Disclaimer: I don't own Junjou Romantica or any of the characters.

A / N: Hello, you dear readers who have stumbled upon my story. Thank you for coming here. First, a warning: I can't promise much regularity in uploading. Sorry about that. I'm almost as much in the dark as you are with this: I have an idea where to take the story, but it might end up taking me somewhere completely different. I don't have the plot ready in my head, and that's also one of the reasons I might be slow (besides real life). What I can promise you is some lemony stuff, though (later on, be patient). Oh, and this takes place about where we are with the manga now, but without all the drama involving Ijuuin.

Reviews, critiques and comments are always very welcome; no matter what you have to say or even if you don't have any special thoughts. All feedback will help me continue with the story, even if it's just a note telling me that someone has actually read this!

Now, let's get on with it!

LEVEL UP!

Chapter 1: To Hell and Back Again

Three weeks of complete agony. Twenty-one days, six hours and nineteen minutes of near-death experience, and not in a nice way. No beautiful lights to go to, no visions of past happiness, no friendly ghosts to welcome one to the gardens of delight, no morphine ecstasy, nothing like that at all. Instead, it had been three weeks of unbearable pain, unfulfilled desires, heartwrenching loneliness, complete darkness, wailing, tears and shit like that. In short, agony.

The separation was by no means what either of them had wanted, but just a result of conflicting circumstances. First there had been the trip Misaki had gone on with his brother's family. There was nothing he could do about it since Misaki had been overjoyed by the idea of bonding with his little nephew over camp-fire. And it was okay, since it was Takahiro; nothing would happen to his cute little Misaki with him. A week of not seeing Misaki: painful but bearable. But then, at the very last day of loneliness, the hateful entity called Isaka had appeared out of nowhere – or crawled from under the slimiest rock imaginable, more likely – and dragged him along to this fucking stupid signing tour. His hand hurt like hell from all the signing he'd had to do, and his face muscles were cramping because of the overdose of smiling. He cursed the entire existence of the man called Isaka long and heartily.

Still, he had survived. Usami Akihiko was rather proud of himself at that. Yes, he had learnt from some drama series or other that time apart could break relationships or make them stronger. He was quite confident that his relationship with Misaki would fall to the latter category. They had spoken on the phone, of course, but that was different. He couldn't touch what obviously belonged to him or see Misaki's adorable expressions or tease him like he was used to doing. And besides, they both had been really busy the whole time, so the conversations had to be kept short. And then he had been avoiding the phone just a bit, since hearing Misaki's voice made him want to see him and touch him and do all kinds of things to him.

He remembered the last few conversations they'd had. He was just a little worried. Misaki had sounded... different. Worried, maybe. Defensive. It had sounded like he was avoiding talking about something. Maybe Misaki had been dying of loneliness like him? No, he didn't think that was it. There was something his lover had been shy to speak about, something big... ish. Well, once they met again face to face, he could surely dig the truth out of him.

He wasn't thinking about the three weeks of hell any more when he unlocked the door and stepped in. He could finally see his cute and adorable Misaki again, and then embrace him, kiss him, kiss other parts of him, lick him all over, suck him raw, fuck him even rawer, pour his love all over him, whisper 'I love you' into his ear a thousand times. Not necessarily in that order, and other items might be added to the list later on as well. He wasn't too fussy about the agenda: the main thing was that they would be reunited again.

"Misaki?" he called out. "Are you home?"

That was weird. They had texted just the night before, and Akihiko had gotten the impression that Misaki would be home. Yet the whole apartment was dark and there was no answer.

"Misaki?" he tried again.

And then he heard some movement. Rustling, bumping, soft cursing. He followed the sounds to the living room and flipped the light switch.