his latest emails. There was one from his author informing him about the progress she had made, another from Hatori filling him in on some official stuff, and none from Yukina. He thumbed through the ones he had sent in the daytime. They were the familiar cursory ones the younger man was notorious for. The first one was for wishing him good morning and asking him how his morning was, the second a good afternoon one and the last one telling him that he wouldn't be able to meet him today as he had to study for some tests. That was it. Pressing two fingers to the side of his temple since an insistent throbbing had started just then, he pondered about art students having strenuous exams. As far as he knew they didn't, but he was in no frame of mind to question his reason for not seeing him.

As he was tapping his fingers on the table in boredom, his sub arrived. He muttered a thanks to the server and with no apparent hurry, polished off half of it. Next, he downed the last remnants of his coffee and once again, futilely, flicked a glance at his cell. Still nothing. Indicating the waiter for his bill, he contemplated that it was just as well that Ritsu had hurried off in the middle. He didn't quite know how he would have answered his concerned queries.

Paying the bill, he made his way to the exit. Of their own accord, his legs carried him in the direction of the Marimo bookstore. Unlike most days today the store wasn't teeming with chattery, salivating Yukina fangirls. He was half expecting the counter manned by him to have the manager behind it. His eyes widened owlishly when he found the younger man – Yukina, supposedly studying at home, engaged in a merry banter with a guy around his own age.

Before the younger man could spot him, Shouta whipped a sanitary mask from his pocket, stuck it on his face and swiftly made his way inside to take cover behind a big bookshelf. Pretending to be in the act of browsing books, he spied them.

From the crack through which the duo at the front were visible, he noted grimly that the man along with Yukina was just as drop dead gorgeous as him. From the side profile available from his hiding place, he could discern that the unknown man had sable colored shoulder length hair, was of the same height as Yukina and was willowy and slender in built. Something, which he didn't want to name as jealousy, was bitterly churning in his gut as he realized that they were conversing with the familiarity of long-time friends.

He reflected reproachfully that the younger man was so engrossed in his chat that he didn't even notice Shouta's arrival, which added to the few handful of customers in the shop. Which was really uncharacteristic of him.

The outside traffic, the steady humming of the indoor air conditioners and the TV playing nearby didn't allow him to grasp anything from the pair's talk. He looked on with a jaundiced eye as the unknown man said something to make Yukina's face contort with grief, and then proceed to take the latter's hand in his own. After that, Yukina turned silent only to stare miserably into his acquaintance's face, nodded and uttered a yes to something (the only thing Shouta could make out with the help of his heretofore useless lip-reading skills.)

Thereafter Yukina removed his staff apron, called one of the part-timers, presumably telling him he was leaving and walked out hand in hand with his friend. Reverer of good looking faces that he was, even Shouta had to admit to his heart skipping a beat as he saw the stranger smiling to something the younger man said, which transformed his already striking face to stunning. Witnessing it, a small nasty voice from inside his head said you don't stand a chance against him.

Feeling that he couldn't let this breach of trust go without getting to the root of the matter, Shouta inconspicuously and unceremoniously stalked them. As he tailed the pair, he bitterly thought that throughout the course of his relationship with Yukina countless men had offered to grace his bed but he, feeling the tug of sentiments or maybe hormones, had stoically declined, remaining loyal to his young lover. All along, he had blindly taken the younger man's fidelity for granted. Even now some part of his naïve conscience was telling him that they could be no more than friends. Harshly stamping on his inner voice, Shouta wondered if the younger man's getting overly close to his friends was happening for the first time or had it in fact happened countless other times before? Whatever it was, he wouldn't know without seeing it with his own two eyes.

A few blocks ahead, both men got into a cab while Shouta too hailed one, telling the driver to follow the car ahead of them. Winding through lane after lane, the car he was following came to stop. Shouta told the driver to halt his car a few paces behind them. Looking at the surrounding area, he realized he had fallen into the worst cliché. The entire area was full of all sorts of love hotels. Not wasting anymore time, he shoved the required wad of bills into the driver's hand and hastily got out. He watched as Yukina and his friend walked into a shady hotel called Elegant. From the pillar he was hiding behind, he observed while his heart was shattering into million tiny pieces. The younger man booked a room for both of them, then walked inside with his friend following him. There was no mistaking it this time. Suddenly weary, Shouta slumped onto an adjoining pillar and thought with contempt that he wouldn't be forgiving the son-of-a-bitch any time soon.

Leaning his head onto the pillar, Shouta apprehended with some horror that hot tears of humiliation and betrayal combined were leaking unbidden through his closed lids. He couldn't imagine anything worse than a public breakdown, that too in full view of the seedy locale. With his face turned to the wall, he consciously wiped his tears and overflowing nose. As he was in the act of blowing his nose, he felt a giant hand pawing his butt. Awesome, getting molested by a pervert from the area would be like a cherry on the icing to his already wretched day.

He whirled around ready to punch out the scoundrel's teeth if necessary in the pressing need of self preservation. But on turning to face his offender found himself sadly mismatched in strength and height, resultantly intimidating him. Although he would rather saw off his tongue than make the admission out loud. This peculiar molester was a giant of a man, nearly six feet tall, with his messy hair tied up in a stubby ponytail, thick glasses practically obscuring his eyes and a jaw darkened with many days' growth of stubble. With the man's sheer size and the ominously menacing aura emanating from him, Shouta was for the first time worried about bodily harm. He wouldn't have been surprised if he had been raped then and there on the road and couldn't let out a squeak in the process.

In his lengthy study of his (very possible) rapist he comprehended a bit too late that the man had his arm in a steel grip. Watching the word fear blatantly stamped all over his face, the fiendishly tall man's grip loosened a mite, viselike all the same. In a gentle tone the man asked, "Hey, what are you doing in a place like this? You're obviously underage." The last part of the statement was uttered quite confidently, as if he knew everything about him.

Staring mesmerized into his eyes, much like a prey looking in stunned awe at its predator, he only then came to learn by means of the overhead streetlight that the man's eyes were a tawny gold in color. How or why he noticed it he didn't know. Under the scrutiny of his hawk-like gaze, Shouta found it difficult to find his voice. Embarrassing himself further by stammering, he replied, "I-I'm not underage…" The man snorted derisively at that.

"As if! I don't believe you. Anyway, back to my original question : what are you doing here?"

He tried to wrack his brain for a suitable lie. Deciding on one, he answered as evenly as he could, "I'm waiting for my girlfriend…"

He got an arch look in response this time. Whatever the giant man thought about his very plain fabrication, he thankfully kept it to himself. He had to struggle to make something out of his unreadable expression. "I see. Mind telling me your age, please?"

Yes, he minded very much indeed! Squeamish already, he was peeved at the uncalled for rendezvous. What, so the asshole wanted a biodata before assaulting him?

Trying his level best to look unruffled and nonchalant, Shouta pointed his middle finger at him, in his current circumstances a very bold up yours. "God, you bastard, you my mother or something? I'm 23, okay? Now quit the rapidfire and fuck off already!"

He still didn't let go of his arm. "Tch, profanities don't sound good coming from a kid like you. Other than that, are you telling the truth?"

"Yeah!," returned Shouta, exasperated now.

"For real?"

"Yes, really!"

It took him some time before he got it through his head that the predator gleam in his eye had now been replaced with a faintly amused and mocking look. Finally releasing his arm, he flicked some imaginary lint from his shoulder and smoothed the front of his sweatshirt. Tilting his chin up so that they were eye to eye, the tall man uttered in a barely audible whisper, "Care if I give you some company?"

Like a knee jerk, Shouta's eyes flashed with defiance from some innermost reservoir of strength. "Whatever for?"

With the slightest of slight teasing smiles dancing over the corners of his mouth, he modified, "We can make polite conversation if you like till your girlfriend arrives."

If there was unnecessary emphasis on the word girlfriend, then he did not notice it. Just then he was unglued if he had even mentioned a girlfriend. Oh yes, he had. It was an integral part of his lie.

Seeing the desire shimmer unmasked on the man's face, he concurred that it was hopeless to protest or resist. In the surroundings they were in, no one would spare him a second even if he screamed; It would probably be mistaken for something else entirely. Besides, his rapist was determined to have his way. Sighing, Shouta nodded and added a caustic yes for good measure, in case he didn't see him nod in the dim light. He got a pleased smile in return for the go-ahead. Unfortunately, his abused arm was once again trapped in the iron circle that was his hold.

Much to his chagrin, he was dragged inside the same hotel that Yukina and his buddy currently were in. Right from the time they were climbing the steps and as the taller man made arrangements for a room, he continuously had Shouta's hand clutched tightly, along with a steady watchful eye on him. After the details for obtaining a room were dealt with, the taller man grabbed the keys from the reception guy and herded him along. He was a little surprised at discovering that this ragged hole for a hotel actually had an elevator. The whole time during their ascent to the fourth floor both men remained silent. Shouta had no idea what was going through the man's head, but he for one was absorbed in worthless thoughts. Thoughts like how Yukina must be holding his alluring his friend, would he have the same tender look – the one that he always got whenever he had sex with him – on his face, did he even think about him while ramming his prick inside the other man and most of all, how would the younger man react when he found out that he was in the same building as him, getting it on with a stranger. The taller man all but shook him as he continued to zone off with his mind swimming in an entirely different direction. Pushing him out of the elevator, the man chuckled and said, "Stop spacing out. You can start once your girlfriend gets here."

Shouta blindly stood behind him as he turned the key into the lock of their room and waited patiently as he opened the door. The room was dark as a cave. The taller man sent him a skeptical glance, almost as if accusing him for the hotel he was standing outside. Geez, he felt like telling him this pit wasn't his choice, but instead wisely kept his tongue between his teeth. Twisting his lips in a wry smile, the man put in, "Wait here kid. I'll go check if any lights work."

He didn't bother smothering a rude chuckle as he heard a muffled thud coming from inside. The man finally figured where the light switch was because the room was now flooded in a dull yellow glow from the one and only lamp inside. The man beckoned him to come in and once he had, shut the door firmly. As if deciding to button up his lips, he sauntered to the single creaky bed, crossed his arms and sat there. He studied the dull cavern serving as their room and then flicked his intent gaze on him. And continued to stare.

Unnerved, Shouta made a face and grated, "Why the heck are you staring like that?" He was bestowed with a slanderously lazy smile at that.

"No, I was just waiting for you to get psyched out by the silence and chirp your name. I'll tell you mine in turn."

Knitting his brows, Shouta shot back, "Why the hell would I do that?"

His question earned him a pained look. "I don't know if you know this, but communication is a two-way business, kid. Moreover there are two good reasons you should tell me your name. A : I wouldn't like screwing a nameless guy. And B : The more important of the two, you can scream out my name in the throes of passion."

Scowling madly, Shouta spat out, "I knew it! You lech! Why the hell would I let you screw me? If you've forgotten, I'm waiting for-"

"My girlfriend," the man completed. "Christ, don't tell me you expected me to buy that farce!" he said with an exaggerated shudder. "Anyway you don't give off the vibe of a hetero man. In my opinion, it looked more like you were waiving your butt out there to hook some guy."

"Ho, you talk like you're an expert. Are you gay or something?"

"Not exactly, but I bat for both teams. Tell me something, are you always this snappy? You looked like a soft-spoken kid at first sight."

Stewing beyond reason, Shouta really flew off the handle. "Tell me something, do you always pick up random guys near love hotels?"

Finding his retort funny, he started to laugh like a lunatic. Thence he got to his feet and coming closer to him, traced a finger over his full bottom lip. "I'm sorry. I just meant to tease you, so don't get mad. I'm Kyou. You are?"

In the face of having the man's, no Kyou now, charm turned on in full blast, Shouta struggled to get the words out through his lips. Speaking in an unconsciously husky voice, he answered, "I'm Shouta."

Smiling softly, he gave him a small kiss on his mouth and murmured against them, "'Shouta'. I see. I'll remember that."

Following that, he made short work of their clothes. Before he could start with his foreplay tactics, Shouta stopped him. "Hold it. Let me go first."

He pushed Kyou to sit on the edge of the bed and bent down to crouch at his feet himself. Without warning, he took his huge shaft into his mouth. A blowjob was a good way to get a guy in the mood, he knew. As he moved his head up and down the long, hard length of him, as his cock swelled in size inside his mouth, he was suddenly assuaged with the memory of sucking off Yukina for the first time. He had complimented him on his technique then. He didn't want to toot his own horn but many other guys had praised him on his method. They didn't realize the trick, he thought. It was only the men and their cock sizes that varied, the technique remained exactly the same. Slipping out of his thoughts, Shouta looked up to see Kyou. His face didn't give out any sensations he was feeling, except for the hot flush coloring his high cheekbones. With a soft, "Heh," escaping his lips quite involuntarily, he thought the sly bastard wasn't that great at masking his emotions either. He sucked off the head for a few more seconds till the man came in his mouth.

Spitting out the cum, he looked up to see a fierce desire blazing in the man's eyes. The abhorrent man lifted him, placing him on the bed as if he weighed as much as a feather and resumed his former position. Grinning up at him, he said, "My turn now."

Before he knew it, his cock was put into an opening wet and scalding hot as lava. Kyou's head moved in the rhythmic movement of the act and bobbed up and down the hard length of his own considerable penis. It grated him, but it didn't take all that long for him to come with the ministrations of that magical mouth.

Next, with a noisy creak, Shouta was pushed onto the bed on his back. Kyou bent his head to hungrily take his mouth in a passionate kiss. The thick beard on his jaw abraded his skin, leaving beard burns in its wake. But presently hypnotized by this enigmatic man, Shouta didn't give one flying hoot. The kiss was greedy, sucking out all the energy Shouta possessed. Still, he wasn't in any mood to docilely submit without getting anything in return. His own tongue warred with the other man's for dominance. In the game of the hot, slick tongues, Kyou's hand crept to close over Shouta's cock. His mouth tasted of cigarettes, booze and strong coffee, which nearly intoxicated him.

Breaking off the kiss for air, Kyou's mouth left his lips to wander shamelessly all over him. His hot, wet mouth trailed kisses all over him, stopping leisurely at his nape, collarbone, nipples, navel and once more on his dick. Before Shouta could even guess his intentions, his masterful tongue advanced to prod into the most secret part of him : his asshole. It prodded, swirled, sucked and slurped inside there till it was pliant, wet and oozing, like honey oozing out of the comb.

The small opening at his back was pulsing with anticipation. By this time Shouta was mumbling incoherently between short, quick breaths from his mouth. Mumbling his name, Yukina's name over and over in delirium. In his crazed state of ecstasy he noted in the poorly lit lamplight that his partner's eyes were more hazel than brown. Those same eyes were presently looking at him with lust and primitive wanting. The man made a motion as if finally deciding to gratify that burning part of him. But changing his mind suddenly, placed the flat of one hand on the soft inner side of his thigh and placed fleeting, hot kisses there. His other hand, as if with a personality of its own was fingering him insistently.

Stopping to place one last kiss on his thigh, Kyou rounded up on his cock again. It was almost as if he had an unholy attraction to it. He laved his tongue on the head and sucked at it alternately. For one mad moment Shouta was scared that he would devour his only dick in the heat of passion; He had bitten it slightly. Lying there in a dingy room in a love hotel, with terribly mussed hair, flushed cheeks, moaning senselessly, his penis pointing at a nearly 90° angle, with a giant of a man sticking his fingers inside his asshole and doing things that would probably land them both in jail, Shouta felt such a pure thrill that he thought he would succumb with it.

In some functioning part of his brain he was aware of lascivious moans made by a woman filtering through the thin walls. For just one moment, he told himself, he would let himself revel in the pure masculine beauty of the other man and let go. Having adjusted to the poor lighting some time ago, he visually admired the stark hard planes and angles of the man. He was by no means skinny, nor bulging muscle but somewhere in the middle. Just the way he liked it. As the man was getting ready to ride him he noticed his parted lips revealing white, even teeth, chiseled cheekbones rich with abundant color, wildly tousled longish hair and for some unexplainable reason felt a fierce pang from somewhere deep inside.

The painful fact of Yukina's recent betrayal had not yet sunk in, leaving him in a state of shock. Kyou was about to push his own thrumming cock inside Shouta and maneuvered himself so that all his weigh would be balanced on his elbows. For no apparent reason, his mind replayed all the minutia right from the time he had met Yukina to some days back in vivid detail. He thought of what he was doing with this perfect stranger. Just for tonight, this unknown man would be his port in a terrifying storm. He was filled with such crushing grief that a small sob threatened to erupt at the base of his throat. It was a good coincidence that Kyou was ramming into him that he could blame the tears on the penetration. Although the prick of pain was still there at insertion, it wasn't all that numbing as that terrible first time.

Mentally hounded with another tidal wave of memories, Shouta hissed, "Bastard," at no one in particular. By then Kyou was buried deep inside him was beginning to move. Thinking that Shouta had hurled the word at him, he made a grunt, which sounded more like a growl coming from an angered animal. He started in a guttural voice, "More like sticks and stones, Shouta." Taking a deep gulp of air, he added in the same dirty voice, "Besides, you're no greenhorn at this. I can see that part of you is used to this kind of stuff…"

Shouta let that slide and marveled in the hot tongues of pleasure seemingly licking his entire body. He arched his back to give Kyou better access and let convulsions of pleasure wrack his body. Chancing a glance at his partner he realized that his charismatic eyes had turned almost black with desire. He was so occupied with battling his inner demons and answering the baser demands of his body that he picked up too late that the man was ploughing into him without a condom!

Appalled, he gasped with considerable difficulty, "You bastard! You didn't put on a condom!"

Smiling a derisively serene smile, he answered, "My bad, I don't have a rubber on me. But rest easy, I'll see to it that you don't get pregnant. Moreover, I don't have any communicable STDs." His pathetic attempt at humor went unnoticed by Shouta, but he breathed easy with the admission.

With a final thrust, Kyou came inside him. In that exhilarating moment, Shouta too found release. Momentarily at least, all thoughts of Yukina were wiped clear from his mind.

After four more rounds – gosh, the man had some stamina! – he plopped on top of Shouta with all the grace of a hippo. The guy weighed nearly a ton and Shouta was finding it increasingly hard to squeeze air through his lungs. He croaked in a near-death voice, "God, you're killing me! Get off, please!"

For the first time the excruciating man docilely did as he was told and rolled onto his side. Having done that, he curled up with Shouta like a kid would its most precious teddy, breathing close to his ear, "As you wish, darling."

The next thing he knew, his lights went out like an automatic switch.

Shouta groggily woke up to a dull ache in his back and between his butt cheeks. From the radium dial of the watch still wound around his left wrist, he could discern that it was three-twenty AM. Both corners of his mouth turned downward when he took in the position he was sprawled in on the stuffy, tiny single bed. One glance at the man, Kyou, obviously didn't say much of anything. Experiencing it firsthand, Shouta now knew that the man was a cuddler. Asleep just then, he held him in a tight embrace close to his naked chest and had a heavy leg draped over his pitifully small form.

He extricating himself carefully – so as not to wake him – from the tangled up mess the man had created. God knew if he pushed him for another bout he just might expire. Untangling himself after seemingly forever, his breath came out in a sharp hiss at the crippling pain in his ass. He probably wouldn't be able to sit upright for a week or more. He was having this terrible feeling that the tissues in his asshole were ruptured.

Groaning, he got to his feet swaying and pushed his feet into his shoes. In his arousal last night he had forgotten to remove his socks. He slipped his legs into his jeans – he was passing on underwear this once, having rolled it into a ball and stuffing it in his pocket. He was amazed at the emptiness he felt. In his state of shock, he had had the notion that he would lose himself in sex with a stranger. But in thinking so he couldn't have been more wrong. He couldn't have felt more hollow or shallow or depressed after last night's one-time gig. As for Yukina, his brain was in blessed denial. He was about to pull his sweatshirt over his head when a hand gripped his wrist. The same vise grip from before.

As he wearily turned to face him, he was alarmed at the alert and watchful gaze focused on him. Kyou's lips twisted in a lazy grin, "'Morning. So you're up? You should have woken me too. Anyhow, give me a sec. I'll get ready." From the infinitesimal light coming from the outside streetlamps, he could make out the outline of his face, his body and the gleam in his eye. He was pretty sure the man's dick was up too! With an angry snort, Shouta wrenched his wrist from his hold. The man only tsked at that.

The guy perhaps didn't know the concept of modesty or possessed very little of it because he was strutting around the room gloriously naked! Stepping into his underwear, he said, "Its still quite early. I'll drop you home."

Even if it was unwarranted, he felt all the anger and resentment he had been holding close to his breast bubble up. Since he couldn't annihilate Yukina with his grief, fury or pain, he chose to burst out at the person nearest to him instead.

"Shut up! Just shut up! Don't delude yourself into thinking this is anything more than a one-night stand. We both comforted each other and that's it! Now you go your way and I go mine." He had to stop then to catch his breath. In the semi-darkness, he could sense if not see clearly, that Kyou was sighing. Shouta was pulling on his sweatshirt as he heard the sound of feet padding the floor and the flick of the light switch, after which the room was flooded with the weak light.

Thankfully with his underwear on, he was rummaging through his jean pockets. Extracting a pen and a paper from its depths, he quickly scrawled something on it and handed it to Shouta. "I know you'll say you don't need it but I noticed last night that you were deep down in the dumps. Call me if you need me for anything, even a replay of yesterday. I wouldn't mind that at all."

Shouta flicked a glance at the scrap deposited in his hand. The man had written I. Kyou in English, followed by his contact number. For a few beats he glared at the paper in his hand and then transferred it to the man before him. "What will I do with this?" Not saying anything to that, Kyou took the chit from his hand and stuffed it inside Shouta's pocket.

From the looks of it there would be no point in arguing with him, so Shouta gave him, in his opinion, one last meaningful look that spoke volumes of what he thought about him. Thence he made an about turn and headed for the door.

The man said to his receding back, "You know something, kid? Of all the different types and breeds of guys out there, I like sharp-tongued smartasses the best." He got the resounding slam of the door in reply.

-THE END-

WIP, with more to come shortly 8D